Preface:
I am not a health nut. So for me, a chicken nugget every now and then is not the worst thing in the world. But even I know that a constant diet of them will make you fat and lethargic.
Disclaimer:
I continue to be conscious of the lack of Bible I read, study, and memorize. I start with this sentence because I do not want to give the impression that I think myself a scriptural expert. But as a pastor, I do have a passion for God's Word that I think may be somewhat extraordinary, just as a doctor may be fond of his journals. There is nothing worse than a pastor trying to guilt people into being as amped up as he is about his occupational journal. Thus, this disclaimer.
However, as someone who is passionate about helping others become passionate about the Holy Scriptures, I want to debunk a popular myth about the Bible: that it is primarily "inspirational."
Part 1:
Please do not misunderstand - I do believe the Bible is inspired, but I do not believe it is primarily inspirational. Looking for inspiration in the Bible is a bit like looking for the proverbial needle amongst the hay. Sure there are extremely inspirational passages, many found in the Gospels and Letters, the Prophets and Poetry, but if we go to the Bible for inspiration, we are perhaps missing the point of what it means for the Bible to be inspired.
Paul gives perhaps the best description of Holy Writ when he writes to Timothy, "All Scripture is God-breathed (inspired) and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (II Tim 3:16-17)." I love Paul's description because it shows both the objective and subjective sides of Scripture -- the ontological (being) and the teleological (doing). It is 'inspired' and 'useful.' The objective side is that it is inspired, from God by the Holy Spirit, holding the words of life, the embodiment of Christ himself. The subjective side offers a utilitarian meaning - it is useful for various purposes.
Part 2:
The Bible is so rich in purpose because it offers so many benefits for our lives - temporal and eternal. It teaches us about God (theology); it teaches us about ourselves and our humanity (anthropology); it brings the standards of heaven to earth (sanctification); it warns us about our future (eschatology); it gives us a wide-angle lens of time (history); it teaches us how to live (ethics), through good and bad ethical models (biography); and it truly inspires and empowers through the Spirit (pneumatology).
The difference between the Word of God being inspired and it being inspirational is that its inspiration comes from the Holy Spirit, but 'to inspire' is only one of many tasks the Bible takes up. When we approach the Scriptures as a means of inspiration, we not only disappoint new believers who pick it up and find instead a great deal of confusion, we also task the Bible with a goal that is not necessarily inherent.
Perhaps the best example of this dilemma is the famous 'verse of the day' phenomenon. Nothing exposes the 'Bible as inspirational' myth more than this. Not only does it pull a verse out of its proper context, causing possible misuse and even abuse, it misrepresents the whole of Scripture, since most verses in the Bible would never be used in this way. Then, as an unintended consequence, we get a view of Scripture that is based on the limited exposure to our 'favorite verses,' which in turn affects our theology and how we live our lives.
Going to the Bible in search of inspiration is a bit like going into a bookstore in search of Mad Libs. Instead of taking in all the knowledge through the reading of history, biography, and philosophy, we tend to enjoy making the Bible say what makes us feel good, rather than actually letting it teach, rebuke, correct, and train us (II Tim 3:16). This is the great dilemma of modern Christianity and the primary reason for nominal Christianity in the Church.
Part 3:
N.T. Wright, the Bishop of Durham, and a best-selling author challenged me in a video I saw a couple years ago to start reading the Bible in larger chunks -- the way it was intended to be read. I had never noticed before, but I had been reading scripture in very small amounts - getting a chapter or two in and going on my way - checking off my spiritual checklist and feeling much better about myself and my walk with God. What I had not realized is I can sit for much longer periods and read other books or magazines, and somehow we have been trained to consume only a dutiful portion of Scripture at a time.
I had not, until this revelation, experienced the joy and fascination of reading an entire Gospel through in one sitting (a task that only takes around two hours for Mark), nor in my 30+ years of Christian faith had the thought to do so ever crossed my mind. I would venture to say that 99% of Christians have not experienced this spiritual pilgrimage of ingesting a Gospel in this way, but most of us find no time-preventative excuses not to read other books in good-sized chunks. Why this is so is less important than the urgency with which we must correct it.
Summary:
It is time for another disclaimer. I am not suggesting that one verse is not better than zero verses (unless it is taken out of context, in which case it is potentially more harmful than good). Neither am I suggesting that ancient practices such as lectio divina and other meditational reading mechanisms are not important. I am simply suggesting that 'biblical banquets' should be considered alongside our routine of 'scriptural snacks.'
Feast on the Word and live! (John 6:48-58)
I think it would be a worthwhile task, and more instructional, for you to post some popular and lessor known examples of taking Scripture out of context by only focusing on certain passages.
ReplyDeleteBy reading your post I'm faced with the idea that what I read in smaller portions can mean the opposite and do harm if I do not read the greater context. I'm familiar with how you can take the Word out of context purposefully, but I'm not as familiar with many examples of commonly beloved Passages that taken by themselves are harmful.
I, personally, find lots of inspiration from many small nuggets of Scripture that I memorize or post on my wall to read often. I want to make sure I'm not kidding myself by doing so.
Thanks Tony for your response!
ReplyDeleteThe small nuggets are good, and we all do that, thus my very first sentence in the post. I am simply prodding us to consider larger chunks of scripture in our diet as well. We tend to have a 'verse of the day' or read a chapter to fulfill our spiritual checklist and feel better about ourselves. And we like to focus on verses that make us feel good. This is a problem with our culture and how we are obsessed with inspiration, but we don't want to look at passages that teach, correct, rebuke, etc. (Paul's definition of what the Scripture is and does - II Tim 3:16-17)
Certain types of genres are great for small nuggets, such as the proverbs, because they are pithy sayings that are easy to remember and teach us life lessons. Other longer books like the Gospels and Letters are not meant to be broken down into digestible mush (baby food). They must almost always be considered within their contexts. When we do pull out a verse, it is fine to do so, as long as we have studied its context.
A couple examples will suffice (but this happens a lot unfortunately):
Binding and loosing (Matthew 16 & 18) - Jesus tells his disciples, "whatever you bind in on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." I had always heard this talked about in the context of spiritual warfare, binding demons and taking authority over them. But when you look at the context of what Jesus is talking about, he is giving authority to his disciples as leaders of the church, and especially in ch. 18, this teaching is in the context of church discipline and forgiveness and reconciliation. It gives authority to apostolic leadership of the church to discipline believers who will not come under the authority of the church and deal with their sin.
Jesus told a rich young ruler, "Sell all your possessions and give to the poor." Now we know that this was Jesus' command to this one unique person because Jesus knew his heart was not in the right place to come into the kingdom, so we would not apply this Scripture universally.
My next example will be controversial, but it is a good example of how we may sometimes over-reach when we pull verses out of context. Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the most beloved verses in Scripture. My wife, Nicole, calls it the 'single girl' verse. "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" If you look at the context of this verse, this is a promise God was making to a specific people at a specific place in time - to the exiled Jews living in Babylon. God is promising to bring them home again and restore their land. I'm not saying that you absolutely cannot claim this scripture for yourself and apply it personally, I am just suggesting that it is not the original intent of this passage to do that. I would say 99% of people who love this verse and quote it couldn't even tell you the context it is in and its original intent from the original author to the original listeners (I had to look it up myself to find out the context).
Bottom line: we can digest more of the Scripture than we think we can at one time, and when we pull verses out for inspirational purposes, we must make sure we are using them in the way they were originally intended to be used.
Tony, here's another very conspicuous example that illustrates well the importance of context:
ReplyDeleteYou have heard the popular Bible quotation, "It is better to marry than to burn." This is an exact quote and it is used frequently, sometimes, jokingly to refer to the flames of hell as the destination for one who remains single who is unable to remain celibate.
However, Paul's full quote in I Corinthians 7:9 is "It is better to marry than to burn with passion." Quite a different meaning that has nothing to do with the promise of hellfire.