Do You Believe the Bible?

 “Do you believe the Bible?” An individual asked this question recently in a church meeting that was called to consider disaffiliating with The UMC. One of the reasons being given as churches choose to leave The UMC has to do with the Bible. Many of those who are leaving have said and are saying, “The UMC doesn’t believe the Bible.”

When he asked the question “Do you believe the Bible?”, the man was really asking two other questions. First, he was asking “Do you believe the Bible says what I believe it says?” In other words, “Do you interpret the Bible the way I do?” Then he was asking “Do you use the Bible to support what I believe about the LGBTQ+ issue?” This second question was his real concern, i.e., his bottom line.

“Do you believe the Bible?” is the wrong question. It is a smokescreen designed to discredit the one having to answer the question while presenting the one asking the question as more spiritual and “right.”

Every United Methodist I know believes the Bible. Granted, there are plenty of United Methodists that I do not know, so I can’t speak for all of them. But I dare say the vast majority of United Methodist Christians believe the Bible. The issue is not “Do you believe the Bible?”

 So “do you believe the Bible?” is the wrong question. A better question is “How do you read-understand-interpret what the Bible says?" After all, that’s what the man was really asking. “Do you believe the Bible says what I believe it says? Do you interpret the Bible the way I do?” Implied in the man’s question is a second issue: “How do you use the Bible?”

Underlying the LGBTQ+ question is the issue of interpretation. How do we interpret the Bible? How do we get to its meaning? How do we identify its word for our lives today?

Many (most?) of those throwing rotten eggs at The UMC concerning the Bible (yes, I am making a broad generalization here) read the Bible literally. They do not believe they have to interpret it. They believe it means what it says. They see it as God’s word, i.e., a divinely inspired and divinely produced book that is infallible (that is, totally reliable) and inerrant (that is, no mistakes). In their mind, it means what it says.

On the surface, this position sounds admirable and appealing. Beneath the surface, however, this position has a number of weaknesses. It ignores the fact that reading the Bible literally is a form of interpretation. In other words, those who read the Bible literally are interpreting it. In addition, reading the Bible literally allows me to read what I already believe into what the Bible says. It allows me to use the Bible to support what I already believe rather than allowing what the Bible teaches to shape how I think and what I believe. When I read the Bible literally, I read each verse from the same posture, giving equal weight to every verse — the purity laws of Leviticus carry the same authority as the teachings of Jesus. Reading the Bible this way ignores how Jesus read and used the Bible. Ironically, what the literalists say they believe about the Bible and what they practice is different. They pick and choose which verses to emphasize. For example (and there are many other examples), they emphasize what the book of Leviticus says about “homosexuality” but ignore what it says about stoning a daughter who is pregnant but not married or a son who is defiant. They argue those later commands are time-bound and so do not apply to our culture or our day. They accept, as did Jesus, the Leviticus command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18b) but ignore the command “You shall love the alien as yourself” (Leviticus 19:34). The verses the literalists choose to emphasize are the ones that support what they already believe. Another weakness: when we read the Bible literally, we confuse cultural norms from another time with spiritual truth (e.g., women speaking in church). Again, picking and choosing based upon what I already believe is involved in this confusion.

Claiming to read the Bible literally is really a smokescreen that allows us to avoid having to consider the possibility that we might be wrong. After all, if what we believe is wrong, then we would have to change what we believe. Changing what we believe, in turn, would challenge the attitudes we harbor in our hearts. How we view and treat others would have to change, as well.

We all interpret the Bible when we read it. That reality calls us to bring our best thinking to the task.

Sound interpretation takes the Bible seriously. It deals with the Bible as a divinely inspired work given to us through the work of ancient authors and editors. It seeks to understand the message and meaning of any given text by understanding the original audience to whom it was addressed, including its historical and cultural context. The objective of interpretation is to understand the meaning of a text. What spiritual truth was the biblical author attempting to communicate to the original audience? Believing Jesus was the true Word of God (John 1:1, 14), sound interpretation reads through the lens of Jesus as the fullest revelation of God (John 1:14, 18; Colossians 1:15, 19; 2:9; Hebrews 1:1-4). What Jesus taught about God and the ways of God guides how we understand the other parts of the Bible.

The work of interpretation raises another issue: how do we use the Bible?

Presumably, we read the Bible to know God and the ways of God. We seek the wisdom of God taught by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:7-16). We seek to know the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:5-11). In other words, we allow the character of God and the ways of God revealed in Jesus to shape how we think — what Paul called the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2). We move beyond how the world trained us to think and live. This renewing of the mind produces a transformed life (Romans 12:2), a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17-18a), a new self (Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 3:9b-11). How we live is then shaped by and patterned after the ways of God Jesus taught (the Kingdom of God). The renewing of the mind leads us to love God and neighbor. It leads us to love as Jesus loved.

Reading the Bible to know God and the ways of God leads us beyond how we are inclined to use the Bible. Following the merit-based thinking of the world, we are prone to read the Bible looking for what to believe (which inevitably corresponds to what we already believe). We look for laws to obey and rules to follow. We look for a moral standard by which we judge our lives and the lives of others. For the most part, we often do more judging of others than we do ourselves. This way of reading the Bible emphasizes obeying and conforming, not loving. It allows us to judge those who do not believe what we believe or measure up to our moral expectations. It allows us to reject and exclude. This way of reading the Bible uses the Bible as a club, to attack and condemn others.

It is important to ask the right questions. The right questions bring clarity, facilitate understanding, and lead to progress. “Do you believe the Bible?” is not the right question.