The Bible Won't Bite
Michelle breezed into my classroom on the first day of the new academic year and announced: “I don’t want to be in this class,” adding, “It’s a Bible class, and I’m not at all interested in the Bible.” She wasn’t untypical, just courageous. But why this no-Bible attitude?
“Then why are you here?”
Her answer was clear and understandable. She’d heard about the church-based institution’s business admin course and, despite knowing that the course included Bible subjects, she’d liked what she’d heard and enrolled. Now she faced the reality of her choice and didn’t like what she thought she saw ahead.
I suggested that she should “give it a go for a week” and I wouldn’t be offended if she quit. I assured her that she wouldn’t be told what to believe, “For,” I said, “belief is a personal affair; each individual chooses what to believe and what not to believe,” and then, with a grin, I added, “You never know, Michelle, you might even discover things you want to believe.”
Michelle smiled, nodded her head and sat down at a lecture table. And as I recall, she didn’t miss a class all year, but better than that—as she walked out of the last class she handed me a note, saying, “The best subject in the whole course. Thanks!”
But why the change?
As a Bible devotee, I believe there’s something about the Bible and, often, that something turns out quite differently from what the students expected.
What many people expect is that the Bible will be hard to grasp—and in view of some of the stuff that’s peddled about the Bible, that’s understandable. But is the Bible really that hard to grasp?
Think of three figures—17, 5, 17—and you can grasp the Old Testament; three more—5, 21 and 1—and you grasp the New Testament. And thus the books of the whole Bible, a book of just one major theme: God and ourselves.
A word about those figures. The first 17 books of the Old Testament are essentially books of history—the history of the founding of the human race, then the Hebrew race, all crisply and succinctly told but with a fascinating purpose. The last 17 books of the Old Testament are pretty much books of prophecy, given with the paramount purpose of establishing the sovereignty of God.
Then there are the five in the middle: they’re books touching the basics of life: suffering (Job); God (Psalms); living (Proverbs); evaluation of life (Ecclesiastes); and love that’s the real thing (Song of Songs).
These are the books of experience.
It’s much the same in the New Testament, but the proportions are different—five books of history, 21 of experience, one of prophecy. The proportions differ. And in the Old Testament the Messiah is coming, in the New Testament He is here, so experience is emphasised.
I have an idea that there was a time when Michelle was scared of the Bible, hence her Bible-no-thanks attitude. Understandable. There are some scary things in the Bible. But they’re not put there to scare. Love doesn’t scare and the Bible is the love book and comes from the source of all love—God (see 1 John 4:16). Love warns, not scares; it protects, not bites.
Another thing that may have put Michelle off could have been contact with either a “bible-basher” or a ponderous theologian. The first is often a well-meaning enthusiast, but often such people are judgmental, using the Bible as reinforcement. A theologian, with a great depth of knowledge, can give the impression that the Bible contains so much, it can’t possibly be adequately understood or discussed by a novice. There is a bite in that. The Bible doesn’t bite.
Michelle found the Bible much more user-friendly than she’d imagined from her childhood reading of the King James Version of the 17th century. Warmth came with the knowledge that its original language was contemporary for its first readers, and that’s especially true of the New Testament—originally written in the Greek of the marketplace, not the Greek of the philosopher.
Discovering that people in both Old and New Testaments were like us took a lot of bite out of the Bible for Michelle. She discovered real people who ate, slept, worked, played, met and mated and produced children as we do today. They also played politics, schemed, swore and were disloyal. Some responded to the messages of the Scriptures, others rejected them.
Some lived purposefully, others aimlessly—and they all died, as we all will. What’s changed over the millennia of the written Scriptures? Certainly not the Bible itself; it still meets our basic needs for recognition, security, affection and variety, just as it always has. Michelle enjoyed this serendipitous discovery.
To call the Bible “the Word of God” sounds heavy or preachy to some. To others, it’s unreal. And it is—until you grasp the meaning and work of the Holy Spirit as it is clearly and simply stated by Jesus Himself (see John 14:15-21; 16:5-15 and Acts 2). Then we find ourselves going along with Paul’s definition of Scripture: “It actually is, the word of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).
Michelle had always been told that the Bible was full of difficulties; she discovered it wasn’t. But it contained some difficulties.
Immersing herself in the Bible without prejudice, she came to some conclusions: Some difficulties may be expected when finite humans deal with the infinite Word of God. A difficulty in understanding a Bible teaching or prophecy doesn’t in itself prove a teaching or prophecy to be wrong. The fact that a problem hasn’t been solved doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t be. And, finally, while it is true that God has revealed much, it’s equally true that there are things He has never revealed (see Deuteronomy 29:29).
A worthy old bishop of yesteryear had a pretty sound philosophy of Bible difficulties: “Jesus absolutely trusted the Bible, and though there are in it some things inexplicable and intricate that have puzzled me so much, I’m going to trust the Bible because of Him.”
The attitude of Jesus to Scripture is worth noting. He read it (Luke 24:27); He trusted it (Matthew 5:17, 18); He accepted its history (Matthew 19:4); and, He believed its prophecies. The things Bible critics scoff at are the things Jesus endorsed, such as Creation (Matthew 19:4-6), the Great Flood (Matthew 24:34-39), Jonah and the whale (Matthew 12:40), Lot’s wife and the destruction of Sodom (Luke 17:28-32).
Anyone can share in Michelle’s eventual satisfaction and joy. They’re found in four words: revelation—what the Bible is—about God; inspiration—how we received it as a book—the words of authors under God’s leading; illumination—light on eternal subjects—as God’s Spirit brings clarity to our thinking, we better understand His Word; and, application—how we use it—written to be believed and to shape behaviour.
These words tell us that the Bible first came from God to humans, then from those humans to a written record, from the book to our minds, and from our thoughts to our lives.
Read the Bible—the process of discovery—then reflect on it. That is, consider what it means. Then respond to it, doing what it suggests as the means to a happier life, here and now and hereafter. It gives meaning to life and understanding on the best way to live life. That’s what Michelle discovered.
| This is an extract from August 2003
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