I grew up in the church and Christian school as a pastor's kid. I knew the Bible, or at least I thought I did. When I got to Bible college and began studying more seriously, something shifted in my understanding. It wasn't a single moment, but a gradual accumulation of things I kept learning that caused me to regularly ask myself why no one told me any of it before.
One of the clearest examples came in a class on Genesis. I'd grown up reading the creation and flood accounts the way most people do, as stories that stood on their own, familiar and settled. But when I started looking at them alongside other ancient Near Eastern texts, stories from the same world and era, something started to open up for me. These weren't just ancient accounts of how the world began. They were making specific claims, in a specific cultural conversation, to a specific audience who would have immediately understood what was being said and why it mattered. The purpose and meaning became more alive than anything else I had encountered in years of church and school.
I've spent about 25 years now studying and having conversations with people about the Bible, 10 of those years teaching here at Sonrise, and I've watched many students who genuinely love God struggle to make sense of what they're actually reading. Their struggle is hardly ever about faith. It's just that most of us were handed conclusions for so long that the text itself starts to feel distant, or intimidating, or even just boring. We learned what the Bible is about, but not how to read it. What I keep finding is that the closer we get to the world Scripture came from, the more it speaks. The passages that used to feel confusing, or flat, start to feel like invitations to dig deeper. The questions that used to feel like doubt start to feel like the questions I'm supposed to be asking.
Probably the most important thing I’ve learned about reading the Bible well is learning to understand the world it came from before I start asking what it's saying to us. Reading this way is a skill, which means anyone can learn it. And the posture it asks for is simpler than it sounds: learn to ask questions and sit with the text long enough to let it be what it actually is, instead of what we need or want it to be. It takes patience and dedication. But I've seen what it opens up, and it's worth the effort.
-Mr. Dogterom
High School Teacher