"But you must continue with the things you have learned and found convincing. You know who taught you. Since childhood you have known the holy scriptures that help you to be wise in a way that leads to salvation through faith that is Christ Jesus. Every scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing mistakes, for correcting, and for training character, so that the person who belongs to God can be equipped to do everything that is good." (CEB)
“What’s
Asked in Worship Stays in Worship: Banned Questions About the Bible,” Week One:
Is There a Right or Wrong Way to Read the Bible?
It’s
the front cover of a Bible that an atheist buddy emailed to me, his buddy the pastor. He admitted he did for, in his words, “kicks
and giggles.”
That
should have been my first clue.
That
he identifies as an atheist should have been my second.
But
I walked right into it, as oblivious to the circumstances as an NFL replacement
referee.
It
was an actual Bible—which translation I cannot remember, though—but the front
cover bore this, in the format of something along the lines of the Surgeon
General’s warning on a bottle of wine or a pack of cigarettes. It said, in part:
"Warning!
This book is a work of fiction.
Do NOT take it literally.
Exposure warning: Exposure to contents
for extended periods of time, or during formative years in children, may cause
delusions, hallucinations, decreased cognitive and objective reasoning abilities,
and, in extreme cases, pathological disorders, hatred, bigotry, and violence,
including but not limited to fanaticism, murder, and genocide".
I
guess there goes the PG-13 rating for my super-secret movie script—a “Bible:
The Musical” production, featuring Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Malachi as a
dancing barbershop quartet.
This
is a brand-new, four-week sermon series that will take us up to the week of
Thanksgiving, and thematically, this new series does a lot, I think, to build
upon our previous sermon series, “They Like Jesus, But Not The Church.” That previous series was based on peoples’
impressions of us that they are sometimes afraid to share, and this series is
based largely on peoples’ questions for us that they—or even we—are sometimes
afraid to ask, perhaps because church is seen sometimes as a place not to ask
questions, only to receive answers. But,
in order to receive the right answers to begin with, we must start by asking
the right questions. And one of my
fundamental, non-negotiable beliefs about what church is, and what church
should be, is that we must be in the business of encouraging people to ask the
right questions, the tough questions.
Not the clichés, not the easy answers that you can recite the same way a
child recites their favorite McDonald’s order.
So for this and the following three weeks, we’ll be looking at some of
those big theological questions, guided by the book “Banned Questions About the
Bible,” which is edited by Disciples journalist and blogger Christian Piatt. And to kick off this series, today, we begin
with a simple but profound question: Is there a right or wrong way to read the
Bible?
As
my buddy’s atheist-endorsed Bible would indicate, many people think there is a
wrong way to read the Bible. But let’s
hear what the Banned Questions book has to say, which is, in part:
"There is a strong tendency to read the
scriptures, not in order to hear what the scriptures say (which is the “right”
way to read them), but rather to verify what is already believed about the
scriptures (which is the “wrong” way to read them)."
In
other words, if we’re reading the Bible with a mind open to what God might be
saying to us, then we’re getting it right.
But if we’re reading the Bible in order to reinforce what we already
think about God—and usually, that involves God agreeing 100% with us on
everything…after all, as the Christian author Anne Lamott said, “You know you
have made God in your image rather than the other way around when God has all
the same enemies that you do”—then we’re doing something wrong.
Which
is why there absolutely, positively, has to be parts of Scripture that
challenge us and make us uncomfortable.
If we are comfortable with every single thing said in Scripture, then
we’ve missed the mark. We’re worshiping
ourselves, and not God.
And
that, at its core, is the entire dilemma of Biblical literalism. Does reading the Bible literally uphold us,
or uphold God? Does expose us to the
Word of God? Or does it turn us into
radical, delusional kooks? Or maybe it’s
both? Is it okay for it to be both?
Jesus
was radical, in every sense of the term.
He changed people’s hearts, resurrected the dead, and turned the world
upside-down! But it’s something easy to
lose sight of when Christianity is as common in American culture as apple
pie. Sure, we may live on the great
unchurched Left Coast—but we’re still the biggest gang in town, if you don’t
count the Church of Brunch.
Which
means it is odd that Christians might be seen as kooks, because being part of
the mainstream means you usually aren’t a kook.
But that’s the power of the stereotype of Biblical literalism for you!
Here’s
the thing, though—honestly, if you read the Bible literally because you believe
it is the inspired Word of God, then I’m right there with you. But if you read the Bible literally because
you believe it is without error, then we’re probably not reading Scripture
literally anymore.
It’s
one of the best cases I can think of in reading Scripture to verify what we
already believe about it.
This
text from 2 Timothy is one of the most frequently cited for claims that the
Bible is without error, but if you read it, that isn’t what the text actually
says—it says that Scripture is inspired by God, useful for teaching, and
capable of showing and correcting mistakes and building character.
It
doesn’t actually say that Scripture is inerrant. But it does say it is God-inspired, or, as I like here in the CEB translation, "God-breathed," the same way in which God gave Adam life in Genesis 2--God breathed it into him, just as God breathes the word of Scripture into us!
Also, keep in mind that this is Paul talking—or one of his disciples
or scribes talking for him. Paul was the
very first author of any New Testament scripture—the final forms of the
Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and all the other letters come about 15-20 years
after Paul is martyred.
Which
means Paul cannot be referring to the New Testament, because the New Testament
as we know it did not exist yet. Paul
could only be referring to the Old Testament—yes, the same Old Testament that
many of us struggle with because of the sometimes wrathful nature of God in it.
This
of course makes complete sense when you think about it—Paul is Jewish! He was even educated as a Pharisee. But it also means that Paul is probably not
referring to the same Scriptures that we are thinking of. This is where we get into trouble with the
whole “reading Scripture to validate what I already think about it” bit—we
superimpose our meaning upon Paul, rather than let Paul’s—and, by extension,
God’s—meaning speak to us.
And
it isn’t just us. The folks who came up
with that Bible cover label also probably see what they want to see in
Scripture. It’s really very funny—in a
sad clown sort of way—when you think about it: we claim this book to have so
much power, so much influence, but in the end, we spend so much of our energy
trying to assert our power and influence over it in interpreting it.
If
anything, the Bible should present more of a challenge to us each time we read
it, rather than less, because with each passing day, we move further and
further away from the time and place in which it was written. The more time passes, the more we become
steeped not in the world of ancient Israel, but of 21st-century
America, and the two are about as different as can be!
There
is one final note to make about how or what we take the Bible to be—it is often
a good litmus test for seeing what we believe God to be. Many of my same atheist or agnostic friends
tell me that they simply cannot believe in a deity so petty and wrathful that
he would condemn people to hell for going to the wrong church, or for not
reciting a particular version of the Sinner’s Prayer, or for voting for a
particular political party.
To
which I simply reply, “Has it occurred to you that maybe I don’t believe in
that deity, either?”
If
that were the only choice—angry, petty deity or no deity at all—I might well
turn out an atheist too, because I don’t think I could handle being a priest of
Ba’al and having to cut myself as a sacrifice in order to get it to rain. Sorry, but I’d just as soon start studying for the
LSATs.
But
I thank God instead for Scripture, for the revelation of a God who rules not
through sacrifice, but through redemption, who demands not one-dimensional
fear, but all-encompassing love.
That
is the sort of revelation that I will gladly take literally, single-mindedly,
and gratefully. Because that is a
revelation, a revealing, of a God who gives me hope. Hope for my own salvation, hope for God’s
love for all of you, and hope for the world that we live in together.
It’s
what the content advisory label on that Bible was missing—a warning that this
book can also give you great, great hope, so open it and read it only if you
dare to be open to such emotionally and spiritually uplifting possibilities. By the grace of God, may it be so. Amen.
Rev.
Eric Atcheson
Longview,
Washington
October
28, 2012
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