Encountering the Bible...literally

A few weeks ago I was asked point blank by a church member, “Do you take the Bible literally?” While she did not intend it to be so, this is a loaded question. By saying “yes” you must then do everything written therein literally. By saying “no” you are impinging upon the reliability and authority of the Bible. Of course, anyone involved in such a discussion knows the matter is far more complicated than those two options.


For example, what do we mean by “literal”? Do we mean “historically literal”—that what the Bible purports to have happened actually happened in that way? This approach assumes a few things: that the authors understood history writing as we do and that they had the materials in hand to accomplish such a feat.

Contrary to these assumptions, historiography (how history is written) is a modern construct and applying it to ancient writers is anachronistic and unfair to their intentions. Biblical writers were not writing an unbiased history of what occurred. Rather, it is a theologized history—that is, a history from the viewpoint of a faithful people reflecting upon a saving God.

Even if they were writing with unbiased intent, they did not have the primary materials to accurately convey historical events. Many things described in the Bible were reconstructed from oral transmission since they were not a written culture and did not write things down.

Thus we should not be surprised when there are tensions (or to put it more boldly, “contradictions”) in the text. They were not concerned with transmitting events exactly as they happened. Rather, they incorporated historically based events into their overarching themes and shaped them into a coherent whole. A brief look at the Synoptic gospels belies such a position. When Matthew says that Jesus taught on a mountain (Matt. 5:1) and Luke says he “came down and taught on a level place” (Luke 6:20), is one of them just wrong? No, it means there is more to each author’s presentation than meets the eye and it calls for a little investigation.

All of this is to say, we should be wary to take the Bible as “historically literal” because we open ourselves to criticism when a Biblical account seems to be contradicted by other “histories.” What we can say is that the Bible is based in history and contains some historical accounts, but at the end of the day the authors are far more concerned with the theological message than the historical accuracy.


Well if we don’t mean “historically literal” perhaps we mean “proscriptionally literal”. That is, when the Bible makes a command, we take it literally and do it—no questions asked. On the one hand, such a literal view has its appeal. It removes any interpretation from our part and places it firmly in God’s hands. There is no need to justify our actions because God has the final authority.

The problem with this literal view is that it does not account for all the laws in the Bible. What do we do with the Old Testament laws? Unfortunately, many too easily dismiss Old Testament laws by saying we live under the New Covenant. Also, what do we do with cultural laws—that is, laws whose context can be traced to a specific time and place but whose impact is lost on a different, modern culture? A most obvious example is Paul’s command for women to dress modestly, which excludes braided hair, gold jewelry or pearls (1 Tim. 2:9). Yet even the most staunch advocate for literal adherence to the laws would probably concede that this command was culturally focused and described modern day prostitutes. Yet, literally, women should not wear jewelry or braid their hair. But such an understanding would seem to be ludicrous by today’s standards. Or, more graphically, when Jesus recommends gouging out your eye or cutting off your hand to avoid sin (Matt 5:29-30), who, except the most ascetic among us, would literally follow such a command?


Hopefully my point is clear—patently accepting biblical stories and laws as literal is not a correct appropriation of Scripture. This approach does not take into account genre, metaphor, hyperbole, parables, etc. Perhaps more egregious is that this approach does not consider authorial intent. Though we may never know exactly what an author was thinking, we can generally deduce a probable theological theme. Thus, a literal interpretation is not always a correct one.

By saying that I don’t always take the Bible literally should in no way imply that it is not the main source of truth that God has revealed to humanity. The Bible is true and does not need to hold up under factual and verifiable scrutiny. It reveals God’s relationship with God’s creation and is not a handbook of World, Israelite, or Christian history. It is a revelation of God's saving works and not a handbook of moral or ethical laws.


To conclude, correctly understanding Scripture requires a Spirit of wisdom coupled with a proper understanding of context and background. And each new generation needs to allow the Bible to speak anew to the needs of the community. May we take the Bible seriously, even if we don’t always take it literally.

Unlikely Disciple

I just ran across this book. It looks like an interesting read.

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

Here is the article on it that got me interested in it: Liberal Student Infiltrates Liberty University to Write Exposé and Discovers Intolerance...From the Left

A liberal Ivy League student decides to enroll at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Virgina and write a book exposé (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University) supposedly showing the intolerance that must be there, or so he thought. The liberal student, however, was surprised to find little of the expected intolerance but is now finding plenty of it from the left because his book was not an outright condemnation of Liberty University nor of Jerry Falwell whom he met during his semester there.

Great Atomic Power

Pandora just played the song from Elizabeth Cook and the Grascals entitled "Great Atomic Power." I would advise checking it out, but I do not know where. It's apparently a popular bluegrass song by how many have made covers of it.

It made me laugh.

Do you fear this man's invention that they call atomic power?
Are we all in great confusion, do we know the time or hour
When a terrible explosion may ring down upon our land
Leaving horrible destruction blotting out the works of man

Chorus:
Are you ready for that great atomic power?
Will you rise and meet your Savior in the end?
Will you shout or will you cry when the fire rains from on high?
Are you ready for that great atomic power?

There is one way to escape and be prepared to meet the Lord
Give your heart and soul to Jesus, He will be your shield and sword
He will surely stand beside and you'll never taste of death
For your soul will fly to safety and eternal peace and rest

There's an army who can conquer all the enemy's great bands
It's a regiment of Christians guided by the Savior's hand
When the mushroom of destruction falls and all it's fury great
God will surely save His children from this awful, awful fate

Are you ready for that great atomic power?

Change Starts with Recognizing Our Condition

All growth is change. And most growth starts with the recognition of our need to improve. On this Good Friday, I am reminded of Christ's sacrifice for me and everyone else and the subsequent failure on my part to always respond to Jesus' loving action properly.

Nehemiah, a servant of the king of Persia, heard of the state that Jerusalem had fallen to despite the recent ritual revival that had occurred there. Nehemiah responded to the sad situation with weeping, mourning, prayer and fasting. Nehemiah 1 records one of his prayers.

Today, I have updated that prayer for our situation. If you want to read the real prayer, go to Nehemiah 1. Here is my prayer on this great day.

O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the church. I confess the sins we Christians, including myself and my local body, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the command to love our neighbors as you taught.

Please remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.'

We are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by the great sacrifice of Jesus. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. May our lives give you glory. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of others.

Then Nehemiah went to do the will of God, risking his life, facing scorn and danger, and leaving the comfort of the king's presence - all to bring glory to God. In the end, Nehemiah's struggle was not in vain. None of his success would have happened if Nehemiah was not able to see that the reality of the world was different than the reality God intended. So often we also realize this but justify it away. Nehemiah did not do what we have the tendency to do. He followed the revelation by mourning, fasting, and prayer over the Israelites fallen state. When we strive for that which is better and are willing to change ourselves, God can be glorified.

So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God (Nehemiah 6:15-16).

They realized that God was at work. Let us mourn, pray, and fast that the world will realize that God is at work in their midst, and may we be the people willing to be used for that work. But be assured, we will have to change for that to happen. All growth is change.

Rappin' for Jesus

A few weeks ago I saw an old friend, Marcus, whom I had not seen in about 8 years. He is a bright guy and has his hands in writing, mixing and producing his own music. He is also a writer/contributer/editor of “The Holy Observer,” a satirical Christian news source similar to “The Onion.” Anyway, combine those two aspects of his life and you get this news story in which he made a song just for the story. Listen to the song here and the lyrics are posted below. If you don’t get any of the references, just google them and you will figure out just how clever the song is.

Tru Dawgma – Straight Tribbin'

Eschatological know-how, not evangelical lowbrow
Postmodern cash cow
Revelation based on canonization
The millennial nation looms in dispensation
I spit pedagogy orthodoxy
Prima manifesto in the incarnation proxy
Imprimatur, my roots be the hypostatic union
The theocratic fusion, infusin'

Portiuncula mentalities be waxin'
Straight tribulation factions gaining esoteric traction
No apology, my strict epistemology
Will influence doxology and put you in a quandary
Infralapsarian… tribulation prose
Makes me wary and your pragmatism's blatantly exposed
I Didache your Tim Lahaye while rapture spankin' Jerry Jenkins…
Now cogitate this great awakenin'

Hook
Tribba-what (what?), Tribba-who (who?)
Flex eschatological like straight tribbahs do (2x)

Rapture, comin' at ya, gonna fetch ya, gonna catch ya
I be a theocrat with exegesis comin' natural
Ontology gazes in the wake of Armageddon
Pleroma in soma, not a disconnected remnant
Reviviscence is valid and callus as operatum
While your unbelief and disposition won't even fade Him
Cardiognosis, He knows your thoughts and your dreams
Like the Sadducees, your heresy is leaking out the seams

What, what, who? Henotheistic views
Are romanticized, sanitized, still ain't true
But from the parthenogenesis to the Parousia
We got imputed righteousness until the day we meet up
Since the ascension we got metaphysical nominalists
Refer to Postulates for obedientialis
Hidden like the pseudepigrapha in the
Deuterocanonical pack – the apost-hata's back!

One Faith, One Body, No Lines

There is one faith and one body, but God does not see the denominational lines that we have drawn. Just because one worships at a church that has a book of doctrine (that you might or might not agree with) does not exclude that person from the body of Christ. Likewise, just because one worships at a church that does not have a book of doctrine does not mean they are automatically part of that body. A church without a book of doctrine like our churches still have a lot of unwritten doctrines that are extra-scriptural. God is glorified in the lives of faithful Lutherans and he is glorified in the lives of faithful Nazarenes just as he is glorified in the life of a faithful non-denominational Christian.

Everyone usually goes to the church that they think are doing things the best and have the best grasp on Scripture. But for pride and self-glorification, people argue that their sect is the best and put others down rather than try and build one another up. This is nothing new. It was happening in Corinth.

Paul addressed it in 1 Corinthians 1.

"I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ."

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."

Those who claim to follow Christ alone can be just as divisive as those who claim to follow Christ the way Luther did, the way Wesley did, or the way that any other human did. It is arrogant to think that we follow the Scripture alone without any influence from our forefathers. I read the Scripture the way that Alexander Campbell taught that Scripture should be read, that is a different way than the way that Martin Luther or John Wesley read it. But that does not mean that my faith is far greater than a Lutheran, a Methodist, or a Nazarene. My intellectual pursuit of the faith might be different, but we will not be judged by our intellectual pursuit. Rather, we will be judged by whether we have a heart that is totally surrendered to God.

Isaiah 29:13 states:

"The Lord says: 'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men."

Israel was God's people. There was no group that was more God's than them, but they were still out of step with God. Their title or ethnic origin had nothing to do with whether they were right with God; God wanted their hearts. Likewise, God wants our hearts, anything short of that is not enough. We can give him our hearts whether we are in a Catholic church or in the middle of the woods alone. The key to the healthy Christian life is that we realize nothing but total surrender of our heart makes us right with God. There are acts of the faith that we will participate in when we surrender, but I do not think that God looks down and decides who has given him their heart based upon what church they attend or how they read the Scripture.

The law stated and Jesus repeated, "But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul."

Anything less than our whole being surrendered to God does not make us right with Him, not the name of the church we attend nor the lack of formal doctrines and creeds.

The sectarian lines that we have drawn in the sand wash away in God's eyes. Being part of one sect or another does not outweigh a heart that is totally surrendered to God.

So let us not be like those who divided the church by claiming to follow Christ, Cephas, Apollos, or Paul. Let us follow Jesus with our whole heart, not being judgmental, and loving those that we encounter every day. Let us help everyone we encounter to take their next faith step, whether that is their first or the next one after a life of total surrender of ninety years.