Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 26 / Reign of Christ Sunday
November 25, 2007
W. Gregory Pope
READING THE BIBLE HONESTLY
Psalm 19; 2 Timothy 3:10-17
Introduction
A. J. Jacobs is the editor at large of Esquire magazine. Born into a Jewish family who never really practiced their faith, Jacobs refers to himself as an agnostic. For the purpose of writing a book, he decided to spend one full year following the Bible as literally as possible. He has published his experiences in a book entitled The Year of Living Biblically.[1]
It is a light-hearted read, laced with humor, but it becomes an experience for Jacobs that does not leave him completely unchanged. Things happened he never expected. He never expected to be herding sheep in Israel, or finding solace in prayer, or confronting how absurdly flawed he was, or taking refuge in the Bible and rejoicing in it. He found himself on occasion taking cautious baby steps of faith. At times, he said, the whole world took on a glow of sacredness and the ground felt hallowed.
As I read I was disappointed that I did not think of the idea first. What a sermon series that would be! However, judging from the reactions of his wife, my wife is glad I didn’t. When he told his wife that many of the great men of the Bible like Jacob, David, and Solomon were polygamists, that the Bible never forbids it, and that he should probably consider it, she was not pleased.
To prepare for his adventure he read the Bible in four weeks, five hours a day, writing down every rule, guideline, suggestion, and nugget of advice he could find. He was left with a list of over 700 rules. He soon realized that all aspects of his life would be affected - the way he talks, walks, eats, bathes, dresses, and hugs his wife.
He did not shave his beard for a year. He followed the biblical injunction never to wear clothing made of more than one fabric. But he found it difficult to do several things the Bible commands. Like the command to break a cow’s neck at the site of an unsolved murder. Or to stone rebellious children and anyone who worked on the sabbath, among others. The best he could do without getting arrested was to drop pebbles on their feet when he found the sinners.
We are a people who have been told for the past twenty years that if we did not read the Bible literally then we did not really believe the Bible. Jacobs’ experience reveals the foolishness of that argument. And I want to share with you today a way of reading the Bible honestly and seriously when it cannot be read literally.
Reading Scripture For Different Reasons
People read scripture for different reasons [2]:
Some who read are fascinated by the intellectual challenges posed by the Bible. So they read and study scripture as an observant student.
Some read it for the purpose of apologetics, seeking to prove and defend theological arguments.
Others read with a more practical bent: They want truths and principles to apply to their lives in order to live well for personal benefit. Eugene Peterson says it is a way of reading scripture that seeks to fit the Holy Trinity into our Holy Needs, Holy Wants, and Holy Feelings.
Others read for inspiration, what Peterson calls “devotionally cozy Bible reading.” And there are at most Bible bookstores little books that have picked out from scripture those parts to read when you want to be comforted or consoled.
To read the Bible in any of these ways is to use the Bible for our own purposes, purposes that will not necessarily require anything of us relationally. It is entirely possible to come to the Bible in total sincerity, responding to the intellectual challenge it gives, or for the moral guidance it offers, or for the spiritual uplift it provides, and not in any way have to deal with a personally revealing God. [3]
The purpose of reading the Bible is to do in such a way that the Holy Spirit uses the Scriptures to form Christ in us.
Will Willimon says that when the Bible is read from a viewpoint other than its attempt to engender a new people, it is misread. We return to this Book over and over again to be reminded of who we are and what we are called to be and do in the world. We are required to read the Bible honestly.
1. To read the Bible honestly is to read the Bible prayerfully.
To read the Bible honestly is to read the Bible prayerfully. And to read the Bible prayerfully is to read the Bible with an openness to hear a word from God and a willingness to live what you hear.
Eugene Peterson, author of the Bible translation, The Message, has written the best book on the Bible that I have read entitled Eat This Book. The image is taken from the book of Revelation where John was given a scroll and told to eat it. He was told it would be bitter to the stomach, but sweet as honey in his mouth. (P19)
We are fond of saying that the Bible has all the answers. But the Bible also has all the questions, many of them we would just as soon were never asked of us, and some of which we will spend the rest of or lives doing our best to dodge. The Bible is a comforting and discomfiting book. You can’t reduce it to what you can handle; you can’t domesticate it to what you are comfortable with. When John ate the scroll, it gave him a stomachache. And it wasn’t the papyrus that did it. Peterson says, “Eat this book, but also have a well-stocked cupboard of Alka-Seltzer and Pepto-Bismol at hand.” [4]
As Christians we don’t just read the Bible, we eat it. We feed on scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body. It spreads through our bloodstream and becomes holiness and love and wisdom. We don’t simply learn or study or use Scripture. We assimilate it. We take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus’ name, hands raised in adoration to God, feet washed in company with Jesus. The words penetrate our lives and create truth and beauty and goodness. [5]
These are words intended to get inside us, to deal with our souls, to form a life shaped by the living Christ. That requires us to read the Bible prayerfully with an openness to hear a word from God and a willingness to live what we hear.
2. To read the Bible honestly is to read the Bible with Discernment
And to do that requires us to read the Bible with discernment.
To read the Bible honestly requires us to discern what is authoritative for us today and what is not, what is culturally bound and by ancient times culturally influenced by ancient writers, and what is timeless and universal.
The main problem with the Bible is that it doesn’t come with instructions on how to read and understand it. The story is just there. In our craving for theological truth and certainty there are those who have made the Bible something it may not be.
Who are we to say that the Bible contains all the wisdom of the world? Or that God doesn’t have something new to say to us? Jesus told the disciples there were things the Spirit would teach them that they could not hear right now. So God’s revelation is not fully contained in scripture. God is always speaking and teaching.
To help us discern there is the help of scholarship and community guided by the Holy Spirit.
Scholarship
Throughout the history of Judaism and Christianity there have been scholars who love the scriptures enough to do the difficult work of exegesis. Exegesis is the act of interpreting and seeking to understand scripture. And this congregation has known some of the best scholars in the world.
Community
Speaking of congregations, scripture is best interpreted and understood in community, for we often read scripture with unseen biases and cultural influences. We need the shared wisdom of each other, gathered to discern the teaching of the Holy Spirit.
For me to read the Bible honestly and prayerfully with discernment requires of me to say that the Bible attributes to God things I do not believe about God.
I do not believe God told Israel to go take by force land that did not belong to them and slaughter all the men, women and children that lived there.
I do not believe God wants us to execute disobedient children, homosexuals, adulterers, and those who pick up sticks on the sabbath, among other things.
I do not believe God makes deals with Satan in order to test our faithfulness, as the story of Job would lead us to believe.
I do not believe that the salvation of women depends on their ability to bear children, as the New Testament letter to Timothy states.
It is with the process of discernment that we find the heart of theological differences: those who will acknowledge we should pick and choose what is authoritative and what is not, and those who say we should not pick and choose but do anyway. The difference comes in what we choose.
A. J. Jacobs, our one year literal Bible man, said he discovered that everyone practices “cafeteria religion,” picking and choosing what parts of the Bible to follow. The key he says is in choosing the right dishes like compassion and loving your neighbor and leaving behind those that call you to harm others. [6]
To read the Bible honestly requires that we ask why we do not accept certain parts as authoritative: Is it just bad theology or is it asking you to change your life in ways you just don’t want to change?
This does bring up the problem of authority. Once we acknowledge that we pick and choose from the Bible, doesn’t that destroy its credibility? As the old fundamentalist saying goes, “If you can’t trust all of it, you can’t trust any of it.” I don’t believe so.
3. To read the Bible honestly is to read the Bible as Metaphor with the help of Images
To help with his discernment of scripture Jacobs consults his advisory board of rabbis, pastors, and scholars. I’ve consulted my own advisory board of writers and together I give you some images and metaphors that I think may help us. Perhaps at least one of them can help you.
It’s important to know that when we are trying to speak of God all language falls short. We are using human words in various languages to try to speak about the God beyond language. And so we read the Bible as metaphor: God is like . . . God is not like . . .
A Snapshot of Something Divine
The first image/metaphor comes from Jacobs’ pastor-consultant who says he tries to think of the Bible as a snapshot of something divine. It may not be a perfect picture. It may have flaws: a thumb on the lens, faded colors in the corners. But it still helps to visualize. He said he needs something specific. Beauty is a general thing. He needs to see a rose. When he sees Jesus embrace lepers, that’s a reason for him to embrace those with AIDS. Because Jesus embraced Samaritans, that’s a reason to fight racism. [7]
A Window
Karl Barth expands the idea of the Bible as visual, saying that reading the Bible is like looking out of a window. You look out a window and see everyone looking up into the sky shading their eyes with their hands. They’re looking up towards something that is hidden from us by the roof above the window. The people are excited. Something has happened to them. Something has captured their hearts. [8]
And when we read the Bible correctly, we should want to race outside and join the people in what they’ve experienced. We should want to experience something beyond just what the window can show us. Rather than simply reading the words of scripture and hearing the stories we should want to get involved in the story and experience the God behind the words.
The Biblical story is a window and door leading us out of the tar-paper shacks of self into this great outdoors of God’s revelation in sky and ocean, tree and flower, Isaiah and Mary, Moses and Jesus.[9]
A Finger Pointing to the Moon
A third image for reading the Bible comes from Buddhism. Buddhists often speak of the teaching of the Buddha as “a finger pointing to the moon.” The metaphor helps guard against the mistake of thinking that being a Buddhist means believing in Buddhist teaching - that is, believing in the finger. As the metaphor implies, one is to see and pay attention to that to which the finger points.
To apply that metaphor to the Bible, the Bible is like a finger pointing to the moon (to God). Christians sometimes make the mistake of thinking that being Christian is about believing in the finger (the Bible) rather than seeing the Christian life as a relationship to that to which the finger (the Bible) points.
At the end of the book of Revelation John fell down at the feet of the angel who had brought the visions and was about to worship the angel. But the angel said to him, “Don’t do it.” He said, “I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brothers the prophets and all who obey the words of this book. Worship God!”
The Bible is the window, a finger pointing to God. We need to be careful not to equate the Bible with God. That would turn the Bible into an idol. Call it bibliolatry. Someone has said that “Worshiping the Bible is like climbing up the sign post rather than following its directions.”
A Footprint
A fourth image comes from literary critic Denis Donaghue who once said of the great poet William Carlos Williams that when he “saw a footprint he had no interest in the meaning of the experience as knowledge, perception, vision, or even truth; he just wanted to find the foot.” That is why we read scripture: to look around and within for the foot, the Divine, that fits the footprints we find in scripture.[10] And we do that as we follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
4. To read the Bible honestly is to read the Bible As a Story Centered in Jesus
We follow in the footsteps of Jesus as we enter the Biblical story. The Bible is one grand story. The story of God’s relationship with Israel, the church, and the world. The story of God’s intention for creation most fully revealed in Jesus.
To read the Bible as story means that we read some of it as history and some as myth and some as parable. A Native American storyteller begins telling his tribe’s story of creation this way: “Now I don’t know if it happened this way or not, but I know this story is true.”
We do not extract principles or truths or morals from the story. That leaves the story behind. Rather we live in the story. The story of our place in God’s world, created in the image of God. The significance of the choices we make and the consequences of those choices and God’s redeeming grace in the midst of it all, coming to live among us in Jesus, showing us the way to life as we follow Jesus in community with brothers and sisters, all living together with the kingdom of God among us and within us, seeking to live a story of justice and mercy, peace and compassion, turning the world as we know it right side up.
At the heart of the biblical story is the call to follow Jesus. It is the larger narrative out of which we seek to live and interpret all other stories and interpret all of scripture.
The fourth century bishop of Hippo, St. Augustine, said the right interpretation of scripture increases the love of God and the love of neighbor. Basing his words on the words of Jesus who said of all scripture could be summed up with the commandment to love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself, Augustine said that any interpretation of scripture that leads you to prejudice or hate or to act cruel towards another person is a wrong interpretation.
5. To read the Bible Honestly is to Live in the Pages of this Book
The love of God and neighbor is a wonderful interpretive guide for scripture. It is also sure evidence that scripture has taken root in our lives. God is not as concerned about what we say about scripture as God is our living out its truth. It is much easier to say wonderful things about the Bible. It is another matter altogether having its gospel message transform our lives. One minister recommended that we have stamped on the front of our Bibles the word “Caution.” Our beautiful leather covers with our names engraved in gold often betray the danger of what lies in its pages.
It is not enough to hear the reading of scripture and to say nice things about it. We must enter its pages. We must act. I once heard a five-year-old girl singing the song, “The B-I-B-L-E.” And when she came to the part that says “I stand alone on the Word of God,” she sang, “I stand around at the Word of God.” That version is perhaps more true of most Christians, including myself, than the original version. Most stand around at the Word of God. We listen to scripture, but are fearful of acting. And rightly so. Participation in the Biblical Story with change your lives.
A. J. Jacobs said the first day after the experiment was over was terrible. He felt unanchored. There were too many choices.
The Bible doesn’t take away our choices. But reading the Bible does mean letting Another have a say in everything we are saying and doing. We are offered guidance as we seek to make choices. Guidance rooted in compassion and justice, love for God and love for one another.
A. J. Jacobs said at the conclusion of his biblical year: “I’m still agnostic, but now I’m a reverent agnostic. I now believe that whether or not there’s a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. I come away from this year with my own cafeteria religion. I’ll be doing things differently than I did a year ago, like resting on the sabbath and though I’m not sure whom I’m thanking I will be saying prayers of thanksgiving.” [11]
To read the Bible honestly is to live in its pages. So:
Live in the pages of this book, and it will cause you to be changed.
Live in the pages of this book, and it will cause you to feel the razor’s
edge of the moral demand of the Christian gospel.
Live in the pages of this book, and you will never vote again out of
national or self interest, but out of interest for the poor of the world.
Live in the pages of this book, and it will cause you to empty your
pockets for someone else’s children.
Live in the pages of this book, and you will find words for your disbelief
and feelings of godforsakenness.
Live in the pages of this book, and you will find words for your joy and wonder,
peace and gratitude.
Live in the pages of this book, and you will find yourself doing things
you never thought you would do.
Live in the pages of this book, and you will become the person God
dreamed you would be.
Pray. Discern. Live in its pages. Eat this book. It will be the feast of a lifetime. But have the Alka-Selzer handy.
__________________
1. A. J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically, Simon and Schuster, 2007
2. Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, Eerdmans, 2006, 28-29
3. Ibid., 30
4. Ibid., 66
5. Ibid., 18,91
6. Jacobs, 328
7. Ibid., 328
8. Peterson, 6-7
9. Ibid., 102
10. As quoted in Peterson, 115
11. Jacobs, 329
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CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425
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