Connect: From “There and Then” to “Here and Now”

🎯 Objectives

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

• read a passage in the light of the whole of Scripture, letting clear texts shed light on difficult ones;
• recognize how the Bible, as a whole, bears witness to Christ;
• build a faithful bridge between the original meaning and your life today.

📖 Receive

Read Luke 24:13-35, the account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Pause on this verse:

“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” — Luke 24:27 (KJV)

Then read Luke 24:44-45: Jesus says that everything written about him in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms had to be fulfilled, and he opens the disciples’ minds to understand the Scriptures. Notice what happens to the two disciples after the encounter: their hearts burn (24:32) and they set out again.

🔍 Examine

The third step: connecting

With Receive we welcomed the world behind the text. With Examine we observed the text itself. Now we take the step that gives unity to all the work: Connect.

Connecting means two things:

1. connecting the passage to the rest of the Bible, because each part belongs to a whole;
2. connecting its meaning to our lives, because God’s Word was given not only to be understood, but to be lived.

These are the two movements the disciples on the road to Emmaus experienced: first they saw the Scriptures united in Christ, then their lives changed.

Scripture interprets Scripture

The Bible is made up of sixty-six books, written by many authors over about fifteen centuries. Yet it has one divine Author and one great story: creation, fall, redemption and new creation. That is why every passage must be read as part of a whole.

From this comes an ancient and precious principle: Scripture interprets Scripture. In practice this means that:

• clear passages help us understand difficult ones, and not the other way around;
• an important teaching must be checked against the whole Bible, not built on a single verse;
• if an interpretation contradicts what Scripture clearly teaches elsewhere, it must be re-examined.

This principle protects us from two opposite errors: isolating a verse until it says what we want, or setting one text against another as if the Bible contradicted itself.

Christ at the center of all Scripture

On the road to Emmaus, Jesus gives us the key to reading the whole Bible: Moses, the prophets and the psalms speak of him. The Old Testament prepares and promises; the New announces the fulfillment in Jesus.

The New Testament itself shows us how to read the Old in this light:

• the Passover of Exodus 12, with the lamb whose blood protects the people, finds its fulfillment in Christ, whom Paul calls our passover (1 Corinthians 5:7);
• the bronze serpent lifted up in the wilderness (Numbers 21:8-9) becomes an image of the Son of Man lifted up on the cross (John 3:14-15);
• the priesthood and sacrifices of the temple are explained in the letter to the Hebrews as shadows of the reality that is Christ (Hebrews 10:1-14).

Reading the Bible with Christ at the center does not mean forcing Jesus into every detail. It means asking, before every passage: how does this text contribute to the great story that culminates in Christ?

📌 Worked example: Psalm 2 in the New Testament

In Psalm 2 the nations rebel against the Lord and his anointed, but God has set his king on Zion and says to him: “Thou art my Son” (Psalm 2:7).

There and then: the psalm celebrates the king of David’s line, chosen by God to rule his people. But its words go beyond any human king: they promise a dominion to the ends of the earth (2:8).

The fulfillment: the New Testament recognizes in Jesus the expected King. Paul, in Antioch of Pisidia, quotes Psalm 2 to proclaim Jesus’ resurrection (Acts 13:32-33). The letter to the Hebrews uses it to show that the Son is superior to the angels (Hebrews 1:5). And the first believers, under persecution, pray with the words of this psalm (Acts 4:24-28).

The result: Psalm 2 is not just an ancient court song. It is a promise fulfilled in Christ that still gives courage to the Church today: the nations may rage, but God’s King reigns.

From “there and then” to “here and now”

The second connection brings the text into our lives. Here it is easy to go wrong in two directions: copying the text mechanically, as if nothing had changed, or dismissing it as outdated. The safe way is to build a bridge in five steps.

1. The original meaning: what did the text mean to its first readers? (This is the work of Receive and Examine.)
2. The differences: in what ways is their situation different from ours? Culture, era, place in the history of salvation (before or after Christ?).
3. The principle: what truth about God and about life lies at the heart of the text and holds beyond its concrete situation?
4. The check: is the principle confirmed by the rest of Scripture?
5. The application: how is this principle lived out, concretely, here and now?

The bridge can be pictured like this:

flowchart LR
  A["1. Original meaning"] --> B["2. Differences"]
  B --> C["3. Principle"]
  C --> D["4. Check in Scripture"]
  D --> E["5. Application today"]

Step 4 is the one most often forgotten: a principle that finds no confirmation in the rest of the Bible probably came from our ideas, not from the text.

📌 Worked example: meat sacrificed to idols

In 1 Corinthians 8 Paul deals with a question that seems very distant today: may one eat meat offered in pagan temples and then sold at the market?

1. There and then: some “strong” believers knew that idols are nothing and ate without a second thought. Others, just out of idolatry, were troubled by it and risked going back.
2. The differences: most of us do not live in a city full of temples, and the question of meat does not arise.
3. The principle: knowledge puffs up, love builds up (8:1). A believer can give up one of his rights when using it risks making a weaker brother stumble, a brother for whom Christ died (8:11-13).
4. The check: the same principle returns in Romans 14:13-21 and in Paul’s own example in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23.
5. Here and now: think of the freedoms you consider legitimate (a habit, a pastime, a way of speaking or of using social media). Are there situations in which, out of love for someone more fragile, it is better to give them up?

✅ “Connect” checklist: use it with every passage

1. Other passages: where does the Bible speak about the same theme? Use the margin references or a concordance.
2. Clear and difficult: do the clearer passages confirm or correct your reading?
3. The great story: at what moment in the history of salvation does the passage stand?
4. Christ: how does the text prepare for, announce or show the work of Christ?
5. The bridge: original meaning → differences → principle → check → application.
6. A concrete response: what will you do, believe or change this week?

🔗 Connect

The path from understanding to obedience runs through the whole Bible:

• Ezra 7:10: Ezra devoted himself to studying the law of the Lord, to doing it and to teaching it. First study, then life, then teaching.
• James 1:22-25: whoever hears the Word without doing it is like someone who looks in a mirror and immediately forgets what he looks like.
• Romans 15:4: what was written in the past was written for our learning, so that we might have hope.
• John 5:39-40: Jesus warns that it is possible to study the Scriptures without coming to him, who is their center.

Connecting is not the last step of a technique: it is the point where study becomes encounter. As for the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Scripture understood in Christ sets the heart on fire and puts us back on the road.

🙏 Apply

Take a few minutes, on your own or with your study group:

1. Is there an Old Testament passage that has always seemed far from your faith? Try asking how it connects to the great story that culminates in Christ.
2. Reread the five steps of the bridge. Which one do you tend to skip most often?
3. Think again about 1 Corinthians 8. Is there a freedom of yours that, out of love for someone, you could choose to limit?
4. Choose a passage you studied in the previous lessons and write one concrete application for this week.
5. Pray that your study of the Word will always bring you closer to Christ, and not only to greater knowledge.

📚 Go Deeper

• Read Psalm 2 in full, then Acts 4:23-31: how does the prayer of the first believers use the psalm?
• Read Exodus 12:1-14 and 1 Corinthians 5:6-8: what does Exodus add to your understanding of Christ, our Passover?
• Read 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14 one after the other and note the principles they share.
• Reread Luke 24:13-35, asking yourself what sets the disciples’ hearts on fire.

This lesson closes the second module: you now know the three steps of the BereaWay Method, Receive, Examine, Connect. In the third module we will apply them to the different literary genres of the Bible, starting with narratives and the Law.