What does it mean to be "Bible Believing?"

 

A lot of people out there will describe themselves as "Bible-believing" Christians. Or they'll say they attend a "Bible-believing" church.

 

But what does that mean?

 

A lot of Christianity has been reduced (yes... I said reduced) to a series of arguments about what ancient books really mean, or how they apply today, or whatever. And people assume (I'd say wrongly) that the point of the Bible is about telling us what we should think about everything and anything.

 

They've turned what's meant to be a profound faith, an intimate spirituality, into cold/dead religion based on shallow knowledge and facts. 

 

Oh, they think their knowledge is "deep." Sort of like the kid who is in two feet of water, jumping up and down, shouting, "Look at me! I'm in the deep end!" Problem is, there's a whole other side of the pool they aren't ready to dive into yet. They'll get there. But it takes time, and probably a little struggle, to get there.

 

If "getting the facts right" was the point of the Bible we'd probably have fewer stories, fewer histories, less poetry, fewer letters giving comfort/advice to specific people in specific situations... and more declarative, universal, pronouncements.

 

There are universal truths taught in the Scripture. I'm not denying that. But discerning them is as much an art as a science. It requires taking the texts on their own terms, respecting context, and using extreme caution when extracting principles from an ancient text before slapping them onto our modern agendas.

 

I won't say my spirituality is Bible-centered. It's Christ-centered. There's a difference. 

 

Because I don't worship a book. 

 

My faith is based on the One revealed in Scripture. It sounds subtle (like, what's really the difference?) but it's an important distinction.

 

Bibliolatry is a real problem... especially in a lot of Evangelical/Fundamentalist circles... where the Bible is treated with so much reverence that it has actually replaced Christ functionally in the way some Christians live out their faith.

 

And it can be dangerous. Because Jesus told us the Bible's purpose. It was a means God used to reveal Himself to us -- and that revelation meets its consummation in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Luke 24:27).

 

A lot of "bible believing" folks out there are great at cherry-picking the Scriptures... finding minor issues to turn into their majors...

 

Many today do exactly like the Pharisees did in the Gospels. The harshest words Jesus ever spoke were reserved for these religious leaders.  The people consumed with literalism but didn't understand the literal sense of the Scriptures. The focused on the letter rather than the spirit of God's revealed law.

 

When Jesus pronounced "woe are you" to the Pharisees, He was effectively condemning their bibliolatry.  

 

He condemned them for focusing on the small things. What people today might call missing the forest for the trees.

 

These religious leaders tithed dill and mint (according to the Law of Moses) but neglected the weightier matters of the Torah like mercy, love, and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23). This is the kind of religion that Jesus condemns more harshly than any specific sin or behavior.

 

Jesus says their approach to the Scriptures was like straining at gnats while swallowing a camel. A vivid metaphor, for sure. We could modernize the metaphor a bit.

 

I'm going to make these examples gross/graphic/shocking to drive home the point. 

 

It's sort of like spraying Lysol in a toilet while a turd still floats in the bowl.  

 

It's like waving away the flies from a plate of food that's been sitting out for days and is already infected by salmonella. 

 

It's like criticizing one of Hitler's speeches because he had a misplaced comma in his manuscript.  

 

It's like painting the walls in a condemned house that's structurally unsafe.  

 

I think you get the idea...

 

This is the kind of mistake that (frankly) still characterizes too much Christian discourse today.

 

The point of the Bible isn't to give you a tool to do a differential diagnosis on other people's sin so we can feel morally superior or shout condemnations at them. It's not about telling us how to divide the world up into "good guys" and "bad guys."

 

Anyone can believe that certain things are true (intellectually) without having the right kind of spirit and heart about it...

 

That's the point James (2:19) makes. Demons have perfect doctrine. They know what's true. That doesn't make them righteous.

 

First and foremost, the Bible is an encounter with God.   

 

The Word of God isn't about cognitive mastery. It isn't merely knowledge.

 

Human words are like that. They don't have any innate power.

 

God's words actually change reality.

 

When God speaks worlds are made. 

 

Out of nothing.

 

And when he speaks into our cold/dead hearts...

 

We're made new. 

 

And this isn't something that happens once, you move on, nothing's different.

 

It's not the result of a human decision. It doesn't happen according to human will. (John 1:13).

 

But it does happen every day according to God's promise.

 

The Word of God is primarily a powerful encounter with God through Christ and the Holy Spirit.

 

I'll get into that more later

 

But suffice it to say that I strive to be faithful to what Scripture teaches. Not because it's important to be right, or because I'm afraid of being wrong. But because the genuine Word of God does things normal words don't.  

 

When I read the Bible I'm not primarily concerned with getting information. I'm meditating on the text because it offers a window into the heart and mind of God. And that window carries fresh and life-giving air (the breath of God) into our lives. 

 

BUT if the LOVE of GOD is paramount... shouldn't we point out other people's sin? Shouldn't we fight over the TRUTH? Is it really loving to let them go on sinning or believing false doctrine without warning them about the fire of hell?  

 

I've heard this argument a thousand times. But here's the thing. Do people really change their behaviors or views because of your condemnations? Do they change their lives out of fear of punishment? Will people ever hear your arguments at all if you're coming at them from your high horse?

They certainly won't if they think you'll full of it. If they don't believe that you're speaking the truth.

The only way to change lives is to affect people's hearts. The only way to have any influence on behaviors is to introduce them to something transformative...  

 

And that can only happen when we humble ourselves. Even Jesus, who was the truth, didn't come at people from a high-horse, or from a position of being Almighty. He took on the form of a servant. (Philippians 2). From that perspective, when he taught, people recognized that his words had an authority that the other teaches didn't have. Not because of his boasting, or the force of his language, but because his words carried power... they were transformative... they hit the heart in the way that only the words of One who could call everything out of nothing could.

 

The love of Christ puts us on-the-level with others. It allows the love of Christ to shine through us, rather than our egos about being "right." All people need before they're ready to encounter the kind of transformative love that Christ offers is a recognition that there's something broken within... that something's wrong about the world... 

 

They don't need to be beat over the head with every single moral issue/sin that someone else decided condemns them.

 

All they need to know is enough to realize they need a savior... something bigger, deeper, higher than themselves... that they aren't sufficient on their own to make sense of a world that too often hurts us in ways that don't make sense.

 

What needs to be changed about a person's behaviors, actions, etc., can happen over time. But no one changes anything in their lives on a long-term basis if their heart isn't changed first.

 

If you don't believe it, just look at what's happened over the last several decades as Christians protested Roe v. Wade.

 

I'm not going to get into the pro-choice/pro-life argument here because that's not the point.

 

The point is that for years people got angry. They put bible verses on poster board. They stood outside abortion clinics shouting at people as they went in. They demanded their politicians vote against abortion-friendly policies and hoped that some day the Supreme Court would overturn Roe V. Wade.

 

Well, guess what. It happened. Roe v. Wade was overturned.

 

But in the months since the numbers of abortion in the country haven't declined that much (if at all). It's gotten less convenient for some people to get abortions, sure. But overall it's barely made a difference in terms of reducing the numbers of abortions which was always the pro-life agenda.

 

That's because the protestors were focused on the wrong thing the entire time. Changing laws doesn't change people's hearts. If you want to have an impact on people's behaviors, you can't do that by whipping them around with laws and political positions.

 

All that does is make them bitter and hate you (and everything you represent).

 

The Gospel changes hearts. It gives us a different perspective on the world. It even makes us look a little weird to the rest of the world. But that change won't happen by shouting at people, electing different politicians, or protesting the government.

 

We aren't victims. Stop playing the "we're persecuted" card just because society has values that have shifted away from yours. The first century church entered a world that legitimized behaviors far more grotesque than anyone in our world would allow today. Even in that context, Paul doesn't spend a second in his letters condemning the secular world or the corrupt government that ruled from Rome.

 

They never played the victim card. Paul never once whined about the way people treated him -- even when they stoned him for his message.

 

Instead he focuses on bringing them the Gospel. And he encourages the people of the Church to let the way they live inspire people to ask questions. Why do you live that way? Why, Christians, are you adopting these unwanted children that the Romans are leaving out on the hill to die? Why, Christians, do you refuse to fight in unjust wars?

 

I could go on and on.

 

See, purging the world of "sinful behavior" isn't God's priority. It's about winning hearts. He wants people to seek Him more fervently... not merely "behave" in certain ways.

 

God isn't as "offended" by our actions as some theologies/preachers/people want us to think. He's saddened by these things because He loves us already.

 

And it's his heart that reaches out to us... wants to show us a better way... and when that happens, we can't help but bear fruit like a tree that's finally watered properly and rooted in nourishing soil. The infinite and radical love of God is what waters us... what nourishes us... what produces fruit in keeping with both repentance and charity/love. 

 

So I digress...

 

I believe in the literal sense of Scripture but I don't subscribe to literalism.  

 

In other words, I believe that we have to understand what the original text meant, what the author intended for his original readers (more likely, hearers).

 

Only after we've examined that are we prepared to consider the spiritual meaning of the text.

 

Sometimes that means that verses we'd love to quote because they hammer some kind of social faux paus or pet-peeve we have with the way our world is today aren't always directly applicable. We have to honor the literal sense first before we start applying the message to things going on around us.

 

Make sense? I have a method I recommend for reading the Bible more deeply. I'll get to that. It's a couple weeks into this daily sequence. So stay tuned. There are a few things/themes I want to engage together first.

 

For me, faith isn't about knowing the right stuff. Being holy isn't about your knowledge. Though knowledge can be a handle we hold onto to take us deeper.

 

Faith isn't about polishing up our spiritual resume. It's not about doing great and impressive deeds.

 

When Jesus says "follow me," he bids us to follow all the way... he bids us to follow and die.  

 

Die to our old ways, the self-centered and destructive patterns of the flesh... and to embrace a love so profound that it's sometimes offensive to our rules-oriented, good guys versus villains, do-gooder religious culture.

 

Sometimes Biblical love offends "church people" as much as it does the world. It's always been that way.

 

Lots to wrestle with today. But it's worth it. I promise.

 

Always under Grace!

Judah