A Recent Walk Beside the South Shore of Lake Apopka

Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian

May 29, 2022

Bible Abusers Ruin it for Everyone. We Need to Stop that Nonsense.

The reason we are afraid of the Bible is that we have been taught it has some uniform and singular truth, not to say ideology, that must, when we read it, be first deciphered and then second, must be appropriated. The first is hard work, the second is oppressive and imprisoning. 

Who wants that?

But if, rather we see it and read it at face value, a cacophony of sixty-six writings, each describing and illuminating and displaying and exploring what it is like being human on a planet spinning through cosmic space, the totally terrifying and endearing all going on at the same time, we might be inclined to read the so-called Good Book as actually a good book (thank you to Frederick Buechner for that wonderful turn on words in a sermon so titled and in which he says “The Bible is a compilation of stories of what happened to these human beings in such a world, and the stories are not only as different from one another as the people they are about but are told in almost as many different ways” (Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, 2006).

The Ethiopian Eunuch asks Philip how he can understand the book of Isaiah if nobody instructs or helps him (Acts 8). Not a bad approach – engaging somebody with some prior knowledge. But be careful. Be careful that they don’t tell you what it means. Better that they would help you see and hear what it explores. 

Don’t be afraid of the Bible. Let it loose on you. Stick with it. Be in conversation with others. See what happens. 

All that said, in a key way, Martin Luther, Bible scholar extraordinaire, would not agree to this way of approaching the Scriptures.  While he was keen on not seeing the writings as some untouchable holy grail, there was, in his opinion, a holiness therein that must not be messed with – he called it the Gospel and he contrasted it to the Law. It is the task and challenge of discerning and hearing Gospel when you read Scripture for which one needs a Guide, an Interpreter, a Meaning Discerner. Actually, more accurately, one needs a Declaration Discerner, not a Meaning Discerner.  You have to hear what the Bible is stating and declaring – this being that your life and all creation is unconditional love, that mercy is not leniency within the Law, but rather the alpha as well as the omega of all things, all existence (that mercy is the actual abolition of the law). 

Because this is not easy for us to hear, we need both Interpreters and Declarers. In describing the relationship of Declaration and Meaning of the Scriptures, maybe this will help:  get someone to declare to you what the Promise is that is stated or emerges from the writings (Promise vs. Demand, Gospel vs. Law) and then you go on to figure out what it means to you. In other words, get the Promise clear, and thus liberated, get on with what you are going to do with it. You may in fact hear the Promise on your own. But still, and this is another important dimension of the whole thing about receiving and getting the Promise, get somebody to tell you the Promise because on your own you will second-guess it and think there is more to it than that, more stuff that you are responsible for with which you are to cooperate in some way with God (By the way, this is what a sermon from a Pastor is supposed to do). 

So, again, get the Promise clear and then get on with your life, daily. 

Don’t be afraid. Forge in and Forge on.