Even The Devil Quoted Scripture

A key factor in the decision that was made at the called General Conference in February was the way scripture was used. People on both sides of the issue quoted scripture to support their position. Thus, the deeper issue was how scripture is viewed and used (some speak of this as scriptural authority).

It seems to me that we clergy (among others) have failed to teach our people the nature of scripture, the purpose of scripture, and, thus, how to use scripture. The result of this failure is we read the Bible through our Western, Enlightenment-shaped, scientifically trained eyes. We read the Bible as though it were a Western book. We look for facts to believe and rules/laws to follow. In other words, we look for certainty. Believing the right facts and following the laws allow us to be "right."

The unconscious result of this way of reading the Bible is we find texts that confirm what we already believe. The Bible becomes a tool we use to support our positions and way of thinking. We quote chapter and verse that validate what we believe. We overlook the fact that even the devil quoted scripture to validate his position (see the temptation experience of Jesus in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13). Just because we can quote scripture to support our belief does not mean that our belief is in line with the nature and ways of God.

When we read the Bible this way, we generally miss what the biblical writers were attempting to communicate. We read our view into the Bible rather than allowing the Bible to say what the author intended to say. Our focus on facts and beliefs causes us to miss the spiritual truth in the passage. (An example is the creationist argument based on Genesis 1. By arguing that God created the world in seven literal days - a scientific issue - we miss what the text says about God and God's work in the midst of chaos. BTW - Genesis 1 says God created the world in six days, not seven!)

This way of reading the Bible is the only way we know how to read scripture until we are trained to read through a different set of lenses. And that is what clergy and the Church have failed to do.

The Bible is an Eastern book, not a Western book. It is an ancient book. Parts of it date back to 1700 years before the birth of Jesus. The books of the New Testament were written during the first century C.E., over 1900 years ago and long before scientific-shaped thinking became the norm! The Bible is a compilation of many books, not a single work. Those books contain the thinking of many different authors and editors as well as different understandings of God and the ways of God.

The purpose of the Bible is to help us know God - the nature of God and the ways of God. It helps us know ourselves - our human condition and how God relates to us in our humanness. It teaches us how to relate to God and how to relate to one another. When we discover these kinds of spiritual truths in the Bible, we are changed. What we believe and how we think is changed, shaped by the spiritual truths found in scripture. We do not use the Bible to defend what we already believe. We allow the truths of scripture to shape our hearts and minds.

We discover these spiritual realities when we read the Bible as an Eastern book rather than as a Western book, when we read it as both human and divine (men and women guided by the Holy Spirit), when we learn to unwrap the spiritual truth from the ancient, Near Eastern human wrapper in which it is presented, when we allow the character of God (Exodus 34:6-7, 1 John 4:8) and the life, ministry, and teachings of Jesus to guide our interpretations, when we give up the need to be right because we want to be loving like Jesus.

We know we are using the Bible correctly when it changes us - our hearts and minds, when we are growing spiritually, when we are becoming more like Jesus.

I would quote chapter and verse to support my thinking but I remember that even the devil quoted scripture to support his position.