Originally Posted by Textcritic
A colleague of mine has often stated to me (in private, as such statements tend to be misconstrued badly in a confessional institution such as the one at which I am employed) that he wishes that preachers would stop using the Bible. "The Bible," he says, "belongs in the university classroom and not in the pulpit." I have heard far too many great sermons that have been absolutely eviscerated because the preacher felt it necessary to bring the Bible into it.
I believe that a critical reading of Scripture is the best way to understand how we ought approach the books. That is not to say that I expect critical readings in my own church every Sunday, but that the function of the Bible in Church and in the lives of believers would be tremendously enhanced if only they understood the problems and issues that dominate the texts. You are right in this: A critical reading of the texts renders them somewhat inaccessible to the laity. People quite simply do not have the time, the wherewithall, or even the necessary skill to be their own interpreters of Scripture, and this is where the community of believers and the advise and input of Christian leaders is necessary. It is why, in the early Church, that much more was made of the oral traditions of the faith, the teachings of the Apostles and the traditional interpretations of difficult, ancient texts. It is why these things tended to supercede the Scriptures.
In an ironic twist of "fate"(?!), As I have progressed in my own career as a sort of "Biblical Scholar", the Bible, for me, has become much more meaningless in a confessional or sacramental sense. I read the Bible for a living, and as such, I ten to read it much more prolifically and carefully than the average person. But as an unexpected side effect of this, I have also come to find the Bible much less relevant and useful in my own Church—at least to the extent that it tends to be used.
This may come as something as a surprise, but as a biblical scholar, I have become more and more convinced that most North American Christians—particularly evangelical Christians—greatly exaggerate the importance of the Bible. Honestly, how much good is a book like Numbers or Leviticus or Daniel to the contemporary Church? I have heard many suggest that if we do not read the Bible literally in Church, then we must mine it for positive "examples" and "lessons" of faith to supplement our theological traditions. But I believe that even this is erroneous.
What the Bible is is this: a selection of individual works of sacred literature that Church leaders have affirmed through the ages to be the best written record of the faith. In my estimation, the value of the Bible for the believer is in that it preserves someone's perception of God. I must also recognize that this perception is not always accurate, or that it is often nuanced by culture, language, history, politics, and power. Nevertheless, there is value in reading about how ancient peoples struggled to understand who God was and how he acted in the world. In many respects, I look to the stories in Scripture and see something that resonates in my own experience with God; something that gives shape to what I think or feel, but am unable to put words to. Other times, I see perceptions of God that are foreign to my own, and which I believe to be outright false. Ideas presented in the name of God that do not accord well with how I have come to understand his character. I can see in the Psalms and in the various pieces of religious poetry exaggerations of the divide between the "holy" and the "profane"; between "divine" and "human"; between "good" and "evil". They help me to gauge my own response to God. In the prophecies and apocalyptic visions, I see a number of things: celebration of great hope; expectation for judgement and/or justice—depending upon which side of oppression one finds himself; an hyperbolic, dualistic sense of morality.
There is a great deal of tension within the Scriptures, and they should be read very much with this tension in the foreground. When it comes to my own church, often I feel that we would all benefit a great deal if we set the Bible aside—if only for a time, to develop a keener understanding of how to apply the mandate of justice, self-sacrifice, and righteousness that we believe to be at the heart of God's character. After we have figured this out, perhaps the record of people's struggles with God that is preserved in the Scriptures will become more intelligible and more meaningful.
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