This quote from SK brought me up short.
The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be able to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?
Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming to close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
Overstatement is often a powerful method of communicating a message that needs to be heard. The point is well made … maybe “studying” the Bible isn?t what we need to be doing with it.
Scheming swindlers? Pretenders? Give us a break. God’s people deserve more than that, overstatement or not. I know too many who “act accordingly”, or at least give it their best shot.
note – last post directed at SK, not Wade. 🙂
If SK had made that comment in a self-righteous tone, I’d agree, but it seems to me he’s being pretty honest and self-incriminating. My guess is that he’s revealing a personal struggle here. I resonnate pretty strongly with it (in fact the exact same quote exists on my blog somewhere in the archives). It’s not that I don’t know lots of people striving to act accordingly, but it does speak to a church culture that has largely lost the concept of transformation.
Neal,
Your right. I just get tired of self-incriminators incriminating all others in their incriminations. (huh?) The folks that get it deserve better than that.
I think he makes an interesting and needed observation and yet I hear in the response the truth that many who study the word deeply also live and act upon it in deep ways.
God was willing to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of ten righteous souls. Israel always had a remnant of believers. Maybe instead of noticing that many who claim the name of Christ do not proclaim Christ in word and deed we should be reminded that a remnant has and will always exist. Instead of waiting for those who do nothing to do something, maybe those that do should feel the call to do even more.