JIM ON......MAKING
SENSE OF THE BIBLE
Jesus and curiosity got me when I was sixteen. I remember having a go at reading the Bible
cover to cover because I felt I had a lot of empty space in my head that needed
filling with whatever the God story was.
So off I went first time through.
I liked the trek but skipped quite big bits that were boring i.e. all
these names. The stories I loved. Great narratives following the lives and
adventures of amazing characters. The
bloody sections I relished. I couldn’t make head nor tail of the time
line. There was all that flow of history
that repeated in a different version and stopped in mid air, long before there
was any sign of Jesus. The psalms took
my fancy because most of them are short and pretty lively. David seemed to reach highs & lows way
beyond my emotional range. I packed up
on Job near the start, such was the drag
of his going-nowhere ponderings.
Proverbs I took to because puzzling out the crumbs of wisdom
appealed. The Prophets wore me out fast
mostly because of the chronic negativity
that filled the atmosphere. All
this time I was working through the New Testament with gusto because I liked
Jesus so much and wanted to find out all I could about him. I ticked off the Gospels first and plodded
into the letters. Tougher going and
harder to work out since they were all just the one side of a two way
conversation. I could hear Paul &
the other writers but I couldn't hear the words of those on the other end of
the line. Often kind of baffling. Revelation at the end was almost total
bewilderment. But I was curious. And the first time through made me aware that
there was much more to think about and try to fathom than I had imagined. So I went over the same ground again and
again and again. I think I must have
read through four times over. All the
time I was going to church and listening carefully to the readings and
preaching. In our own Church of Scotland
I couldn’t get a hold of too much. In
another local church where I’d heard Jesus being spoken of so well I was aware
of God’s presence and realized that the gospel had made a huge difference all
the preachers who spoke. There was fire
and wonder and boldness (sometimes over the top).
By the time I began university I was keen to keep the
reading & learning going. The
Christian Union provided very good Bible teaching week by week and the church I
found my way to after a year or so (Holyrood Abbey where Rev Jim Philip was the
minister) had an expository Bible teaching approach. This meant the preacher working consistently
through books of the Bible with a breadth and depth that avoided repetition and
hobby horses. He also was clearly an
intelligent man with great insight into the issues that surface all the way through the
Bible. He gave me a coherent
understanding of the whole story. He saw
the Old and New Testaments as variations
on the theme of God’s grace working his purposes for his glory in and through
all the rebelliousness of the human race and the unfaithfulness of his chosen
people Israel. It was as if the
unbreakable, golden thread of his forgiving kindness could be traced from
beginning to end—creation to its fall and on ultimately to the redeemed,
re-creation of a new heaven and earth where all the myriads who have been saved
by his Son enjoy him forever. I began to
see how the different parts of the Bible fitted together. There were so many facets that were all
needed to show off the jewel at its brilliant best. All this time I was also a social science
student working in a late 1960’s rebellion-is-in-the-air atmosphere that didn’t
exactly embrace Christian orthodoxy or its preferred lifestyle. In the divinity faculty we had theology and
biblical studies lecturers who were not at all disposed to promoting an
approach to the Bible that credited it with being reliable and
trustworthy. Quite the opposite. Candidates for the C of S ministry and other
students tended to be divided into evangelical and liberal camps. An impression was given that respect for the
trustworthiness of the Bible was rather unintelligent. Nevertheless, evangelicals were always among
the top scoring students. One major point that arose was what to do when a
problem arose with the Biblical text that made it look like a mistake had been
made. e.g. The great ages of people in
early Genesis. “Methuselah lived 969 years and then he died.” Gen 5:27. How numbers worked or ages were calculated or
how long a lifetime was is still a mystery to me. I just don't know the answer to the recording
of such long ages. Another “problem” is:
John telling his readers that Jesus cleared the temple at the start of his
ministry when the other Gospel writers put such an incident at the end. An answer to this is proposing that Jesus
cleared the temple twice, with several recorded visits to Jerusalem in between
times when he caused no bother. The first temple incident caused great alarm,
the uneventful intervening visits were monitored with suspicion and the final
clear-out incensed the religious Authorities.
His arrest and crucifixion followed.
So sometimes there are possible answers, other times, not.
Either way, over the years since, the existence
of problems and the absence of answers
has not led me to suspend belief in the trustworthiness of the Bible.
No more do the problems we all have with falsehood, lies and
misrepresentation need to lead us to give up on championing honesty and
integrity. The comeback of robust Bible
based living and church life in the last twenty years has been striking. Patchy, but obvious. Since the 1960’s one
huge sea change has been the re-habilitation of the supernatural as an accepted
dimension of existence. Then, belief in
miracles was often dismissed wholesale, especially by liberal theologians and
lecturers. Now, there’s much more
open-ness and acceptance. One result is
that people are wide open to dark or evil supernatural influence because they
imagine that all powers or energies are good.
Recently I was asked if I’d let local spiritualists use Barn premises
for their “church” meetings. The
sticking point was not the reality of supernatural reality. They have medium ministry, we have prophetic
ministry. We both believe in healing
ministry. Where we agreed to differ was on was the existence of evil
supernatural power. I believe in it, the
person I spoke with did not. The source
that inspires the power may be evil and if so, can & should be renounced,
never indulged or encouraged. If no
supernatural power is evil then anything is deemed beneficial. The evangelical, Bible believing framework I
have helps protect vulnerable people from potential deception and harm. Any of us who read the Bible will recognize
the guidance given in Deuteronomy 18:9-13 or in 1 John 4:1-6. Jesus himself drove out evil spirits from
people (Mark 1:21-28). The liberal
tendency is to play down the reality of supernatural good and evil and to
re-interpret the data as if it were merely based on ancient, ill-founded
superstition. Miracles than become the
imaginative use of language and images to convince everyone that the “miracle
worker” is a splendid person when in reality no miracle has been worked.
A real area of difficulty is that of the drastic
punishments laid down in the OT. In our
time a judgemental attitude expressed by those who rant harshly is guaranteed
to offend. Given the current climate in
the Kirk, this is the last thing we need.
Here’s a helpful thought. One
good reason why the capital punishment and other fierce penalties in the OT can
be separated from the offences that call for them is Jesus. The woman caught in
the act of adultery in John 8 faced death by stoning. But Jesus saved her from execution. He separated the offence from the drastic
punishment. He showed that, for him,
while the OT offence stood, the OT
penalty was optional. There’s an obvious
application of this aspect of Christ’s moral stance to our ongoing debate about
practicing gay clergy. It is quite
legitimate and Christ-like for me to uphold the Bible’s moral opposition to a
gay or any extra marital lifestyle and to opt out of applying the OT
penalties to our contemporary, UK context.
See how Jesus applied the OT is such a help. The recent, terrible, homophobic, gang
assault outside a Liverpool gay night club this week can’t be justified under
any circumstances.
Jim
