Hank's Bible Study Resources

This is part three of Feed Yourself, a series on learning to study the Bible with your own two hands. Last time we learned to read whole books. Today we ask who those books were written to, and why it changes everything.

There is a verse on graduation cards from coast to coast, and it is a beautiful one.

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Jeremiah 29:11 NKJV

A future and a hope. Perfect for the graduate, the new job, the fresh start. Now do what we learned last week. Back up and read the beginning of the chapter.

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit.”

Jeremiah 29:4-5 NKJV

This is a letter, and the address is written right on it. To all who were carried away captive. Jeremiah is writing to Jews who watched Jerusalem fall and were marched to Babylon in chains. And the verse before the famous one is the part the greeting cards leave off. “For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you” (Jeremiah 29:10 NKJV). Seventy years. Most of the people who received that letter would be dead before the promise came due. The future and the hope belonged to their grandchildren. Jehovah was telling a generation of exiles to build houses, plant gardens, raise families, and die faithfully in a foreign land, trusting that He keeps His word on a timescale bigger than one lifetime.

That is not a smaller promise than the graduation card version. It is a far bigger one. But you can only see it by asking the question this post is about. Who was this written to?

Five Questions to Ask Every Book

Every book of the Bible had a first audience. Real people, in a real place, with a real problem, and the meaning of the book starts with them. Before you study any book deeply, put these five questions to it.

Who wrote it. To whom. When. What occasioned it, meaning what situation or problem prompted the writing. And what did the author want his audience to do about it. That is the whole list. A trained scholar asks fancier versions of the same five things, and you can start asking them tonight.

Here is the part nobody tells you. The answers are usually hiding in plain sight. The first paragraph of most epistles names the author and the audience outright, Paul, to the church of God which is at Corinth. The closing chapters often name the circumstances, greetings, travel plans, the reason for writing. First Kings and 2 Chronicles run parallel to the prophets and tell you which kings reigned while they preached. Luke dates the ministry of John the Baptist by naming the emperor, the governor, and the high priests in a single verse (Luke 3:1-2). The Bible is constantly telling you its own setting. We just read past it on the way to the famous verses.

Reading Someone Else’s Mail

Once you start asking the audience question, you realize something that unsettles some believers the first time they hear it. Not one book of the Bible was written to you. Romans was written to house churches in first-century Rome. Deuteronomy was preached to Israel on the plains of Moab. Revelation was addressed to seven named congregations in Asia Minor. Every page of Scripture is, in the most literal sense, someone else’s mail.

Do not let that rattle you, and do not let it rob you. We will spend all of part five on how someone else’s mail becomes Jehovah’s word to us, and the answer is glorious. For now, hold on to this. Knowing the first audience does not take the Bible away from you. It hands you the Bible as it actually is. The exiles’ letter read as an exiles’ letter gives you a God who plans in centuries, who keeps promises to people who will never live to see them kept, and who tells His people to plant gardens in Babylon in the meantime. Read that over a graduate and it will hold. Read it over a hospital bed and it will hold there too, which the greeting card version never could.

The Words Under the Verse

Sit with that last one a moment. The hope Jehovah promised the exiles is the word for a rope. Not a feeling, not optimism. Something you grip while you wait. Seventy years is a long time to hold a rope, and He gave them one strong enough to hold three generations.

Try It on One Book

Here is the exercise, and it takes one evening. Pick a short epistle, 1 Peter is ideal for this, and answer the five questions using nothing but the letter itself. Who wrote it, 1 Peter 1:1. To whom, same verse, pilgrims of the Dispersion scattered across five Roman provinces. When and what occasioned it, read the whole letter and notice how many times fiery trials and suffering come up. What did Peter want them to do, and chapter five will hand you his own summary. When you finish, you will know 1 Peter better than most people who have listened to a dozen sermons on it, because you will know who the letter was for, and every command in it will suddenly have a face. Elect exiles, scattered and suffering, told they are a chosen generation and a royal priesthood. The book intros in a good study Bible can check your answers, and we will talk more about those next time. But do the work first. The answers you dig out yourself are the ones that stay.

For the One Whose Promise Feels Late

One more word before the questions, for the reader who did the math earlier and felt the floor shift. Seventy years. Most of the first readers died in Babylon. Does that mean Jehovah’s promises might skip you?

It means His faithfulness is longer than your lifetime, and He does not measure His keeping of promises by our calendars. Hebrews 11 says the patriarchs died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and it says God is not ashamed to be called their God. The exiles who planted gardens in Babylon and never saw Jerusalem again did not lose. They were carried by the same faithfulness that brought their grandchildren home, and they know it now better than we do. If you are holding a promise that looks like it will outlast you, you are in the best company Scripture has. Hold the rope. It was measured for a longer pull than one life.

Discussion Questions

1. Does knowing Jeremiah 29:11 was written to exiles make the promise smaller or larger for you? Defend your answer from the chapter.
2. Read Jeremiah 29:4-14 whole. What was Jehovah actually asking the exiles to do while they waited, and what would the modern equivalent be?
3. Apply the five questions to a book you know well. Which question is hardest to answer, and where might you look?
4. Why do you think we resist the idea that the Bible is someone else’s mail? What do we fear losing?
5. Read Hebrews 11:13-16. What does it mean that the patriarchs saw the promises afar off and were persuaded of them? What promise are you holding at a distance?

Going Deeper

Do the 1 Peter exercise this week, five questions, one evening, nothing but the text. Then check your answers against the book introduction in a solid study Bible and see how close you came. For the Jeremiah side, read 2 Kings 24-25 to watch the exile happen, then Daniel 9:1-19 to watch a man in Babylon read Jeremiah’s seventy-year promise and pray it back to Jehovah word for word. That is a Bible student using the audience question, in the Bible itself, and it is one of the great prayers of Scripture. Ezra 1 shows the promise landing right on schedule.