I recently read an article in the Telegraph about Nobel Prize-winning Potuguese author, Jose Saramago. Apparently he had created quite a stir by saying that we all would be different and better as people if it weren't for the bible, denouncing it as a "handbook of bad morals." While I totally disagree, I can sort of understand where he's coming from, because over the centuries people have used the Bible to endorse almost every kind of evil behavior imaginable: slavery, male dominated societies, antisemitism, war, killing of native peoples and hating homosexuals for example. Yet it has also inspired countless others to start schools, universities, hospitals, charities, clothe and feed the poor, care for the sick, bring justice for the oppressed, and bring freedom, peace and love to the world. So what are we to do with the Bible?
The Bible never refers to itself as the word of God. It couldn't since the Bible is a collection of 66 or 72 books compiled in 382 AD. In fact the words that some Christians use to describe the Bible ( infallible, inerrant, absolute) it never once uses of itself. Even if every single word is divinely perfect, people cannot agree on what it is that God is actually saying and still have the ability to make it say what they want it to. Many want the Bible to be an answer book with exact details for every question we may have; or a rule book that makes objectively clear what behaviors are right or wrong for all time, in all places and amoung all cultures. But the problem is, to “Just do what the Bible says” is a far too simplistic and ignorant approach. It must be wrestled with, questioned with humility and understood in the context of the time, place and the reason it was written.
The Bible is true and to be trusted, but as Brian McLaren says “We need to reclaim the Bible as a narrative. The Bible is a story, and just because it recounts (by standards of accuracy acceptable to its original audience) what happened, that doesn't mean it tells what should always happen or even what should have happened.” Reading the Bible as a narrative helps us see the ongoing story of God at work in a violent, sinful world, calling people beginning with Abraham into a new way of life.
To read the Bible for what it is, is to realise that it is inspired by God to benefit us in the most important way possible: helping us relate to God and to benefit others, so that we can play our part in God’s ongoing mission on the earth. It is certain that God speaks to us through the Bible, and it is the most valuable resource we have in forming a relationship with Him. It is a treasure above all others not because it is perfect but because it leads us to the real "word of God" which is Jesus.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Jaemin, I really like the perspective you have given here. The concept of the Bible "as narrative" is something that has really changed my way of seeing, in recent years. It sounds so obvious as to be irrelevant, until you realise how many ways in our Christian culture, we have been trained to treat it as something quite different - & really the layers that we add are products of our own age, not of the text itself.
ReplyDeleteI think the advance of postmodernism has been helpful in this - so many things that were very much a part of the modern age (scientific paradigm / Greco-Roman systems of logic and inquiry) are now questioned by many - yet I grew up viewing the Bible through that lens and thinking this was "in" the text, when it really, it is not.
I like something Michael Goheen said, in a school inservice I attended on Christian Worldview. His comment was that "it is not wrong to ask scientific questions of the text, so long as you realise that the answers you get may not be the intent of the original author. The text is written as narrative and was never seeking to answer such questions" (not an exact quote).
If all you get from reading the Bible, is that God can be known, seeks to be known, and has made the way through Jesus - then you have found what matters. It is about God relating to man - not about systems of theology or philosophy!
On a different note, it was great to meet you in person at the forum last year. My only regret is that I didn't seek you out and talk with you more - next time, then!
Thanks for adding that Kerry, that is some really great insight. You should be writing a column yourself! Yeah we'll definitely have to catch up and talk through the stuff. That'd be fantastic
ReplyDelete