A woman is sitting on the train, reading her Bible. A man sitting next to her, seeming amused, asks her:
“You don’t really believe what it says in there do you?”
“Every word”, she replies.
“OK, he asks. How about the Noah story, the flood, the animals – do you believe that?”
“Absolutely ”, she replies.
“What about God creating the universe in six days?”
“All true, I believe every word”.
“What about Jonah – how could a man live for three days in the belly of a whale?” he asks.
“Yes, I believe that too”, she says.
“Well, how could that be? How could he breathe?”
“I don’t know”, she said. “When I get to Heaven, I’ll ask him”.
“What if he’s not in Heaven?” the man asks.
The woman replies: “In that case, you can ask him”.
Interpreting the Bible today:
We can laugh at the joke but have you ever had conversations like that or found yourself asking those sort of questions? I’ve been having long distance discussions via Facebook with a long lost school friend in Australia, who’s a fervent atheist. His big problem with Christianity isn’t that he thinks science or Richard Dawkins have disproved the existence of God but that he finds the Bible utterly incomprehensible. He accepts that not all Christians take every word of the Bible as literally true and that there are different traditions and approaches within the Church towards interpreting the Bible.
But he really struggles with the tricky bits, that if we’re honest, we probably struggle with also.
For example, the parts of the Old Testament, such as the Fall of Jericho, where Joshua’s army are told to slaughter every living thing in the city. The section ends with the verse: “So the Lord was with Joshua”. Did God really tell his people to slaughter innocent women and children? If so, how do we reconcile this God with a God who according to the Psalms, like Psalm 103, is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love”?
The God of the New Testament, who “so loved the world that he sent his only Son…not to condemn the world but to save it”.? These are questions that people often ask, including my friend, and questions that some Christians struggle with also.
Today is Bible Sunday and as we think about the Bible and today’s world, its good to address these issues. How do we handle and interpret the Bible as Christians? We’ve had the famous passage from 2Tim.3: “All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man (or people of God) may be thoroughly equipped for every good work”.
I’m sure that no matter which church tradition we’re from, we’d agree that all Scripture is God breathed, it is inspired by God and carries divine authority. Its stood the test of time but its under tremendous attack in the secular humanistic age in which we’re living., even to the extent where at an art exhibition in Glasgow, a copy of the Bible was daubed with profanities for its so called homophobia – you may have heard about this on the news not long ago.
Its perhaps never been more important that Christians are engaging with these difficult issues on how we interpret the Bible in the world we’re living in today. Its not easy, and its not going to satisfy enquirers and sceptics if we simply say we believe what the Bible teaches because even Christians can’t agree about what the Bible teaches.
What can we agree on? What are the aspects of our faith that are non-negotiable? The Creed encapsulates the essentials of our faith, and most Christians from a variety of backgrounds can unite on that. But other issues are not so clear cut. Women bishops, homosexuality – there are equally sincere Christians who hold opposite views.
The danger is that the Church can become so bogged down in these arguments that it loses sight of its main purpose for existence – to be part of God’s mission in the world, pointing people to Jesus Christ. And the media dismisses the church as being irrelevant and outdated when its perceived as hung up on these issues. And yet, for many Christians, who are passionate about the Bible , these are deeply serious issues as they are about something far deeper and fundamental.
What are the timeless, unchanging truths in the Bible? How do we express them in the kind of language that modern people understand?
Are there aspects of the Bible that need to be reinterpreted for each generation?
Fascinating questions and ones that I think we should all be wrestling with if we want to meet the challenges of faith in the 21st century.
Perhaps this seems disturbing for some of us. For those people who have been brought up as Christians and can remember when Britain was far more ostensibly a Christian country it perhaps seems shocking to be asking these sorts of questions. Are we showing irreverence to the Bible by attempting to interpret it and apply our own human understanding?
Does the Bible have anything new to say to us?
From my own experience, and I’m sure a vast body of Christians from all ages, I would say that as we come together, with an attitude of humility, recognising that the Bible is the Word of God, its divinely inspired, and we ask it to speak to us afresh, it will do so. It won’t undermine its key message, of God’s love for the world, and his supreme self revelation and saving act in Jesus, but it will throw up new insights and perspectives as we seek to discern God’s saving work in the world today.
A rabbi likened the scriptures to a precious gem. As you turn it over, the light refracts differently , giving you a reflection you haven’t seen before. Have you had that experience of reading a well known Bible passage and suddenly seeing something you’ve never seen before? What fresh insights might the Holy Spirit be wanting to show us as we study the whole Word of God and apply its timeless truths to today?
During my training, we were split into groups and asked to prepare and preach a six minute sermon on the passage from Mark 4 on Jesus calming the storm. It was fascinating to hear the different insights and perspectives that came out of that one short passage. God had something unique to say through each person but he also used the experiences, personalities and backgrounds of each person.
Whilst I wouldn’t presume to compare trainee Readers with the patriarchs, prophets and apostles, I think it’s a bit like that with the way the Bible was written. God breathing his word, divinely inspired, through many different people from many different backgrounds over a huge period of time. There’s an underlying unity and thread all through the Scriptures which is God’s gradually unfolding self revelation to humanity, through Israel and supremely through Jesus.
Its God breathed but also human. God used human beings, with their different cultures, experiences and backgrounds through which to speak and as we approach the Bible we need to interpret it afresh for our generation and understand that that we haven’t extracted all the meaning we can get out of it . It’s a living word, that continues to speak to us today. To quote from Rob Bell, a minister and speaker, “When you embrace the text as living and active, when you enter into its story, when you keep turning the gem, you never come to the end”.
Jesus is the Living Word
I don’t know about you but I find that exciting. And to return to our gospel reading today from John 5 Jesus himself rebukes the Pharisees for being so bogged down in the Word of God that they can’t recognise the Living Word himself, standing amongst them! Jesus is the Word made flesh. Sadly its possible to know the Bible like the back of your hand, be able to quote it but not know the One who is himself the Word. There have always been people who claimed to be Christians, who knew the Bible thoroughly, but didn’t have “the love of God in their hearts” as Jesus says in this passage. The Crusaders, the Inquisition, and all the persecution carried out by Christians against so called heretics.
And to a lesser degree, the factions that are still around in the Church, that divide Christians. No matter how much we claim to know and love the Bible, if we don’t have the love of God in our hearts, we don’t truly love and know Jesus, the Supreme Word Himself.
Going back to my friend in Australia, I suspect that his problems in making any sense of the Bible stem partly from his baggage and preconceptions that he’s bringing with him as he reads it. It may also be that he’s not coming with an open mind, genuinely seeking spiritual truth, but looking for ammunition to further his own atheist agenda. But God has a habit of catching people unawares and as he picks out the parts of the Bible he believes undermines its truth claims, it may be that he’ll meet the Living Word, Jesus, himself.
We need that relationship with the Living Word, Jesus, to understand the written Word . He illuminates it, brings it to life so that it has the power to speak to us. In John 6:63 he says “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life”. The Word of God is spirit and life to us when we’re in a relationship with the Living Word. Before I became a Christian, I knew certain parts of the Bible but they didn’t mean anything to me. At best, I thought they were nice words but they had no personal impact on me. It was only when I started searching spiritually, or, maybe, God was searching for me, that it started to make sense. And as I read the Gospels particularly, Jesus started to become real and his words started speaking to me personally.
Some of you know my father and have heard his testimony but he’s an example of someone to whom the Bible made little sense until he encountered Jesus Christ. He came from a non-observant Jewish background, and had been spiritually seeking for years. The rest of my family became Christians but church and the Bible did nothing for him. He just couldn’t see where Jesus fitted into it all.
Eventually, out of the blue, he received a letter from a woman who had met my mum through a Christian healing group, five years previously and had been prompted to pray for him. In the letter she explained that she believed God had asked her to tell him that it was time to choose, and she quoted from several parts of the Bible, all with the same theme of choosing.
“Choose this day whom you will serve”. (Joshua 24:15)
Many people, receiving a letter like that, would probably dismiss it as serious religious derangement , but the moment he read it, my father knew instantly that he was a believer in Jesus Christ. He started to read the Bible and Jesus’ words hit him, “like a sledgehammer” to use his words. When he read “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”, he knew beyond any doubt that He is and wondered why he’d never seen it before. Now he can’t get enough of his Bible and is passionate about sharing its truths to help Christians grow in their faith. Isn’t God amazing!
We need Jesus, the Living Word, to bring life to the written Word
The Living Word and the written Word coming together. Without knowing the Living Word, we cannot partake of the power of the written word. And it does have power. Heb. 4:12 puts it like this: “The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double edged sword, it penetrates, even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart”.
Jesus, the Living Word, comes to live in our hearts, as we offer our lives to him, and so his written word comes alive within us, speaks to us and nurtures us. Isaiah 55, our Old Testament reading for today, says “Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me, hear me that your soul may live”. Similarly, today’s Psalm, Psalm 19: 7 says “ The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul”. God’s word nourishes, feeds and strengthens us. It teaches, and comforts. The writer, Victor Hugo, says:”I have found in the Bible words for my inmost thoughts; songs for my joy, utterance for my hidden griefs and pleadings for my shame and feebleness”.
How is the Bible changing us? How do we use it to engage with our world?
Its an amazing Book . Divinely inspired, yet provoking a whole range of reactions, from love and reverence to confusion, bewilderment, anger, division and even hatred.
How are we responding to this Book? Dare I ask it but are we reading it regularly? The Bible Society produced some disturbing statistics indicating that its a low percentage of churchgoers that read their Bibles regularly and yet in Third World countries people will walk for two days to get a copy of the Bible.
If we’ve been Christians for a long time is it still speaking to us in fresh ways? Exciting us, challenging us, disturbing us? Changing us? Are we wrestling with it as we hold the Bible in one hand, and a newspaper in the other and attempt to discern what God might be saying to the Church and today’s world? Can we engage in discussion with the Richard Dawkins’ followers, a hostile media, the spiritual seekers who won’t come near church?
Are we praying and thinking through together our response to these challenges? And above all, are we continually coming to Jesus, the Living Word, that we might have life and the love of God in our hearts? Lets pray that we may be people rooted in God’s Word, filled with his Spirit, showing Jesus, the Living Word, to our rootless, lost generation.
Questions for Small Groups:
Do you find parts of the Bible difficult? If so, how do you respond to that?
What would you say are the “essentials” of Christianity, that are non-negotiable?
Have you experienced fresh insights or perspectives when reading a well known Bible passage? Can you give examples?
What is your own faith story? What impact has the Bible had in your life?
Do you agree that Christians need to be engaging with the issues of today? In which ways can we do so?
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