Based on the categories in the post below, here’s how my journey with scripture has unfolded up to this point.
Like most who grew up in a conservative church, I started with an “Inerrant/Infallible” view of scripture that might be best described as “The Bible is magic book.” God wrote it and it was perfect and true and special in every way.
Once I got to college and started reading books with footnotes and greek and german words interspersed throughout the text, the supernatural cover fell off of my Bible. The “historical origins” category best described my view at this point. Once I learned to pick the Bible apart, it started to look very human. Even though I felt quite guilty about it, this was my view of scripture throughout my early to mid-twenties.
Since then I’ve come to read the Bible more as the “True Christian Story: still ongoing.” I love the idea of reading scripture as the first four acts of a play and seeing the ongoing life of the church as the fifth act which must be faithfully improvised in the spirit of the first four.
I’ve also come to read the by Bible in more of a sacramental way. Scripture, when actually read and dwelt upon, mediates the presence of God in the midst of the community. In this way, the Bible has sort of become a magic book for me again, but not in the same way as when I was a kid.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
I’ll propose another view, for what it’s worth: mystery. Scripture is mystery wrapped in enigma. Because God knows everybody loves a good mystery, and a really good one is worth wrestling with and re-reading – and even when you think you have it figured out, you may not. So you quest and question and struggle with it and it becomes a part of your whole life, instead of just a rule book or a science book or poetry or history or biography or some combination of the above. It’s a mystery. And we get to be Agatha, Hercule, Sherlock, Nancy, Frank and Joe. Or Adam, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, Daniel, Ezekiel, Peter and John. We get closer and closer to the Author as we get closer and closer to the ending. Then, we get to where it should say “The End” and instead it says “Start Over.”
Sounds like a growing experience. So is mine.
I wonder if you have read N.T. Wright’s new book, The Last Word. I am sure it will prove to shape many people’s views on scripture.
I too, like the multi-act play reading of scripture.
Shalom
My view of scripture was no doubt shaped by by CofC upbringing. However, I have never been able to see the bible as totally literal as written. I do believe that men and women encountered God, had faith, and wrote down their stories for we who were to come. We have the ability to look back and put their experiences into context of time and human history. They did not, they only had faith. The Holy Spirit moved among them even without the written word. Many stories were passed from generation to generation and then recorded. Men then chose from an abundance of writings to compile the Bible as we know it today. Does man’s involvement make it any less sacred? Our faith makes it sacred. I believe it becomes more sacred as scripture proves itself timeless, and applicable to our lives today. We are still sinful people, loved by God. Do I have less faith because I don’t take every word in the bible as literal. No, my faith deepens each time I read. Thanks for the discourse.
1 Corinthians 13:8-13
8 Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all disappear. 9 Now we know only a little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little! 10 But when the end comes, these special gifts will all disappear. 11 It’s like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now. 13 There are three things that will endure ? faith, hope, and love ? and the greatest of these is love.
I believe in the bible, it is the history of God’s people and it’s guide for the future of the church.
But, I also know that humans, even those inspired by and empowered by God are still human. They are telling God’s story as best they can limited by where and when they were in that story. The glory of that story is that it continues today and those words written so long ago still apply in our time and place. It is authoritative, it is the word of God, but it is not God. God is God and I think we should be careful in placing the bible above God. God is love.
I know what you mean about the sacramental approach to the Bible. Without realizing it, I’ve been coming to It that way off and on lately. For me, this approach takes the magic/divinity out of the book and puts it back to where it needs to be – with God. The Bible becomes “special” because it is through the words that I meet with God – it becomes holy because God is there with me teaching me and giving me life.
I also dig the idea of the “True Christian Story – Ongoing” view. It leads me to the place where I see God active in history and now. It encourages me that the God of Acts is still alive and wanting to change the world in a similar manner. It says that maybe there are still prophets for our time through whom God is speaking and moving his people.
Thanks for sharing!
My experience went a different direction. I found the humanity in the books, the fallibility, the imperfections. And in the end, I just never found God in them.
Hmmm…I have to think that if you would have left Wright’s name off of that description fewer people would have chosen it. We are better at choosing a camp than and actual position, and if there are people we like and respect in our camp we feel safe there. I do like that description, but it’s so friendly what’s not to like?
I think I missed any mention in your description that the Scriptures are God’s special revelation. That if the physical creation is God’s commentary on the glory and existence of HImself, then the Scriptures are a commentary on the redemptive presence of God in that creation. In effect, they unfold the message, means and proclamation of God’s redemptive activity. By default it is accurate in its history and science. By default it is true in matters of faith and practice, and inevitably it has shaped and been shaped by (at least interpretively) the church. The teaching of it is a means of grace in which the church certainly holds the keys to, and since redemptive history has not come to a close the story still marches on, showing itself as relevant and true ‘in the fifth act just as in the first.’ So McKnight’s question becomes a little unfair in that his categories are a bit like taking me to the donut shop and asking me what I like. My answer would of course be, “all of ’em.” Though there are things about some of them I don’t like, or at least like better than others, they all have an appeal.
But I have to believe the Scriptures sort of stand above our attempts to classify them. A book written by forty different people, over the span of 1600 years, on three continents, in three languages with one cohesive message doesn’t answer to me. I answer to it.
(Thanks for your thougtfulness…I have family at your church, and they thank the world of you.)
Jay,
I just want to say that I appreciate what you just shared.
If I can make a few statements without making accusations (why are we bracing ourselves!) … The Bible is different from any other book on the planet. I think we can take some of the grids presented and put them on … say … Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland. We could get lost in the mystery of that work, revel in the unknowingness, come away with some guidance from Alice’s experiences, and find that those literary experiences are simply reflections of my own ongoing life. Can we imagine Paul speaking of his letters the way we speak of them today? These are the kinds of thoughts that come to my mind when we talk about Scripture in some sense being mystical, philosophical, ancient documents, and other terms that really do leave one with the feeling that this is just another revered ancient work. Again, no accusations … just my thoughts.
Can we really look at the Bible as a book? Isn’t it more like an anthology, just a collection of works/books? And if that is so, maybe we should stop calling it a “book”. When we talk about a “book”, we usually mean a unified work. Is the Bible really as unified as some may think? It’s kind of hard to see the unity between the books Eccl. and Matthew; or Deuteronomy and Song of Songs.
Th Bible is.
Period.
Jay –
Your description of the Scriptures is as beautiful to me as Wade’s description of baptism is in his sermon “The Party Crasher” in his sermon series, “The Divine Revolution: The Parables of Jesus.”
Thank you for sharing that.
Martin said:
“Is the Bible really as unified as some may think? It?s kind of hard to see the unity between the books Eccl. and Matthew; or Deuteronomy and Song of Songs.”
Martin, could you give us an example from these books of how they aren’t unified?
Martin, a book by definition IS a set of sheets bound in a volume. An anthology can still be a book. It happens all the time. Anytime you collect writings of anyting into a collection and bind it, it technically is a book.
Perhaps I missed your point.