How Do You Look at God's Word? part 6

I was sort of wondering where to go with this next post. I must confess that I have rewritten it several times. I have finally decided to just tell you how I decide what to pick and choose from the Bible. I know using the terms "pick and choose" sound bad when applied to the Bible, and I thought of listing examples where we actually do this but I decided not to, as this series of posts is getting pretty long, at least for me. I figure either you recognize that we all do it or you don't.

I read and apply the Bible based on these concepts: (1) God loves me and wants the very best for me, (2) He wants me to love Him in return, and to follow His commands, (3) He wants me to love my neighbors and help them out anyway I can. In this way I believe God's word is applicable to any age and any culture.

God's word spoke to Moses, in his age, and in his way.

God's word spoke to David, in his age, and in his way.

God's word spoke to Paul, in his age, and in his way.

God's word speaks to us, in our age, and in our way.

This view probably would not be described as a scholarly one, but to me it fits the story that reveals God's relationship to people. Does it answer every question that can be asked, I doubt it? But if I knew all the answers then I would be God.

If you have made it through all these posts, thanks for your time. Shalom

How Do You Look at God's Word? part 5

After having progressed through these 5 shortcuts at least to some extent at one time or another, I have come to view the Bible as a story. A story that is true, not some made up legend or myth. It is a large over-arcing story with many smaller stories, which though separate from each other in time and writership still follow a central theme - God and His relationship with those made in His image.

A characteristic of a good story is that it draws its readers into the story and they begin to relate to the characters and the plot. It matters what happens the people in the story and the path of the plot keeps the reader intrigued. It is this relationship with the story and its characters, of which I have become one, that I started using a relational approach to read and study the Bible.

Scot Mcknight describes an incident that happened to him early on in his profession that helps explain this concept. Scot says he asked a wise and gentle professor: "What do you teach?" His reply stunned me: "I teach students. What do you teach?" Scot says about 99% of professors when asked that question will give the subject they teach. Good teachers are teaching students a particular subject matter. They are not teaching a subject to students.

There are a couple of points that result from this viewpoint that I want to mention. The first is that the relational approach distinguishes God from the Bible. I don't have a relationship with the paper and ink that make up the Bible, but I have one with God the author. This is an important distinction. It is through these words written in ink on paper that we learn of the love of God and how to love Him in return, but this book is not God. We have many different translations of which most are very good with a few not so good. I may have doubts, or questions about these different versions and there are ones I prefer for study and some just for reading. But my God is unchanging, He is God. He is not subject to the whims of translators. A further example that this distinction is important is the story of the Red Sea crossing during the exodus from Egypt. A person can study for a lifetime trying to figure out if the Red Sea is really the Reed Sea and consequently was not all that deep, or whether a earthquake in the Mediterranean made the crossing possible and never meet God. The story is about God's leading not the Red Sea.

The second is: the Bible is God's written communication with us. It is similar to a letter I would write to someone I love. The letter is not me, it does not love the person to whom it is addressed but contains words of love from the sender.

Thirdly the relational approach causes me to listen to what God is communicating and to engage in what God is doing.

Scot Mcknight summarizes all this by saying," A relational approach believes our relationship to the Bible is transformed into a relationship with the God who speaks to us in and through the Bible."

How Do You Look at God's Word? part 4

3.The Bible as a Mirror or Inkblot. Are you familiar with the inkblot test designed by Hermann Rorschach? The way I understand the test is you look at a inkblot and then describe what you see. The inkblot has no meaning at all, its purpose is to allow the therapist a glimpse into your personality, emotions, and thought processes. People who look at the Bible this way are mirroring what they already believe onto the Bible. The Bible is only a mirror for what they already believe and they will miss or disregard anything that doesn't fit into their perceived notions. For example, anytime someone writes a new book that claims to tell us what Jesus is really like, rest assured all it will do is tell us what the author is like.

4. The Bible as a puzzle. You open a box of puzzle pieces and dump them onto a table and spend the next few hours, or days, or weeks, or even years trying to reconstruct the picture on the front of the box. Imagine viewing the Bible as a puzzle with pieces of God's plan or even His mind scattered throughout its pages. Your job is to pick the right piece to start with and then to search through the Bible to reconstruct the picture of who God is and His plan. Once you have done this, you are finished you don't have to read or study it any more and can confidently tell everyone what it is all about. Do you see the problem here? Which is the right piece what does the picture look on the front of the box look like? The picture is whatever you imagine. Following this shortcut you believe you can master the Bible, but God gave us His word so that it could master us.

5.The Bible through a Maestro. A maestro is the master of any art. I grew up in a tradition where everything was seen through the lens of the maestro apostle Paul. Oh sure, Jesus was Lord but I learned about Jesus from Paul not the gospels (a small exaggeration but not much). 80 to 90% of our studying consisted of the book of Acts and Paul's letters. When we met new people, our opening line was, "Are you a member of the church? Not are you a Christian." But to say I am only going to ask, "What would Jesus do?" also misses the point. What about all the other stories in the Bible. It takes the complete story of God.

This is where we are going next time.

How Do You Look at God's Word? part 3

Do you pick and choose what commands, examples, or inferences from the Bible you follow? In the past I would have said, "Of course NOT." I have since come to realize that if you don't follow all of them, then you pick and choose. Maybe if we used the terms suggested by Scot McKnight, which are adopting and adapting it would sound better but it's the same process. The question I have been asking myself is, "Why and how do I pick what I pick and why and how do I choose what I choose?" Scot McKnight lists five different "short-cuts" people use to try and understand the Bible in his book "The Blue Parakeet - Rethinking How You Read the Bible." In my opinion these are not a good basis for your adopting and adapting.

1. The Bible as a collection of Laws. This method does have some basis as there are lots of laws in the Bible. Moses gave the Israelites 613 laws by some counts. Having a list of do's and don'ts makes it easy to know where you stand and where others stand. It is even easier when you can pick and choose the laws you want to follow, and of course you pick the ones you can follow. In short, law book readers tend to become self-righteous and look down on others who can't follow their particular set of "God's Laws." Did someone say Pharisee? This doesn't mean laws don't have an important place in God's story. It is just that they are not the whole story.

2. The Bible as a collection of blessings and promises. This way is another extreme but in a different direction. There are calendars that list a different blessing or promise for every day and books that promote a "Health and Wealth form of gospel." They seem to be saying that all you have to do is believe in Jesus and you will be happy and everything will be great. This is a very superficial type of faith. It seems to ignore the real life stories that make up God's story. For example, David often experienced mountain top moments but also spent time in the lowly valley of doubt as in Psalms 22:1 "My God, My God why have you forsaken me?" It is comforting to know the blessings and promises of God, but we must also realize that we live in a broken world and some days are tough.

more next time - shalom

How do you look at God's Word? part 2

I remember when I was younger, there was this phrase - "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." To me this meant whatever God said, I was to do it no questions asked. It was simple and sounded easy to do, also it was a "catchy phrase." (Personal commentary I have always been a sucker for "catchy phrases.") In order to carry out this "catchy phrase" all you had to do was read the Bible and do what it said. What could be easier than that? The truth of the matter is that no one does this, because to do this literally, it would mean actually reliving the 1st century in the 20th century (when the phrase came out). That was not going to happen, so what ended up happening was picking and choosing what you believed and practiced. It was never stated this blatantly, but was glossed over with better terms. Of course, this was a cause of much division and still is, because we pick and choose different facts to be important.

Our fellowship also had a "catch phrase." It was - Restoring New Testament Christianity. We believed that the Christianity practiced in the 1st century had to be right because it came directly from the apostles inspired by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it seemed logical that if we could reproduce 1st century Christianity we would be obeying God. All we needed was a pattern. A search was made and out of a combination of commands, examples and inferences a pattern for the church was established including a five-step plan of salvation, five items of worship and an organizational chart. This was done by very sincere men seeking to unify a much divided and often ineffectual Christian church. But their goal has not been reached, we are still divided and are not reaching the majority of people.

More next time -

shalom Johnny

How do you see God's Word? part 1

It seems to me that when discussions about living as a disciple and figuring out what God wants or says it best for us, it often becomes strained and even argumentive because even though we are using the same basis (the Bible) we are talking in different languages. Those different languages are the ways we look at or intrepet the Bible. I think it would be helpful if we realized this and understood at least a little bit of why others can read the same passage and come to a different conclusion. So over the next several posts I will mention some of the different ways people look at the Bible. This not an attempt to convert you to a particular way of intrepeting the Bible, I just want to make you aware of the differences and help us see that when we disagree the "other person" isn't just being obstanate (generally speaking :>).

I have my own way of looking at the Bible which of course I think is the "right" one or I wouldn't use it. Through this discussion (feel free to comment anytime) although someone may change some of their opinions, the goal is for us to be more understanding of each other.

The more technical or scholarly comments are based on my study of more learned men than myself. These will include N. T. Wright, Scot Mcknight and Patrick Mead among others I have probably forgotten.

I am going to try and keep each post short so it will readable as you open it and not something you feel is so long you have to come to when you have more time. So until next time - Shalom