a collection of some thoughts about the bible

some thoughts about the bible


my own personal view point
 

i'm coming at "the bible" from a new point of view for me. i've read it believed it and acted on it for years. but it's been turned upside down, put back to front. this period of my life if feel i've been experiencing things and am now finding them in "the bible".
i'm coming at "the bible" from the perspective of having spent nearly a decade 1996 to 2006, not being able to read it much. i was too poorly. but during those years someone walked very close with me and gave me an utter conviction of his presence with me. despite old fashioned loneliness amongst other things he was always there and while everything i have done and am has been called into question in one way or another he was a simple accepting reassuring strengthening presence. i was very socially isolated in practice nursing my sick kids and bipolar husband, trying to keep up work and church membership. and a lot of misunderstandings made me even more lonely. but i remember him feeling so close that i could almost touch him. i could barely formulate "prayers". in fact i felt God told me to stop trying to.
i've only been to church a few times since 2003 cos i cant get our much and i did manage to get thrown out of 2 churches and a mission agency cos of the misunderstandings. but tho i am grateful for all the years i had of fellowship and teaching i'm also enjoying the opportunity to come at things afresh. my view of God has got bigger not smaller. i'm enjoying asking questions and exploring ideas. in this context looking at the bible from new is proving a fascinating experience. i cant see it as chapter and verses any more either. for the moment i cant handle words that have had religious ideas strapped on to them either.
i've been gripped by the people in it. i've been moved by the vivid accounts of clinical depression of naomi, chronic illness of job. i've been touched by a law system that repeats so often that it is available for the foreigner, the weak, the poor, the fatherless, and woe betide those who oppress them. letter after letter that emphasise, even more than theology, the practical outworking of loving God and loving loving others. generosity. and honesty. my giddy aunt we dont know the half of it. i've been moved by my own understanding of myself as a sinner based not on doing bad things but my concept of God's holiness being ever less like a sterilised hospital and more like freshly driven snow. sparkling, light, luminous, exciting, inviting, with a hint of danger. despite me basically being a "nice" person, and liking "niceness" it seems empty compared with that dazzling life giving power. the dynamic of the holy spirit. the God who "talks". who" talks" through his writings too, and "talks" in person. it comes to me over and over as i'm reading it in hungry gulps - if ever anyone was so in earnest to try to communicate, if ever his hearers so thick ....
and through it all the person of Jesus walks through the page and i recognise that presence with me. the one who touched people and noticed them and accepted meal invitations where no "decent christian" would be at ease is the one who i have had walk by my side, whispering in my weary heart and clumsy mind - "do not fear for i am with you". that same word over and again, along with a conviction of being held like a baby bird in the palm of a large workman's hand. i've been moved by the utter dedication of Jesus to people, not in a dry "ought to" sort of way but in the way of someone who has genuine care and genuine authority. i'm not discouraged by my pathetic little efforts, everyone has to start somewhere, but inspired by the profoundness of his understanding of how we tick and what we are really.
i'm such a beginnner. i feel i've got everything to learn.
i feel i've been pretty ham fisted in learning to express myself but i hope i'm learning. i hope my clumsiness hasn't put you off. it's mainly over excitedness. i'll calm down eventually. or maybe i wont. i'm an enthusiast.

i find it very hard to think about "the bible" as just one concept these days. it isn't a book, its such a hodge podge of a collection of documents that i think each needs looking at in it's own right, or at least within it's grouping. i don't know why the letter of james wasn't included. i don't have a problem when people see Jesus from a variety of perspectives.
i think some of the critics of "the bible" have a point because we've made claims that "the bible" cant realistically live up to. i think some find that christians stick in their craw for other reasons, and knocking the bible is a good way to upset them and put them on the defensive.
i do have a big problem with the more dogmatic churches that say you have to interpret this, this way, especially those with fundamentalist tendancies. i have problems with how they speak to those who dont agree with them too. thats why the creation evolution debate sends me batty. i think the science fundamentalists are just as rude and patronising as the so called creationists. i freely admit i have personal issues with fundamentalists whose negativity and rigidity and emphasis on the trivial while missing out on the the essentials did a lot of damage in my family (tho wonderfully there is a thread of faith that continues like a river that's gone underground). i have issues with people having to be proved right and having to put others down in order to do so. i've had to back off some words that are trigger words - like "evangelical" "bible" "gospel" - not that i don't believe them but they have come to have such negative connotations.
here in france the way many people talk on the radio they really believe that if you believe any of the bible you have to be a cretin. they get really angry about creation of any sort being taught in schools in the us. the concepts of bible have got caught up with images of george w bush and his gung-ho attitude to war and god, and his resemblance to a monkey when he smiles. and with black gospel music. many catholics, even nominal ones still wouldn't touch the bible with a barge pole - they've been taught it's too dangerous and only a priest should look at it. they really believe it. people in the 21st century still believe that.
as usual i want the best of both worlds. i think the polarisation of these debates make for stupidity. i think the documents of the bible, as originally written, are probably a pretty accurate account of what they are an account of but they don't claim to be a world history and i don't think they are.

i read the daily bible notes by jeff lucas, lucas on life every day and he's said more than once that there are bits of the bible he has problems with, not cos he doesnt believe that they're true, more cos he's worried they might be. and he freely admits that there are also large bits he doesnt begin to understand. his main point is to apply what we can believe and trust which comes back to other issues like how you see God etc i think that's the nearest i can get to where i'm at. pressure to believe and act on things you're not sure about can be very damaging long term even if it ensures a bit of short term orthodoxy. believing things that are wrong can also be very damaging.

we need to be consistent and scientific about these things - what sort of source documents etc are we willing to accept to make them "authentic" history ? which news paper account would we accept as valid of current news ? if we're going to accept for example that homer's accounts of the trojan wars are accurate with no other corroboration, or the earliest reports on the sayings of confuscious which date a good 500 years after he died, or the accounts of the life and battles of julius ceasar written by julius ceasar starring julius ceasar ... ? in comparison the sayings of socrates written down by plato who modified them to fit with his own teachings is pretty good evidence cos at least we know the author's motives and we know there was a direct link with the original person.

 

 why i accept the bible as evidence about itself.

 

* as far as i can tell even opponents will now admit that they are def the best historical records around as historical records go, by historians standards, according to my sister who worked in an archeology  lab for a while. even if you don't want to live your life by what's in them it seems likely that they do say what they say and a lot of what they say may well have happened, or the way the story is told is an accurate representation of the point of view of the particular people group who is telling the story.

* 4 accounts, written within the life time of many of the first hand witnesses is a pretty strong hand. one of those accounts seems to be written by an independent researcher, sponsored by a non-jew, who interviewed eyewitnesses himself, even the socially outcast, even women, beggars, prostitutes, collaborators with enemy powers, is really quite a coup. the descriptions of the romans for example are consistent with all the other things we know about the romans. all the other writers knew each other. they were related or had been disciples together. as far as i know only luke set out to write the complete biography or Jesus and the early "church". all the other documents and letters fill in each other, fill in for where there are gaps in teaching. james is not going to double up the teachings of paul or peter. they worked together, stayed accountable to each other.

 
* the alternative is believing popes ect i'm sorry i don't trust a pope as far as i could throw one, however much i might admire individual ones.
* i think the archeology backs up a lot of the bible not the popes. where there is no archelology - (and that is a good bit of the early part of the bible), this is typical of many nomadic, low ecological foot print people groups. much of what we know about groups like tuaregs and bushmen etc is based on their own memories and that is not called into question. in order to make a lasting impact on the land scape you either have to do the same thing in the same place for a very long time leaving field, road, dwelling, cultural patterns etc that we can guess from OR you have to have a lot of power and money to be able to build a monument. stonehenge couldn't have been built by a nice little village community sharing and being kind to each other any more than the pyramids were.
* i think if a theology still has to be expressed in latin it's probably dodgy.
* i think some "fundamentalist" teachings are as arrogant and pompous and erroneous as the popes. based on out of date translations of the bible and applied with ignorant and bigoted blinkered rigidity. so called "literal" application appalls me cos it's not what it claims to be. they apply one interpretation of one "verse" as it suits them without even looking at it's own context let alone its historical context. how could the teachings about race have become so prevalent amongst those groups based on a very vague misinterpretation of one verse in genesis when the whole law reiterates over and again that foreigners are to have more or less the same legal rights and obligations as natives, let alone all the teaching about equality in the NT.
* the evangelicals didn't actually break away from this rot till in the 40s and it took much longer to root it out of groups that call themselves evangelical or pentecostal. i'm an evangelical in the sense that luther invented the word - someone who has responded to the good news off my own bat not cos a church has told me i've got to go via it as an intermediary.
* what does the bible actually claim about itself ? - nothing like what the people who try to use it as incantations and spells claim. nor what some groups who use bits of it to justify their own politics. as far as i can see "word of God" is an expression that means several things not just the written collection of documents. for goodness sake why do have to use the words in latin. scripture just means written down. ok, lets say writings so it doesn't have religious overtones. bible - greek for collection or library. why are we so superstitious about it ?
* it claims to be a true account of what happened. as it was originally written that seems quite likely. where there's a difference there's often the alternative present too - eg the "chronicles" are the account of national events kept by the priests, an expurgated version of history. but the two volumes referred to as "kings" are a much fuller version, no holds barred, no taboos account of all the kings' faults as well as their strengths. as it is, it's all a much more coherent account of a nation's history than anything we have in britain so far back, so who do we think we are to pull it to pieces ? some of it is written down from an older oral record , that's no guess work, it actually says when things start to be from a written record in genesis . (it also mentions when the bronze age arrived to their peoples.)
words used in the bible to describe itself : 



1)  "the scriptures" - always referring to the old testament. they didn't even necessarily see the OT as a whole - sometimes the prophetic books are referred to separately from the historical and devotional documents : the law, and the prophets.
2) "the good news of Jesus" . gospel, ev-angel - latin and greek for good news - a common expression at the time - lots of wars - people would wait for an angel - messenger , to announce the progress in the latest international conflict. if the news was good he was called a herald of good news : angel + ev . which would be announced or proclaimed - the word we translate by preach, in a public place. this tradition was carried on in britain with the town cryer and we now call it a news bulletin, still communicated by an announcer (who wasn't present) or a reporter (who was).
3) "the teaching of the apostles". which is what it says.

how we use the bible, and what it is not.

* it's not a book of sayings. There's only 2 documents in the whole  bible collection that are - proverbs and ecclesiastes. anywhere else we can't expect to just dip in and make full sense of any extract without bothering to read the rest. things are written in the context of a family saga, or a biography, a royal dynasty, a national crisis, a personal letter, a systematic explanation, a letter resolving a dispute or correcting error. so we can't use quoting a bible verse like a magic spell in a situation. we have to quote it intelligently

* not expecting everything in our current translation to make complete sense. The bible should, in my opinion be treated with the same circumspect respect as any historical documents.  I would not like to lay odds as to whether the word translated "day" in my Bible means 24 hours, or general time period in the original ? it changes nothing about the fact that comes up all through the Bible - that God created the heavens and the earth, so why get our knickers in a twist about it ? did they thread camel thread (like threading the silk, or cotton into your needle) with difficulty or was it an actual camel through a small gate ?. these are things that are not central to salvation and i can hold on an open hand.

* People talk about details in the bible being inconsistent, but they're not being consistent themselves. the same ppl might accept hieroglyphics, or julius ceasar's writings to be a reliable account even though they're open to a huge amount of interpretation, and may have had elements of political propaganda too in their own day.

A Rave : Church Congregations

I happen to be crazy about church planting, especially when it's in it's early stages. We've had the privilege to be closely connected with quite a few church plants. The depth of fellowship and commitment to one another and to the Lord is something really special. As in most expressions of mission, being outward looking but nourishing the inner functioning makes for some very special group dynamics. These are where I have seen the gifts and fruit of the spirit most freely expressed. Where I have seen people mature and grow as they take on new responsibilities. I just love the sense of hearing God speak, of the expectation that he will, and the flexibility to be willing to act on what he says.

I do have problems when these groups are victims of their own success. They get too big and too noticeable to be able to take risks or let new people have a go. People believe that it was the leaders who did it and sometimes the leaders themselves end up believing that too. It wasn't, it's always a group dynamic even if there is a particularly inspiring leader at the heart of it.

I loved what David Pawson spoke about some years ago in the early days of the new churches movement. He said that as far as he can see from the bible it's healthy for each christian to have contact at several different levels. He called it Cell, Congregation and Celebration. 

* Cell : That everyone should have a place they can share personally and intimately. 
* Congregation :That they should be able to be part of a group that is big enough to have a public identity but small enough for everyone to still know each other, and 
* Celebration : to be big enough for folks to be able to be aware of being part of something much bigger than their parochial interests.

I can relate to that, I can relate it to my own human social needs. I need to function and have an identity at several different levels. Just as much in my faith as in any other area of life. I need networks, and I need them on different levels.

Although I like Cell and Celebration I know that my happiest area of functioning is Congregation. I just love getting together to worship God and learn together. I have been privileged to have been involved in worship bands in one way or another for nearly 30 years. In a smaller groups a band is not needed, it would be overwhelming, in bigger groups no one would have asked me to lead, or even be involved. There, I'm pretty selfish why I like congregations! I love the dynamic of leading worship in a group that is big enough to have a good number of people who will pray out loud but not so big that new or not so confident people can't join in; where there are several people who prophecy - not that they all do it all the time, but there will be a body of experience that can test prophecy and again can support those who are new or lacking confidence.

For children I think it's good to have a social grouping that means that it's not just a tiny group of children thrown on each other but the dynamic of a group that can do more age appropriate things. I think it's good for kids to relate to a reasonable number of adults, not that they know them all to talk to, but they watch, they see how they treat each other and the simple familiarity makes for stability and trust to be able to be built up. They do notice especially how their parents relate to the group and how they take responsibility and how they get enjoyment. Of course if these groups become rigid, self sufficient, self centered they can no longer have the dynamic dynamics that make them both stimulating but safe. They become prisons.That doesn't make the groups wrong, just one particular group becomes unhealthily self obsessed. On the other hand groups equally become so task orientated that they don't meet the needs of their members.

I know it became an unbalanced teaching for a while, but I really do think that a happy and relatively stable church is a brilliant way to reach out to people. That's how I function. I make friends and share my faith and bring them into the body of people who will nurture them and lead them on. I feel like i'm living with a limp not having that.

I have had to live with very little fellowship for a number of years. It's not a normal or healthy way of being, but that's how it was. I still can't "go to church". God has given me his grace to live with that. I couldn't even read the bible or pray for a while I was so unwell and having to care for our sick kids. God reached out to me and carried me through those years. He stuck by me all the way. But that's not a normal situation. I can understand that there are a number of people who for their own different reasons need to walk a more solitary christian walk for a while. I think I have actually benefited from being able to sit back and think about what I believe and what I want in my corporate expression of that. But in other ways I have seriously lacked help, support, understanding that should have been there if I had been able to be part of a healthy christian grouping at that time. I'm very grateful for 3 friends who I had not necessarily been that close to before, I knew them through church or christian union links, but who have reached out to me in a particular way at a particular time to help me cope with something. These things don't just "happen". I hope that in some ways I have been able to set in motion christian actions to make things happen, and to support others who have been able to make much bigger initiatives than I could. That is part of what "church" is about for me. The thing about congregation is that we can make them happen for everyone, not just for the popular or accessible people. People who are naturally reserved under the surface like I was need these communities of faith especially both to be able to receive and to be able to give.

Yes, some models of "church" do not seem to be best adapted to meet some people's needs. Yes, I can see that there are serious areas of dysfunction in some types of church grouping that can cause damage and cause alienation or oppression or leave people open to manipulative or domination behaviours. But I still believe the "church" in some form or other is the best default setting for most of us most of the time. We are social beings. We benefit from some social structures and rituals and obligations. I am not so cynical as to believe that anarchy will always lead to a "Lord of the Flies" situation, but I do feel that without some social structures we are not automatically nice. Whilst I'm very wary of the concept of heresy I do think that there needs to be recognition that there can be what the NT calls false teaching, people do get led into error, and there is a need for some form of ways of dealing with that. Error is not bad just cos it's wrong, it's because it leads to unhealthy practices and deprives people of the truth. 

Also I think some sort of structure of some sort is needed to protect the weak and to promote their interests. If Paul had to point out to a lovely excited and exciting church in Corinth that they were being pretty mean by not making sure there was food for those who were poor at their communal meals, how can we think that we don't need someone keeping a weather eye on our practices or lack of them sometimes.

For those who need to walk the less communal walk at the moment, I do understand what it is and have walked it too. I throw no stones at you. I hope you find it refreshing and fulfilling. I think it is very significant that a remarkable number of those who no longer feel able to be part of four walls church have had leadership roles of one sort or another. They're not stupid. They know their bibles. There seem to me especially to be rather a number of disappointed idealists and creative thinkers. For all that I believe that church can be wonderful and I think it's the best human default setting for expressing and growing our faith in the long run, there are issues that need to be addressed. I highly respect Jeff Lucas who has been confronting some of these things in his CWR daily bible reading notes recently, and in other of his writings for a few years now. May we grow in learning how the ligaments in Ephesians grow and build each other up.

A Rave : Leviticus

i would go steady on ridiculing Leviticus.

i think we should still be very careful about non-safety checked sea food and pork. bacon is a way of preserving pork so that it is a safe meat, but in a warm climate even that can be unreliable. i have not checked about the reasons for not mixing fibres. i know that on the whole most people don't do it but i don't know why.

but i do know that in it's day Leviticus was radical. 

given for a people who had been pastoral nomads, then slaves for 400 years, the old testament "law" is a collection of laws and guidelines and case law (numbers), that was virtually unknown on that scale in a day and age where written law is very very rare and most communities depended on the will of a king, landowner or war lord as the only thing to stand against the law of the jungle. 

Leviticus is a brilliant (in my view) and brand new way of regulating priestly power and behaviour so that their actions are clearly limited and cant be used for manipulation and extortion practices.  

if wisely followed they ensure 
* a  ritual role plus a sensible public health role for the priestly caste in society. 
(law enforcement is consigned to local community "elders". 
 defence became run by national "judges"). 

* they encourage broadly useful food guidelines in making memorable and useful rules (even tho some exceptions carefully researched and carried out wouldnt kill you). 

* for contagious conditions the main guide lines for public health (not doctor treatment, two different roles)  are quarantine and washing with clean water. using those same two guidelines the french managed to contain the H1N1 out break far more than any other country even though their  vaccination programme was an expensive wash out. 

* the guidelines for creeping mildew are almost exactly the same as for dry rot in britain currently. 

* the forbidden relationships are mainly to prevent various sorts of incest and generational confusion useful for inheritance and social stability as well as moral purposes.