Reading the Bible
Often the Bible is seen as a rule set. This view of the Bible is hugely problematic. Why? If nothing else, because it eliminates the need for a personal relationship with God. That is, if all I have to do is read and obey, I no longer need to seek God’s guidance and revelation.
Instead, I have been thinking about the story of the Bible in different terms. The Bible provides a default rule set for our lives and we should seek to obey. However, at times He calls us out of this default. I would site a few examples:
- Peace is a Biblical directive, however God calls David to war (interestingly, David is not allowed to build the temple because of the blood on his hands route from this obedience 1 Chronicles 22:7-9).
- The Bible commands us not to sacrifice our children, yet He calls Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
- The Bible forbids us to marry whores, yet He commands the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute.
- The new testament indicates that only men should be in leadership, yet He calls Deborah to lead Israel.
Any time we seek to read the Bible simply as a rulebook, we deny the working of the Holy Spirit and make a book an idol above God. If Israel had enforced the rule that women were never allowed in leadership, then they would have disobeyed God by not allowing Deborah to lead. That is we must acknowledge the fact that God may call us out of the Biblical framework (certainly not to something against His character) and that we must seek him out in all things.
Of course, it must be acknowledged that it is unusual for God to call us out of Biblical rule-set and thus if we believe that God is calling us out of the default (note: silence is a call to the default), we must take great care to ensure that we are hearing the Holy Spirit and not false spirits. A couple of questions useful in this endeavor are:
- Does the calling align with the character of God? Can you undertake it righteously?
- Are your trusted advisors who you are in community with confirming that this is what the Holy Spirit is saying?
If the answers to either of these is no, then there are problems. There are a few possibilities:
- A false spirit is confusing you.
- It is not yet time for the specific calling you are hearing.
- You are seeking to do it on your terms.
I would like to take a moment to address the latter (most because I like this story and feel it teaches a great lesson):
My friend’s Dad Stew tells a wonderful story that illustrates this point. He was in Africa preparing to speak to a congregation. The Pastor was standing behind the most ornate pulpit he’d ever seen. He hears the Holy Spirit tell him, “when you step up to speak, speak from there (a location down in front of the platform).” The Pastor proceeds to usher Stew into the pulpit. What should he do? If he turns around and leaves the pulpit it is culturally parallel to slapping his host in the face in front of his flock and conflicts with loving his brother. If he insists upon staying in the pulpit, he fails to obey the Holy Spirit. What would you do?
My tendency would have been to simply obey the Holy Spirit. I would be wrong however. Stew said to the Holy Spirit, “these two things are in conflict, please provide a way for me to obey you and to love my brother well” and he stepped into the middle of the pulpit. Before he could get a full sentence out of his mouth, someone called up to him, “they can’t hear you in the back, would you step down to here (pointing to the exact spot the Holy Spirit said) and speak.
I often dismiss or disobey the Holy Spirit because of my attempts to do things my way.
The alternative to this view is that the Bible speaks general revelation and provides an unalterable framework for our lives. We must rely upon God for the specific articulation of this framework in our lives, but he never calls us outside of the rules of the Bible. For example, we are all called to missions however God must guide us specifically where. This has historically been my view, however, it doesn’t square with the Biblical storyline of God calling people out of the default.
Perhaps, the best is a merger of these two views, that the Bible provides a default framework for His people, God tells us how to specifically articulate this framework and sometimes calls us outside this framework. Our ultimate responsibility is obedience to the Holy Spirit not to elders, not to ourselves, not to a book, even if the book is written by God.
Anyone have any thoughts or comments?
October 18th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Wow, I am going to have to think about all that. Way to go, you made me think.
~Brandy
October 20th, 2006 at 8:44 am
I’d like to challenge this paradigm a bit.
I suggest the issue at hand is more a question of HOW one approaches the word of God than a question of whether or not one feels God is calling him to the “biblical default” or out of it. If we are interpreting scripture in context, with the help of the Holy Spirit, how can we go wrong? I contend that following the leading of the Holy Spirit and going outside of the framework laid out in scripture are mutually exclusive concepts.
You write, “The Bible provides a default rule set for our lives and we should seek to obey…” When I read the bible, I don’t always get a “default”. In fact, I often find a lot of contradictions and paradoxes! Thomas Merton expresses a similar sentiment,
“There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible – until we manage to get so used to it that we make it comfortable for ourselves…Have we ceased to question the book and be questioned by it? Have we ceased to fight it? Then perhaps our reading is no longer serious. For most people, the understanding of the Bible is, and should be, a struggle: not merely to find meanings that can be looked up in books of reference, but to come to terms personally with the stark scandal and contradiction of the Bible itself…Let us not be too sure we know the Bible just because we have learned not to be astonished at it, just because we have learned not to have problems with it.”
You also write, “We must acknowledge the fact that God may call us out of the Biblical framework (certainly not to something against His character) and that we must seek him out in all things.” My questions is, how are you defining a “biblical framework”? I don’t see the examples you cited as a deviation from the “biblical framework”, mostly because I don’t see scripture as being quite so black-and-white.
We must interpret scripture in context. When we look at the examples you cited in the context of history and the broader message of the bible, we gain a more holistic perspective:
1) “Peace is a Biblical directive, however God calls David to war”
Is peace the biblical default? Indeed, we serve a God of peace and Jesus came to give us peace. But we also serve a God who had no qualms with commanding the Israelites to wage war on the surrounding nations and Jesus himself says, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword”. I’m not so sure peace as a biblical directive is the black-and-white default.
2)”The Bible commands us not to sacrifice our children, yet He calls Abraham to sacrifice Isaac”
Was God calling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, or was he testing Abraham to see how far his commitment would go? Gen. 22:12 makes me think that God would NOT have allowed Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. I suggest this passage is no way, shape or form condoning child sacrifice and I think it’s unfair to use it as an example of God going against the default. To do so is to miss completely the point of the passage.
3. “The Bible forbids us to marry whores, yet He commands the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute.” Where does the bible forbid us to marry whores? And, here again, I think it is unfair to use this as an example of God going against the default. When we look at this example in historical context and in the context of the broader message of scripture, we find the point of the story is not that God called Hosea to marry a whore, it’s that God called Hosea to represent His heart for the Israelites. Yancey summarizes this well in his book, The Bible Jesus Read: “…God asks Hosea to act out a shocking parable. Only by living out this drama could Hosea understand, and then relate to others, something of how Israel’s rebuke felt to God.”
4. “The new testament indicates that only men should be in leadership, yet He calls Deborah to lead Israel.” While parts of the NT delineate male headship (ex. 1 Tim 2:11-15, Eph. 5:22-24), there is also a strong precedent set for female leadership (Priscilla instructs Appollos in Acts 18, Nympha and Lydia have house churches, Paul recognizes women as his “co-workers”, Anna is recognized as a prophetess etc.) To make the blanket, black-and-white statement that the default of scripture is that only men should be in leadership is a contradiction to several clear scriptural examples otherwise.
Finally, you write, “Our ultimate responsibility is obedience to the Holy Spirit not to elders, not to ourselves, not to a book, even if the book is written by God.”
I think this statement puts you on thin ice, because you are suggesting that the word of God is fallible. Granted, I agree that elders, ourselves and books are fallible. I’m not sure we can separate the role of the Holy Spirit and the role of the Word of God if we believe that “all scripture is God-breathed”; the two are inextricably linked.
Okay, I suppose I’ve put off Anthropology reading for long enough…Ugh. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and allowing me to share mine.
-Jen
October 25th, 2006 at 11:03 am
Jen,
Thank you for your thoughtful treatment of my post (as usual). I think we are getting at the same point and you have done an excellent job of fleshing out the core of what I am saying from another angle. Bravo!