Life can be messy and unpredictable. If we try to follow our own plans, we’ll end up going in circles until we give up in frustration. Thankfully, we have the Holy Bible as a blueprint. Fully understanding it and properly applying God’s Word to our lives comes from interpreting the Old and New Testaments properly and putting what we read into context.

Jesus Presented a Radical New Mindset to the Jews

The Bible isn’t just any book we read cover to cover from Genesis to Revelations; it’s the living, breathing Word of God. Properly reading it involves knowing who’s talking and who they’re talking to. In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus was speaking primarily to the Jews who were burdened down by requirements that neither they nor their ancestors had been able to keep successfully. These were people who hadn’t been born again and didn’t have the Holy Spirit; Jesus was inviting them to put their trust in Him instead of in the old system of self-effort and self-righteousness.

The Jews had been trained in the Law of Moses. What Jesus was asking them to do was to believe in Him instead of in the laws that had been handed down from generation to generation. “Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:14, 15). To repent is to change one’s mind; it was no coincidence that Jesus linked repentance with believing the gospel that He preached. The difference here is that repentance is linked to belief, not works.

Most People Were Confused or Offended by Jesus’ Teachings

This applies to us today. To repent isn’t just saying, “I’m sorry.” We’ve been taught that being sorry for what we did wrong gets us into heaven, and that is the sum total of it. Real repentance means changing our way of thinking and embracing a different belief system.

Thinking differently was a big deal to the Jews, who were accustomed to working hard to follow the Ten Commandments that God had given through Moses. Most of them didn’t recognize that Jesus was God in human form. In essence, He was saying, “I know what I told you to do before, but now I need you to change your thinking and line it up with the gospel.” The entire Old Testament pointed to the eventual arrival of Jesus; this new reality that was now standing in front of them signaled a major shift to the new covenant.

Even the disciples needed time to process what was happening and grasp the truth. Immediately after Peter received revelation knowledge that Jesus was the Son of God, he couldn’t accept that Jesus had to suffer and die on the cross. “Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee” (Matthew 16:22). Neither did the people understand Jesus’ revelation that they would need to eat His flesh and drink his blood, and many fell away from Him (John 6:54-58). They hadn’t been born again, and therefore didn’t understand His reference to Holy Communion.

The Bible Is Meant to Be Read in Context

When we study the Scriptures to learn their true meaning, context is king. We can’t simply read one verse written at one static point in time and take it out of context. During His ministry, Jesus was revealing a lot to the people that they couldn’t understand when they first heard it; they would need help from the Holy Spirit to take it all in. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come” (John 16:12, 13). Jesus promised to send them the Holy Spirit who, in turn, would provide future revelations.

Every born-again believer has an occupant living inside them—the Holy Spirit. Getting saved is significant because it’s at that point that the Spirit of God enters into us. As Christians, we’re limited in what we can say to people who haven’t been born again because they won’t understand it. We all have family members who don’t go to church and know nothing about the Bible; when we point something out to them, they’re likely to take it completely out of context.

The Fullness of Time Brings Greater Understanding

The passage of time is integral to eventually understanding what God may have revealed to us weeks, months, or even years before. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples were able to grasp a fuller context of what He’d previously told them. Now His explanations made sense because the apostles had a different perspective. Under the new covenant, Jesus expanded to everyone the promises He had made to the Jews under the old covenant. “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Galatians 4:4, 5).

The danger to staying stuck in the tradition of what we’ve believed so far is that we really are stuck. The Holy Spirit is trying to lead us to a deeper level of understanding, but we can’t move to the deeper because we’re trapped in the cheaper. If we shut the door to Him, we’ll never see that He’s still revealing things, still leading and guiding us into deeper truths. This was why Jesus told the Pharisees that their tradition made the Word of God of no effect.     

What seemed preposterous before the cross is now commonly accepted after the cross. Looking to the future, we don’t know now what God will teach us later. It’s good to have heard from God, but it’s better to be hearing from Him. That’s the nature of progressive revelation.