People deconstructing faith have questions about the Bible. They are often deconstructing a fundamentalist view of the Bible
And I used to say things like pastor Timothy Keller that just don’t help.
“Contemporary people tend to examine the Bible, looking for things they can’t accept; but Christians should allow the Bible to examine us, looking for things God can’t accept. Then the sweet grace offered, the beauty of his love, will mean more.” (Timothy Keller)
I would say things like this (with a Reformed aired influenced by Ricoeur):
- That we shouldn’t read the Bible, but the Bible should read us.
- That we shouldn’t just interpret the Bible, but it should interpret us.
- That we shouldn’t criticize the Bible, but it should criticize us.
- That we shouldn’t judge the Bible, but it should judge us.
The idea is that God’s word should lay us open, tell us how and what to see in ourselves, be a mirror of the soul.
The idea is that we need to be conformed to God’s word, spoken to us in God’s sovereignty, God’s rule.
But instead, as the thought goes, too often contemporary people (progressives) critique the Bible by their own moral standards from a human sovereignty, stolen from God’s through rebellion.
But the people I know feel lied to about the Bible. That it is some easy-to-use, easy-to-apply, easy-to-understand book. But then, like the good fundamentalist that I was, I actually read the Bible (big sections of it) and realized that it wasn’t any of these things.
Too Bible-Centric. Not Enough Jesus.
But I’ve learned that the “Bible needs to read us” view is too Bible-centric. And that it quickly leads to Bibliolatry (worship of the Bible).
This Bible-centric view makes several assumptions:
- The Bible is easy to understand (no need for interpretation).
- The Bible has no center (all verses “examine” us equally).
- The Bible is taken on faith (without the application of reason).
But the problem…and it’s a big problem…is that the Bible (especially the New Testament), makes Jesus the center, says that we need Jesus to understand it, and that we should have faith in Jesus!
Being Conformed to Jesus
Truth is we are don’t believe in, have faith in, pray to, or cling to the Bible.
We believe in, have faith in, pray to, and cling to Jesus.
And Jesus is the true Word of God (John 1:1–3; Heb. 1:1-4).
And Jesus is the one who reads the Bible so that it (really he) can read us (Luke 24: 25-27; 44-49).
- We are conformed to Jesus…
- …who alone opens the Bible to us
- (Rom. 8:29; Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18).
- We confess Jesus as the Word…
- …who fulfills the previous revelation of God
- (John 1:1–3; Heb. 1:1-4).
- We receive the critique of Jesus…
- …even as it criticizes our reading of the Bible
- (Luke 24: 25-27; 44-49).
Getting Back to Jesus
So we need to get back to Jesus.
Meaning we need to change the emphasis.
- Jesus should read us, and our reading of the Bible.
- Jesus should judge us, and judge our reading of the Bible.
- Jesus should criticize us, and criticize our reading of the Bible.
But of course that leads us to the question of, “But don’t we just know what Jesus said because of the Bible?” and “Can we really know what Jesus really said?”
Those will be a later post, and will deal with what Keller was really hoping to get at, the question of how do we come to know anything about God anyway, is it even possible.
Turning from Biblicism to Jesus, the Word, is the first of 5 shifts in my Deconstructing Fundamentalism without Destroying Faith, aimed at helping people move out of a hyper-modern faith into a more healthy and helpful one.
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