A Bible Study Plan, Part 5: Luke 18:18-27

               VI.            Our choices

 The Luke passage does not have the phrase that Mark included, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him…” (Mark 10:21a). Without that reminder in Luke, we might miss that Jesus is saying all that he says to the man out of love. As Wesley said, the Savior knew his heart. What is most important to us? Is it God? Or is it money? Security? Admiration? William Barclay writes, “The whole tendency of possession is to shackle our thoughts to this world….It is not a sin to have much wealth – but it is danger to the soul and a great responsibility.”  He goes on, “For those who walk the Christian way there may be things the world calls hard, but beyond them all and through them all, there is a peace which the world cannot give and cannot take away, and a joy that no one can take away.”  (Barclay 1953, 272). Jesus is calling the ruler and us to “store our treasurers in heaven.” 

 

We are told that the rich young man walked away from Jesus, grieving, but we are not told what happens after that.  We might assume he is unwilling to do what Jesus has asked him to do, and that that is why the man walks away.  Maybe we make that assumption because that is what we believe we would do.  This short-changes the possibilities. 

 

We are invited to allow God to do the impossible in our lives.  Will we let go of what we value and trust the most so that we can enter into a relationship with God?  Will we allow God to do the impossible and change the world through us?

 

Prayer: Creating, loving, sustaining God. Remind us that you look up us with love. Remind us that when we place our trust in something other than you, we miss your kingdom. Open our eyes, open our hearts to you when you remind us that through God, all things are possible.  Open our world to possibilities. Amen.

 

A Bible Study Plan, Part 4: John 18:18-27

 V.                   The text and our world 

A.    Wesley’s view

Late in John Wesley’s life, he preached a sermon entitled “Causes of the Inefficacy of Christianity.” To me it reads like a lament for how, even though we are equipped by God to do good work in the world, and have the ability to practice Christian discipline, still we are not effective as Christians.  He preached, “Many of your brethren, beloved of God, have not food to eat; they have not raiment to put on; they have not a place where to lay their head. And why are they thus distressed? Because you impiously, unjustly, and cruelly detain from them what your Master and theirs lodges in your hands on purpose to supply their wants?  (Wesley in Outler and Heitzenrater 1991, 553)

 

B.     Our world today

 

Q: How is our world today similar to the world described in the passage?

 

Q: What does our culture in the United States value?  Transactions. Success measured by accumulated wealth. Independence (pulling up by the bootstraps)

 

Q: How does this passage speak into our lives today?

 

C.     Current Situations

1.      According to Pew Research, “Economic inequality, whether measured through the gaps in income or wealth between richer and poorer households, continues to widen.” (Pew Research)  

Q: How does the passage speak to this situation in our society?

 

2.      According to Kids Count data, 20% of children in West Virginia live in poverty. According to the DHHR in WV, over 6000 children are currently in state custody – that could be adoptive homes, detention, hospitals, foster care, etc. 

Q: What light does our passage shed on this situation?

 

3.      According to Earthday.org, “The [garment] industry employs approximately 75 million factory workers worldwide, yet less than 2% earn a living wage. Garment workers endure unsafe conditions, wage theft, exhausting hours, minimal pay, and gender-based harassment… As the industry has changed, fashion brands have shifted their supply chain model from one based on trust and innovation to one based on mistrust and punishment, using punitive tactics to meet quotas. The modern fashion supply chain is designed for maximum efficiency and speed, driving huge profit margins for brands at the expense of workers. 

Q: What is our role in this?

 

Q: What wisdom from the Luke passage can we gain as we confront this?

A Bible Study Plan, Part 3: Luke 18:18-27

 

I.                   Background to the passage

 

A.    Who wrote it?  The authorship of the Gospel of Luke is anonymous.  According to Fred B. Craddock, we can “sketch a general portrait of the writer.”  The author was not an eyewitness to the story; he relied on other sources.  His writing style demonstrates that he is a person of education, familiar with the “narrative current in that culture.”  Traditionally, the author of the Gospel is Luke, a companion of Paul’s (Craddock 1988, 925).  We believe that Luke and Acts were written by the same person – a two-part volume.

 

B.     When was it written? The time of the writing is also under debate. It was written before or after A.D. 70. (Campbell and Pennington 2020, 120). If we estimate the work was completed between A.D. 60 and 90, then we can see that at least one and maybe more generations have passed since Christ’s ministry.  There is a need of an orderly account – Luke even talks about this in the prologue to the book.

C.     To whom was it written?  It is most likely that the first readers of the Gospel were gentile Christians, probably from a Greek background. (Craddock 1988, 926).   The Greco-Roman world that Luke encountered would have been controlled by the Romans, although still influenced by Greek culture. (Campbell and Pennington 2020. 22-51)

 

D.    Why was it written? Luke’s purposes were to provide an orderly and trustworthy account of the life of Jesus while at the same time sharing the “good news” of Christ, especially for the marginalized. 

Luke’s themes include:

 

1.      Luke helps readers understand that salvation is for all. “Although Jesus’s initiatives towards all persons regardless of their social standing are a common feature of all the Gospels, no other Gospel is so clear and emphatic on this point.” (Culpepper 1995, 21).   Imagine for a moment that the man was present when Jesus was telling the disciples, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”  (Luke 18:17 – right before our passage). 

 

Q: How would a rich ruler react to the idea that he had to come to the kingdom as a child would come? Would this have been part of his motivation for his question?

 

“If children are paradigm-setters for God’s reign, what place will a member of the social elite have?” (Carol 2010, 701). His expectation would have been that he would be honored because of his status; Jesus turns that upside down and tells him that his status, based on wealth, is his prevents him from entering the kingdom.

 

2.      In Luke we see Jesus’s focus on the marginalized – women, the poor, and the outcast. Adam Hamilton, in his book Luke, writes that one of the overarching themes in the Gospel of Luke is that the author wants “to appeal to the same people he notes Jesus appealed to: the outsiders, the outcasts, and even the outlaws…. (Hamilton 2022, XVI).   

 

Q: Where do you see that in the passage?

 

3.      The Gospel focuses on questions relating to not only the inclusion of the Gentiles in the Kingdom of God, but also the continuing loyalty of God for the Jews. Luke works to ensure people God had not abandoned the Jews while welcoming the Gentiles.   We’re assuming that the man is a Jew, because he follows the commandments. 

 

Q: What would this passage have said to a Jewish listener?

 

Q: What would it have said to a Gentile listener?

A Bible Study Plan, Part 2: John 18:18-21

 B.    The Eighteenth Chapter 

        Let’s take a look at what comes before and after our passage in the 18^th chapter:

1.      The conversation with the rich young ruler follows:

a.       The Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8) – a widow persistently nags a judge – the judge grants her what she wants just so she will leave him alone.

b.      The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14) – a pharisee and a tax collector are in the temple to pray. The Pharisee is grateful he is not like “those other people,” and the tax collector asks God for mercy.

c.       Jesus interacting with children (Luke 18:15-17). – “let the children come to me – you must receive the kingdom as a child does.”

 

2.      Following the conversation with the rich ruler:

a.       Jesus tells of his death and resurrection (Luke 18:31-34),

b.      Jesus heals a blind beggar (Luke 18:35-43). Jesus is approaching Jericho, and a man yells at the Son of David to heal him. Jesus heals him, and says, “Your faith has made you well.”

 

Q: Do you see a common thread running through Chapter 18?

 

To various degrees, all of these passages describe a reversal of status.  “What may appear to be little more than a string of unrelated episodes in this narrative section is actually a series of scenes held together by the common theme of division between those who have faith and act faithfully, on the one hand, and those who are self-possessed and position themselves over against the active beneficence of God, on the other.” (Green 2003, 1888).

A Bible Study Plan - John 18:18-27

I. Introduction

Open with prayer.

In our time together today we’ll being taking a deep dive into the story of the “rich young ruler” as found in the book of Luke, chapter 18, verses 18-27. 

Q: Are you familiar with the story?

 

A.     (If the answer in the class is yes): What do you remember about it? (As answers are shared, write them on the whiteboard.  To prompt responses, ask questions such as: Who was Jesus talking to? What was Jesus asked? How did Jesus respond? What was the response? What else do you remember?

 

B.     (If the answer to the question is silence or no, then do this instead of the white board, tell the story…Skip this part if there have been responses to I.A.)  The story we’ll be discussing today is about a rich young man who comes to ask Jesus about what he needs to do to inherit eternal life.  After the two of them talk about following the law, Jesus tells him that he needs to do one thing more – sell all he owns and give the money to the poor; then come follow Jesus. The man is sad – he has many possessions.  Then Jesus tells him and those gathered around something surprising.

 II.                Reading the Scripture

Distribute Handout A to two people who agree to be readers – Man and Jesus. Distribute a Handout to everyone else with the passage in New Revised Standard.  Ask the readers to read the passage, along with the teacher as narrator. 

 

Q: Anything surprising about what you heard?

III.         A Closer Look at the Passage

III.             A closer look at the passage

 

A.    Comparison to other Gospel stories

This story we’re looking at today is in two other gospels – Matthew and Mark.

 

Use the whiteboard information that to indicate which parts are in Luke or Matthew or Mark, using the table below. Circle (or add and circle) those things which are unique to Luke; place an X on those items in other gospels.  Be sure to mention the ones in bold – the others are not as important to the rest of the lesson.

 

If the class wasn’t familiar with the story as the lesson started, share information comparing the three gospels.

 

Luke 18:18-27	Matthew 19:16-26	Mark 10:17-31
Calls the man a ruler	Calls him someone	Calls him a man
	The man asks which commandments he must follow
	Adds love your neighbor as yourself	Adds, you shall not defraud.
	The man asks what he lacks	Jesus looks at him and loves him.
“You lack one thing”	“If you wish to be perfect”	“You lack one thing”
The man does not leave, and Jesus directs the comment about the rich entering heaven to the man.	The man leaves, and Jesus tells his disciples how hard it will be for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.	The man leaves, and Jesus tells his disciples how hard it will be for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.

 

Q: Any thoughts anyone wants to share here?

 

For me, one of the most interesting parts about the comparison is that in Mark, Jesus looks at the man and loves him.  According to the notes on Mark in The New Interpreter’s Study Bible this is “the only person in the Gospel Jesus is said to love.” (Tolbert 2003. 1829)

 

I also find it interesting that the man doesn’t leave in Luke – he goes away and doesn’t hear what Jesus says to the disciples, including the point that with God all things are possible. In Luke, the man sticks around to hear that point of hope.

I also want to point out that nothing in the Bible tells us what happens to the man.  It is open ended.  We often hear “The man couldn’t do what Jesus asked – but that’s not in the Bible.  Keep that in mind as we continue.

 

Critical Tasks

 

What are the most critical tasks in understanding the Bible so that you can preach or teach with integrity?

For me, the most critical tasks in understanding the Bible in order to preach or teach it are:

1. Spend time often in Bible Study. I think this background task will build not only the skills to do Bible study but also the foundational knowledge to uphold and enrich our study for specific preaching and teaching.
2. Invite God into the process. Spend some time in prayer and read the passage that is the focus on the sermon or lesson devotionally, as we have done in class.  I think this not only brings God into our exploration of the passage, but also helps us to discern the message God wants us to share with our congregation or class.
3. Expand your reading. In working on the exegesis project for our class, I found my study was enriched by reading what came before and after my passage and what was in parallel Gospel stories. How does the passage connect to other passages in the Bible?
4. Research the passage itself. Learn about who the passage was written for, how others have interpreted it, for example.
5. Stop researching and write. It is so easy to get caught up in what we can read that others have written that we need to say when enough is enough.

Critical Methods

What do you understand about modern scholarship's "critical" methods?

Critical methods are the tools that modern scholars can use to read and deeply study scripture in a way that helps us to interpret what the original authors meant when they wrote the passages, how that was influenced by their cultures, sources, genre, and context. Critical methods provide a multifaceted means of understanding the scripture.

How can these methods help us in our biblical interpretation?

Each different critical method can provide a different perspective to understand the scripture.  Form criticism examines the genre of the text and the ideas important to the early church. Care must be taken when using this type of criticism to not loose sight of the fact that the passages were written to an eyewitness story about Jesus and not necessarily to respond to a current church issue.  Source criticism examines the sources of the scripture; did one Gospel serve as the source for another one? Redaction criticism examines the role of the writer as editor – how did the “editor” strengthen his message about Jesus through what was included in the Gospel and in what order it was presented. Literary criticism focuses on the Gospels as literature – either as only literature or as literature in the gith of history or canon. Reception criticism focuses on how the texts were read in the past. For example, I can imagine that knowing how a person in Corinth read and understood Paul’s letter to the Corinthians would help us to understand what Paul was trying to convey in the letter.  An in-depth study of Scripture should include more than one method if criticism so that a fuller and more accurate understanding (from different perspectives) is found.  (Source of information is Chapter Five of the Text)

Course Review: Reading the New Testament with New Eyes

 Information about the Course

This course, entitled "Reading the New Testament with Fresh Eyes" is offered by Be A Disciple. It is a required course for those seeking CLM certification in the Great Plains Conference.  The course Instructor is Rev. Richard Fitzgerald, an elder in that conference.  The course requires the purchase of a textbook called Reading the New Testament as Christian Scripture by Constantine R. Campbell and Jonathan T. Pennington. My review of the text is here.

The course lasts four weeks and requires daily participation. It is asynchronous, unless you participate in optional zoom sessions.  It includes daily writing, daily posting and responses, and two "larger" projects.

Summary

From BeADisciple: “Reading the New Testament with Fresh Eyes” is for anyone who has wanted to understand the Bible more effectively. Over four weeks, learners will learn methods for interpreting the New Testament so that it gives life to us and to those in our ministry scope. Students will learn how to study the Scriptures thoughtfully and critically, developing Biblical interpretation skills for future teaching and preaching while understanding their context for reading the Scriptures. Optional Zoom sessions will support the learning process. 

Impressions

My response to this course is different that other ones.  First of all, I found the daily interactions to be hard to manage during more busy times. In other courses, there are weekly postings and responses (that are usually more involved that the ones for this class) so that you can write and post when your schedule allows it during the week. I felt the pressure of daily posting.

One of the high points of the class was the involvement of the Instructor. He posted with us daily, providing additional questions for consideration. This helped me to find additional ways to respond to posts and expanded my knowledge of the topic.

The course requires two projects.  In the first day, students chose a scripture for these projects.  At the end of the first two weeks (I think - is it three?) students submit an exegesis of their chosen scripture.  At the end of the class, students use the exegesis to prepare a Bible Study or a sermon (students's choice). This was involved work.

There were times I regretted enrolling for the course because of my schedule and the work involved. That said, I always had the feeling that the course was "good for me" - a good choice, helping me to develop skills I hadn't explored before. I had never written an exegesis. I have, of course, written a Bible study, but rarely from scratch, without curriculum. 

I'm glad I took this course, and I would recommend it. I'm glad I'm finished with it.

Posts about the Class

Posts about the class will have the tag Reading NT

Ignatian Reading

 Earlier, I posted a reflection of my devotional reading of the Luke passage for my class using Lectio Divina.  Another type of devotional reading we were asked to do was to read the post Ignatian Style.  I actually found that one to be more fruitful for me.

I read through the chosen passage, Luke 18:18-25. As I read, I noticed a couple of things I had missed before. This passage is also in Matthew (19:16-22) and Mark (10:17-31), and I think I was hearing those in my head when I read the Luke passage previously.  In Mark, the passage says, “Jesus loved him…” and in both Matthew and Mark, the young man leaves the scene, sad, before Jesus talks about the rich entering the kingdom, and how with God, all things are possible.  In Luke, there is nothing that says the man leaves, and Jesus tells HIM how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 

When I pictured the scene, I saw it as Jesus, the disciples, and others seated on the ground (a cleared area, maybe sand) around a fire, talking.  I entered the scene as one of the people in the circle, listening to the young man and Jesus talking. I would have smelled the fire and the people around me, heard the crackling of the fire, Jesus and the man talking as well as the people around me whispering to each other. I would have seen Jesus and the man as well as the others, maybe not as clearly as I could have in the day because of the smoke from the fire. The light would have helped to illuminate the scene.  (I have no idea why I pictured it at night).

As I thought about the scene, I wondered how the people were reacting. I wondered if they would have resented the Ruler who felt sad about selling what he owned, but they don’t seem to be resentful.  By their questions, they seem to be defending the young man, maybe because they don’t like this reversal of the world – they don’t want to sell what they have, either. They think they are obedient; after all, they are following Jesus. They see in the young man part of themselves – the fear of letting go of what they own, the selfishness of not wanting to do what Jesus asks.  And they are disbelieving – how is this even possible. They don’t seem to be comforted by the idea that with God, all things are possible.

The thoughts in the third paragraph above are what I shared with God in prayer at the end of the time using this method.

Resources

In the class I was taking, I was asked to contribute 10 resources to a list of class accumulated resources.  Not all of these are my favorite, but I tried to keep to items on my bookshelves or the internet. 

• The Concise Concordance to the New Revised Standard Version (John R Kohlenberger, III, editor).  This is a concordance providing a list of words in the scripture and where to find them (as any concordance would). It provides references to both the Old and New Testament and is helpful when doing a word study.
• A Harmony of the Gospels: Revised Standard Version (Ralph D. Heim).  This book (another old one, published in 1947) lists in the Gospels in chronological order and attempts to align the four gospels in parallel columns. It includes all four Gospels. It can be helpful to see side by side how one story in the bible is the same and is different in the Gospels.
• Atlas of Bible History (Harper Collins).  This book provides history from early in the Old Testament through the the Early Church (and a little beyond) with images and maps. I find having a map helps me to place the scripture geographically. How far apart are Nazareth and Jerusalem, and what did it mean to walk from one to the other? A map is helpful.
• The New Interpreter's Study Bible (NRSV). This is a study bible. I find the introductions to the Biblical books and the extensive study notes to be very helpful. Footnotes share when a translation is uncertain or can be seen a different way in a different language.
• The New Greek English Interlinear New Testament. This book provides the New Testament in Greek with an interlinear English translation as well an an English translation in the margin. It can be helpful to see how the translations are made and what difficulties there were in translation.
• Discipleship Resources (https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/worship-planning). This online resource from the UMC provides help for each Sunday, using the Revised Common Lectionary, including Preaching Notes and notes to help plan worship.
• Text Week (textweek.com). This online resources provides links to numerous resources concerning lectionary scriptures. It can be a rabbit hole to countless different sources.
• The New Interpreter's Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes. The volumes provide an introduction to each Biblical book, a exegesis of the biblical texts, commentary, reflections, and illustrations.
• Feasting on the Word, David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors. This is a series of books, available in both physical books and PDFs, that are helpful when preaching from the Revised Common Lectionary. Each volume includes part of one of the three years of the RCL.  Each week examines the scriptures of that week's RCL, providing four perspectives: theological, pastoral, exegetical, and homiletical.
• The New Daily Study Bible by William Barclay. This is a series of books, each one focused on a book of the Bible (usually - Biblical books' commentaries are combined into one of the volumes). Barclay (for the New Testament, other authors for the Old Testament) provide commentary on short passages of scripture within the Biblical book. One caveat - the series was originally published in 1956; the reader should take that into consideration.

I've "bolded" two of these because they are the references I use the most often - my Study Bible and Feasting on the Word.  

The Historical Jesus

 Why is it important to understand the historical nature of Jesus's life?

It is important to understand the historical nature of Jesus’s life because Jesus was a person, rooted in a time.

1. As humans, we are all shaped by our stories. What happens to us in our life – good or bad – shapes who we are. I’m not sure how much this applies to Jesus, but I imagine being the son of a carpenter shaped him. Certainly, being a Jew was important in his life and how he lived it.
2. Knowing the history of Jesus helps us to understand the outside forces of the time that impacted his life. We’ve already talked about Herod the Great’s impact on Jesus’s early life. The Roman Empire created a framework for his life and it shaped people’s expectations of him.
3. Knowing Jesus’s history – his birth, life as a child (as much as we can), his ministry, death, and resurrection shapes our faith. What happened to him, and what he allowed to happen to him are some of the building blocks of why we follow him.

 

Knowing the stories that shaped Jesus’s life, the outside forces that impacted him, and his own role in his biography helps us to understand the scripture with more accuracy and personal impact. The Gospel does not sit in a vacuum; our understanding of it (as much as we can) is bolstered by knowledge of the historical nature of Jesus.

Book Review: Reading the New Testament as Christian Scripture

Information about the book

Reading the New Testament as Christian Scripture by Constantine R. Campbell and Jonathan T. Pennington.  Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2020.  Cokesbury / Amazon

Summary

From Amazon: This survey textbook by two respected New Testament scholars is designed to meet the needs of contemporary evangelical undergraduates. The book effectively covers the New Testament books and major topics in the New Testament, assuming no prior academic study of the Bible. The authors pay attention to how the New Testament documents fit together as a canonical whole that supplements the Old Testament to make up the Christian Scriptures. They also show how the New Testament writings provide basic material for Christian doctrine, spirituality, and engagement with culture. Chapters can be assigned in any order, making this an ideal textbook for one-semester courses at evangelical schools.

Impressions

I purchased this book and read assigned chapters for a class I took from BeADisciple.  The class was called Reading the New Testament with Fresh Eyes - I'll be posting a class review soon. This text was a required purchase.

It is organized into 30 chapters.  The first 5 and the last one are general chapters covering background information that is helpful as one reads through the New Testament.  The middle 24 chapters are each written around one or more New Testament Chapters.

I found the information to be well presented and helpful in the work we were doing, and I imagine that it will be a resource to which I will return when preparing a bible study or sermon. I recommend it.

Posts about book

Find my posts about the book

Devotional Reading Notes

For a class I just completed called Reading the New Testament with Fresh Eyes, I was asked to pick a New Testament passage for exegesis and sermon or Bible study preparation.  One of the steps in the process was to read the passage devotionally using Lectio Divina.  

My passage was Luke 18:18-27, sometimes called the Rich Young Ruler.  Here are my journaling notes after the devotional reading:

When I read the passage this evening, I noticed something I had not seen before.  The phrase that stood out to me was in verse 27 (which is beyond the passage I mentioned in the work a few days ago - I had planned to stop at verse 25, but 26-27 seem to go with it). I saw the phrase "What is impossible for mortals is possible for God."

I went back and looked at the passage again. In the beginning of it, Jesus and the man are talking about what the man could do. Then Jesus tells him that it is impossible for him. The man leaves (Special note - in Luke, the  man doesn't leave.  This story is in the three synoptic Gospels.  He leaves in the other two, but not this one.).  Jesus says "What is impossible for mortals in possible God.

Do we give up too soon? Do we try to do it all on our own, even when Jesus is telling us we cannot, and then we give up and walk away? Do we fail to rely on God - to put our trust and all we have in God's hands?  In God's hands, all is possible. In our hands alone, it is not.

What is it we could do if we gave up control?

There are those things that are impossible for us. And giving up control of them, and giving control to God, may not accomplish that which we want to have happen. We still live in this world of natural laws. Even so, when we move through something impossible with God - God can make moving through it possible.

Was it impossible for the man to sell all he had? Was it impossible for him to release it because he wanted his money more that he wanted God? Did he need to rely on God before he could let go? Why didn't he? Did he? Would we? Will we?

The Message translation said, "No chance at all,” Jesus said, “if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it.”

Biblical Genre

 The New Testament (and the Old Testament as well) contain writing of a wide variety of genres, including narrative text, poetry, parables, prayers, songs, apocalyptic writings, and letters. In addition, in the New Testament, some of the writing records quotes from the Old Testament. Knowing the genre of the writing we are reading can increase our understanding of the text in several ways. 

·        Knowledge of the genre can help us understand the purpose of the writing. For example, a parable would not be used to share historical information, but instead to make illustrate a point that might be hard to grasp without the illustration the parable provides.  When we know that purpose of a parable, we can let go of the idea that a historical event is being shared and instead look for the deeper truth conveyed.

·        Another way knowledge of the genre is helpful is that each genre uses different tools to convey a point. Apocalyptic writings could use symbolism; knowing that helps us to understand the message in the text. If we approach Revelation as narrative text instead of apocalyptic writing, then I think we are bound to misunderstand what is being written.

T   The genre can also help us to understand the targeted reader of a text. A letter is written to a person or a group of people.  When we know that, we can take time to learn about the intended audience of the writing, and this will help us to understand the message and why it was written.

In short, I think we get caught up in defending the Bible as true, when what we should be doing is searching for the truth in it. Genre can help us to find the truth.