Hi friends. Happy Wednesday!
As I have begun the journey of making my faith my own, a core tenant of exploration for me has become “figuring out how to handle the Bible.” Now, I studied the Bible for 4 years in college. I took almost every New Testament class offered, including Greek. To this day, I still read through the Bible in it’s entirety almost every year. I hold the value of Scripture highly in my own life; I don’t want you to doubt that!
But as I’ve been asking questions and trying to make sense of the discrepancies I feel between the Big C Church of America and the Jesus my heart loves intimately, so much of what I’m pointed to is Scripture. Which makes all of my education and experience collide into one big jumble: how are we, as Christ followers living 2000+ years after his life, supposed to interpret the Scriptures?
In school, we learned a ton about context. Which books of the Bible have definite authors, and which we are making a good guess on. IS Luke’s Theophilus an actual person, or a hypothetical, general “friend of God”, meaning anyone who happens to pick up the letter? We learned the chronological sequence of events, looked at discrepancies in the Gospels, and wrestled with the difficult passages of both the old and new testaments. We dug deep, and I am better for it.
But I find myself now, years after leaving college and working in various churches and nonprofits, realizing that the emphasis on context and questioning and learning the background of Scripture that I was taught just *isn’t what the church is doing*. I mean this as a sweeping generalization, of course- there are undoubtedly teachers who do a fantastic job looking at Scripture, and I’ve been blessed to sit under a few. But the Big C Church of America isn’t doing that. They are highlighting, sharpie-ing, and pulling out individual words (from translations that have their own agendas, but that’s probably another email) to suit the truth most comfortable for them. No wonder there are many of us that are confused and frustrated.
And yet- as I’ve been a part of this evangelical world for so long now, I find myself forgetting the education I had and how to really read the Bible in a way that both gives appropriate reverence and dignity to the Scriptures while also being honest and faithful to what we are actually reading. In fall of 2022, I started intentionally reading popular (and not so popular) books on the topic, and I want to share a few with you today, as well as ask for your own thoughts and recommendations.
MISREADING SCRIPTURE THROUGH WESTERN EYES
I was ecstatic to find this book on our school library’s shelves, as it had been on my reading list for a long time. Written by my former Dean of the School of Ministry of my university, Dr. Randy Richards, and a former student of his, this book was like taking a big drink of cold water on a hot day.
Richards worked for years in Indonesia, and so brings a different perspective on interpreting Scripture to the table. I find this very relatable with working in Rwanda, but even thinking back to when I was working with people without permanent housing in my early 20’s. When we come to Scriptures with radically different circumstances, we interpret it very different- maybe even in conflicting ways!
So what’s important here? Shedding our own cultural lenses, and being faithful to the message as it was originally intended, to the audience it was written for. And understanding the context to which much of Scripture was written is a really difficult task- often close to a guessing game. We shouldn’t take this lightly.
WHAT IS the Bible?
Rob Bell has gotten an unbelievably bad rap in the last 10 years, but the more I read of him recently, the more I think I should be (mindfully and prayerfully) paying more attention.
Bell’s 2017 book, What is the Bible? How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything, does a fantastic job of both teaching the varied and important background of the Scriptures and giving power to their transformative and instructional nature for us in the 21st century. It IS a library (or maybe an anthology), after all!
I enjoyed listening to this book, probably because it is read by Bell and his NOOMA series of videos was a staple of my college ministry years. This is a relatively quick/easy read, and a good intro into thinking about the Bible differently than maybe you were taught.
HOW the Bible ACTUALLY WORKS
Peter Enns’ work has been recommended to me by too many people to keep ignoring, so I dove in with this one, and I’m so glad I did. The book’s full title is called “How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How an Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us Into Wisdom Rather Than Answers- And Why That’s Great News.” Yes!
The book is very similar in thesis to Bell’s book, but is much more detailed, includes a lot more specific scripture and discussion, and leaves the reader with a bit more of a path forward, although it’s a bit foggy by intention. Spoiler alert right in the title, Enns posits that we should seek wisdom from the Bible, and not straight answers. Quite different from how Big C Church typically does it.
I particularly loved the grace and nuance that Enns embraces in the scripture: rather than seeing conflicting accounts or instructions as problematic, he reasons that perhaps there are different answers for different circumstances. It’s not as comfortable that way: black and white Christianity is certainly easier to adhere to (and more clear when you aren’t). But maybe it’s healthier and more vibrant to lean into wisdom and community and the Spirit, that to seek straight answers that can be universally applied.
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So where does this leave me? Still reading. Still praying. Still listening intently to the Spirit and to wise people around me as I seek and learn.
Here’s a few that are on my list to read this year on this topic:
THE SIN OF CERTAINTY by Peter Enns
FOR the Bible TELLS ME SO by Peter Enns
INSPIRED by Rachel Held Evans
SCRIPTURE AND THE AUTHORITY OF GOD by NT Wright
WOMEN OF THE WORD by Jen Wilkin (a re-read for me)
If you have any recs on this topic, please send them! I am trying, as always, to read a breadth of takes on the topic and come as well-informed as I can be.
I’m continuing to wrestle with how to read and apply Scripture, and what that means for “what I believe”. I don’t think that wrestling is really going to end soon, maybe ever, and I have a lot of peace about that. It would be nice to have straight answers and concrete things I can point to, but for now, I’m leaning into the nuance and trusting the Spirit’s leading. Faith, in the grey.
I’d love to know what you’re reading, what’s on your list for this year, and how you’ve come/ are coming to view the role of Scripture in your own life. Grateful for each of you, and the safe space you are to me.
Karli
I really like Rob Bell! I'll have to check out "What is the Bible? How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything"
I've been reading a lot of books but I admit that they are more universalist in nature...but I'll happily share the Christian ones that I love: "Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi" by Richard Rohr and "Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations" by Matthew Fox.
"We dug deep, and I am better for it." Keep digging deep, with the Holy Spirit as your guide. I read the Bible accompanied by the Bible Recap last year and loved it.