Edgework

Once we admit that the Bible is not a perfect book, doesn’t always speak with one voice, and reflects the contexts of earlier times we can no longer expect every chapter and verse to speak directly into our lives. Brian McLaren suggests, in A New Kind of Christianity 2010), that we should see the Bible as a sacred library which “…preserves, presents and inspires an ongoing vigorous conversation with and about God, a living and vital civil argument into which we are all invited and through which God is revealed” (83).

As we read the Bible we see how people in generations past heard and experienced God in their own unique contexts. When we admit that the Bible bears the markings of ancient culture it reminds us that most likely our theological thinking today is also wrapped in cultural clothing of its own. As Peter Enns says in Inspiration and Incarnation, “This is not to say that the meaning of the gospel shifts with every cultural wind. It simply means that each generation, by the power of God’s Spirit, has to make the gospel message its own by wrestling with how the gospel connects with the world in which that generation is living” (56).

So the question remains with me as to how the Bible best gets involved in my quest for a deeper spirituality, either in the way it is preached or read privately. It has been my experience that once I can let go of the notion that the Bible has to be defended as an accurate historical and scientific document at every juncture and admit that not every passage is directly written “to” me, a whole new world of relevance begins to emerge. I then begin to see how the larger storyline of the Bible addresses my life which I am living in the 21st century. More recently I have witnessed how this works in a church context. Sermons generally begin by identifying a need in our contemporary lives and then when our hearts cry out for a “word from the Lord” a relevant biblical truth is drawn forward, inserted into our hearts and then applied in a practical 21st century way. I have found this refreshingly inspirational and relevant.

Peter Enns introduces the concept of a Christotelic reading of the Bible to help us understand how Jesus and the Apostles read the Old Testament in their time. “To read the Old Testament ‘christotelically’ is to read it already knowing that Christ is somehow the end to which the Old Testament story is heading” (143). Other writers use the term “Christocentric,” also a good term, but one which tends to give the impression that a straight-forward reading of the Old Testament obviously leads one to see Christ everywhere. But Enns notes that Jesus and the Apostles frequently take Old Testament passages completely out of context and apply them to Christ. This, in itself, testifies to the fact that they were employing elements of a Second Temple hermeneutical style prevalent in their day. However one chooses to apply this insight, it seems to me that the focus for Christ-followers can never be to simply take the Old Testament at face value and apply it directly to life in modern times. It must always be read through the window that acknowledges that Christ is the end (telos) of the story.

This is an important point. It means that when reading the Old Testament, for example, we have to back off a little distance to discern the larger movement of the story that is unfolding while always having one finger in the New Testament gospel story. As a case in point, even when reading the Psalms, an undisputedly important document for spiritual nurture, we must be discerning regarding how directly one drinks in specific psalms or verses within them. In some cases they reflect an ancient world view that does not connect realistically with our world today and would, without question, be superseded by the direct teaching of Christ in the New Testament.

Or take the book of Proverbs. In some cases two proverbs say the exact opposite thing, as it does in 26:4 and 26:5. “Do not answer a fool according to his folly…Answer a fool according to his folly.” The literalist has a hard time with such passages because both are God’s Word, right? Perhaps this example begins to build a template through which to read the entire Old Testament; namely, that while looking through the “telos” or the end of the story which is Christ, we are called upon to discern which parts have direct relevance for our spiritual quest today and which parts reflect elements of an ancient story told from the vantage point of an ancient worldview. I might still draw some insight from the latter type of sections but mostly they will be about how God worked with a people in a much different time and place than in which I live, giving me confidence that God will also work with me where I am at right now.

This is a hard pill to swallow for those who have been raised to see every word in the Bible as a direct word from God for our use. It is also hard for preachers who sincerely believe that wherever they start reading in the Old Testament they will find a word encased for the modern follower of Jesus. This new awareness prevents them from jumping around the entire Old Testament to find proof texts to make a spiritual point, as many are prone to do. Something has to die within us to allow us to move from reading the text with the expectation of finding a word from the Lord at every turn to engaging the multifaceted text for what it is.

But with that death comes a rebirth of sorts in which the sacred library of Scripture becomes an even more valuable resource for our spiritual growth.