Jesus Didn’t Read the Bible the Way We Do
What Scripture Was in the Time of Jesus, and Why It Still Matters
Over Easter, I found myself writing quite a bit, both here and on other platforms. This space has become something of a home for me, where I can pause, reflect, and make sense of things a little more slowly.
What I hadn’t quite prepared for was the comments elsewhere.
Writing about Jesus still provokes strong reactions. Some of them made me pause for a moment before reading on.
What struck me wasn’t just the disagreement, but the certainty. The confidence with which people spoke, as though the meaning was obvious, fixed, and beyond question. As though no other reading could possibly be true.
It made me wonder whether we sometimes read the Bible with that same kind of certainty.
This is the kind of question I return to often here, in reflections that take a little more time to sit with what doesn’t resolve quickly.
Jesus did not read Scripture the way most Christians read their Bible today.
That sentence can sound unsettling at first. It almost feels like it must be wrong. Surely Jesus simply believed the Scriptures and followed them faithfully?
He did believe them, deeply.
But he didn’t read them as a fixed rulebook with a single, settled meaning. Neither did Paul. Neither did the gospel writers who told his story.
And perhaps that matters more than we realise.
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What Scripture Was in the Time of Jesus
Before going further, it helps to pause and remember what Scripture actually looked like in Jesus’ world.
The Scriptures Jesus, Paul and the Gospel writers knew were Israel’s sacred texts: the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. The New Testament did not yet exist; it was still being lived.
These texts were not primarily read silently and individually, as many of us do today. They were heard aloud in community. They were discussed, debated, revisited, and interpreted again and again.
Meaning did not sit on the surface of the page waiting to be extracted. It emerged over time, through conversation, tradition, and reflection.
To quote Scripture was not to end a discussion. It was often the beginning of one.
Within that world, faithful reading meant wrestling. A passage could carry more than one layer of meaning. It could speak in its original setting and then speak again, differently, in a new moment.
That was not seen as unfaithful.
It was simply how Scripture worked.
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How Jesus Read Scripture
We sometimes imagine Jesus quoting Scripture to shut conversations down. The Gospels suggest something quite different.
Again and again, Jesus reopens Scripture rather than closing it.
“You have heard that it was said… but I say to you.”
He takes familiar commands and draws them deeper, moving beyond outward behaviour into the intentions of the heart. The law is not dismissed, but re-centred.
The same pattern appears in his Sabbath controversies. When challenged, Jesus points to David eating consecrated bread, something explicitly forbidden, and then reframes the issue entirely:
“The Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath.”
Scripture is read through the lens of life, mercy, and human flourishing. The law exists to serve life. When it fails to do so, it must be read again.
That is not a lower view of Scripture. It is, in many ways, a higher one.
Jesus trusts the text enough to believe it can bear re-reading without losing its truth.
At one point, he tells his critics, “Go and learn what this means,” quoting Hosea: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
The issue is not familiarity with the text. It is understanding.
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How Paul Read Scripture
Paul can feel even more unsettling.
He handles Israel’s Scriptures with a kind of freedom that makes many modern readers uneasy. But he is not inventing something new. He is working within a deeply Jewish way of reading.
In Romans, Paul reflects on Abraham being declared righteous before circumcision, before the law, before Israel existed as a nation. He is not simply recounting history. He is tracing a theological direction.
In Galatians, he goes further still, reading the story of Hagar and Sarah allegorically. For readers trained to prioritise original historical meaning above all else, this can feel like a stretch.
But Paul is asking a different question.
Not only, “What did this text mean then?”
But “What is this text doing now?”
For him, Scripture is not static. It is alive within the unfolding story of God’s work in the world.
Which is why he can write:
“The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
That is not a rejection of Scripture. It is a warning. Even a faithfully preserved text can become harmful if it is detached from the living work of God.
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The Gospel Writers Stretch Scripture Too
This pattern continues with the gospel writers themselves.
Matthew, in particular, reads Scripture in ways that can feel surprising.
When he applies Hosea’s words, “Out of Egypt I called my son,” to Jesus’ return from Egypt, he knows the original context refers to Israel’s past, not a future prediction.
But that is precisely the point.
Jesus embodies and fulfils Israel’s story. What was once true of the nation is now seen again, more fully, in him.
The same is true of Isaiah’s “young woman” who will conceive. In its original setting, it is a sign to King Ahaz. Read again, in light of Jesus, it becomes something more.
Not incorrect.
Not misleading.
But not finished either.
At one point, Matthew even says Jesus “will be called a Nazarene”, a phrase not found directly in the Old Testament. Rather than quoting a single verse, he draws together themes of rejection, obscurity, and expectation.
Scripture is not being used carelessly.
It is being inhabited.
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Why This Feels Uncomfortable
Much of modern Bible reading assumes things the New Testament never insists on:
That Scripture must always mean the same thing in every era.
That clarity equals faithfulness.
That certainty is a sign of spiritual maturity.
Jesus, Paul, and the gospel writers seem far less concerned with those things. Instead, they treat Scripture as something that deepens, responds, and requires discernment.
Which brings us back to that earlier observation.
When we speak about Scripture with absolute certainty, what are we actually defending?
The text itself?
Or our interpretation of it?
In my own experience, both in conversation and in ministry, it is often the second that feels most at risk. Certainty can give us a sense of stability, especially when the world feels uncertain. Letting go of it, even slightly, can feel like losing something important.
And yet, the New Testament seems surprisingly unafraid of that kind of openness.
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A Different Kind of Faithfulness
Perhaps faithfulness is not found in holding tightly to a single, fixed meaning, but in staying attentive to how God continues to speak.
Jesus did not weaken Scripture by re-reading it.
Paul did not undermine it by re-imagining it.
The gospel writers did not betray it by stretching it.
They trusted it.
They trusted it enough to believe that God was still at work within it. That old words could carry new weight. That meaning could unfold without being lost.
Scripture, in their hands, was not a weapon or a closed system. It was a witness. A guide. A conversation that had not yet finished.
And perhaps that is where this leaves us.
Not with less confidence in the Bible, but with a different kind of confidence.
One that is a little less certain, perhaps.
But a little more open.
A little more attentive.
One that is still unfolding.
And maybe, in the end, a little more faithful.
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This is the kind of reflection I share regularly here. I am grateful to those of you who are already part of this space.
If you are new, you are always very welcome to subscribe and join in. I share reflections like this here each day.
Paul