March 2026 Editorial
Reading the Bible and the Mission of God
Over the years, I have collected a number of Bibles in most of the translations available. Most are in English, but I have one in Portuguese and a couple of Spanish translations too.
Among the Bibles I have, one is an old Revised Standard Version with LaPorte Presbyterian Church stamped on it. It belonged to my Uncle George, and inside the Bible are all kinds of notes he used while teaching a high school class at his church. The other two are well-worn King James Versions of the Bible, which both belonged to my dad. I can remember my Dad reading his Bible because he kept it on the little table next to his recliner.
Well, with over fifty different copies of the Bible in numerous translations, I have no excuse for not reading the Bible. I mean, God clearly seems to be giving me the opportunity to read the Bible. The truth is, I don’t think any Christian has an excuse for not reading the Bible, since copies of the Bible are so plentiful and available.
When it comes to reading the Bible, there are, sadly, Christians whose reading just misses the gospel—the good news of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. Their readings have little, if anything, to do with living as followers of Jesus who bear witness to the Kingdom of God. And there’s a place and time for discussing these misreadings and distortions.1
We need Jesus to open our minds so that we can know the redemptive story of God in a way that shapes us as actors within the story, following Jesus as witnesses to the Kingdom of God.
The problem of misreading isn’t the Bible; the problem is us. If our reading of the Bible doesn’t lead us to live as followers of Jesus Christ, bearing witness to the Kingdom of God, then we’ve got a problem. While there is room for discussing just what it means to follow Jesus and bear witness to God’s kingdom, it’s not rocket science or a difficult theological game. People who read the Bible can easily discern whether our lives reflect the gospel—the good news of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. People can also easily discern when there are significant incongruencies between the gospel and our lives.
The good news is that the problem has a solution. We need Jesus to open our minds to understand scripture. When Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection, Luke tells us that “he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures” (Lk 24:45).2
When our reading of the Bible doesn’t lead us to live as followers of Jesus Christ, bearing witness to the Kingdom of God, then we’re the ones who need Jesus to come along and open our minds to understand the Scriptures. We need Jesus to open our minds so that we can know the redemptive story of God in a way that shapes us as actors within the story, following Jesus as witnesses to the Kingdom of God.3
Learning to live as followers of Jesus Christ, bearing witness to the Kingdom of God, is why we ought to be reading the Bible. Knowing and becoming actors within this Christ-Centered and Kingdom-Oriented story matters because we are called to live as followers of Jesus Christ, bearing witness to the Kingdom of God.
After Jesus opened the minds of his disciples, he said to them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (Lk 24:46-48).4
I believe that call to living as witnesses is as true for us as it was for the first disciples. It’s about becoming a storied people, living out a Christ-Centered and Kingdom-Oriented life so that others might come to know the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ, leading them to repentance for the forgiveness of sins as Luke speaks of in this text. But we’re not going to lead others to know Jesus and turn to him in repentance unless we learn to read the Bible so that we may keep learning to live as followers of Jesus Christ, bearing witness to the Kingdom of God.
K. Rex Butts, D.Min, serves as the lead minister with the Southside Church of Christ in Milwaukee, WI, and is the author of Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God. Rex holds a Doctor of Ministry in Contextual Theology from Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL, and a Master of Divinity from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN. He is married to Laura, and they have three children together.
I suggest that the Bible is a Christ-Centered and Kingdom-Oriented story, for which we, as followers of Jesus, must learn to read as participants in God's mission, see K. Rex Butts, Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2022, available at: https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Portraits-Reading-Scripture-Participants/dp/166673716X.
All scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
For more on living as actors within the biblical story, see N.T. Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today, New York: HarperCollins, 2011, 121-127; The New Testament and the People of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol. 1, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992, 139-143.
Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 403, notes that the vocation of living as witnesses includes both the death and resurrection of Jesus, as well as the relation of the disciples to scripture and the early church’s ongoing proclamation of the gospel.