The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor

Lawrence R. Taylor, M.Div., Ph.D.

The purpose of the Bible is to lead us to Jesus, not so we can go to heaven when we die, but so we can learn to be fully human and fully alive, connected with the Source of ultimate love, the ground of being.¹

The Bible is wisdom literature. Some of it is specifically in the wisdom genre, but all of it, whether historical, poetic, apocalyptic, prophetic, or personal communication, contains wisdom to apply in our lives. Some of us were mistakenly taught that simply flattening the text and reading it for information would somehow change us and make us godlier. We were taught that the Bible is all about certainty: read it, believe it. Don’t interpret it; just do what it says—plain and simple. That is fundamentalism.² It leads to things like thinking the universe is 6,000 years old, humans shared the earth with dinosaurs, God hates homosexuals, heaven is “up there,” and God is pleased when empires bomb schools and hospitals.

To understand the Bible, we need to move from certainty to wisdom. The reality in which we live is always in flux. Change is always at play. Most of the cells in our bodies were not there seven years ago.³ All of nature is continuously, albeit sometimes very slowly, evolving. Natural selection is at work. Stars and planets orbit. It can feel terrifying not to have something certain, something absolute on which to build a life.

Of course, there are some unchangeable things. God doesn’t change.⁴ It’s not possible for perfection to become more perfect. Our perception and understanding of God, however, are always growing.⁵ God didn’t order the ancient Israelites to slaughter anybody. The ancient Israelites assumed God ordered them to slaughter. It was a natural assumption. All ancient Near Eastern cultures gave credit to their gods for victories in battle.⁶ The tribal shepherds had a partial view of God; the prophets understood a bit more; the Gospels and letters of the New Testament give us further insights,⁷ but my understanding of the nature of God is always growing because there’s always more of God to discover. The divine heart is infinitely deep.⁸

The Bible is the Bible. New discoveries are made; archaeologists, textual scholars, and translators are hard at work.⁹ We get updates, but the canon is the canon.¹⁰ There’s nothing wrong with the Bible. There might be a great deal wrong with how we interpret the Bible.¹¹ The two creation stories in Genesis are points in fact.¹² The problem is not the Bible; the problem is that we misread it through a modernist or postmodern Occidental lens.

We need to understand what the text meant to its original audience. That’s the task of scholarship.¹³ But we also then need to ask how it applies to us today. That’s where wisdom comes in. Scripture is meant to be meditated upon, prayed over, discussed, thought about, and applied.¹⁴ Working with a spiritual director helps lead us to discovering wisdom.

To understand the Bible, we need to move from information to transformation. The Bible is a unified story leading to Jesus, as the folks at the BibleProject say.¹⁵ Too many of us sit for hours in churches learning about the Bible only to walk away unchanged. How much does the average churchgoer resemble Jesus? Information is fine, interesting, and needful. Transformation is essential.¹⁶

To understand the Bible, we need to move from deconstruction to reconstruction. When some people talk of deconstructing and reconstructing their faith, they mean tossing out the stuff that doesn’t work (or they don’t like) and replacing it with a new certainty. Then we’re right back where we started—arguing for and defending our newfound certainty.

If we are thinking people seeking wisdom and transformation, we are aware of flux and change—we are always deconstructing and reconstructing. It is an ongoing, never-ending process. It’s also a glorious adventure.

To understand the Bible, we need to move from individuality to community. Everything in the universe (or multiverse, if you prefer) is connected.¹⁷ The stroke of a butterfly wing in Africa can affect the weather in Europe. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in Quantum Physics where two or more particles become linked so that the state of one instantly relates to the state of the other, no matter how far apart they are.¹⁸ Kill all the bees and you’ve killed much of the food chain.¹⁹ It is dangerous to go it alone. A lamb off by itself will soon be prey. An isolated coal will soon grow cold.

We Americans love individuality. We think we can go off by ourselves, read the Bible, and know what it means. We can’t. We need community. Now, I happen to be very introverted. Being with large groups exhausts me. The worst thing about church for me is when we are told to greet each other or pass the peace. (Point me out and have me stand up as a first-time guest, and I’ll never be back.) Nevertheless, biblical wisdom that leads to formation only occurs when we are in dialogue with others.²⁰ It doesn’t have to be a large group, but it must be more than just me. I’m not talking about listening to a sermon. Sermons are fine and good, but wisdom that results in real transformation comes from struggling with the text, asking questions, raising concerns, pushing back—not from being told what to believe.

We therefore need safe spaces with a few people we trust and love where we can share concerns, ask questions, dig into the biblical text, pray with one another, and not feel like we all must agree on every point. We need to trust God to change us and them as needed. My job is to love, listen, respect, and share honestly—not argue, judge, or lecture.

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Footnotes 

1. N. T. Wright, Simply Christian (New York: HarperOne, 2006), 198–205.
2. Peter Enns, The Bible Tells Me So (New York: HarperOne, 2014), 3–25.
3. See discussion in National Institutes of Health, “How Often Do Cells Replace Themselves?” (general scientific consensus varies by cell type).
4. Malachi 3:6; James 1:17.
5. Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses, trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978).
6. John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 264–78.
7. N. T. Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God (New York: HarperOne, 2013).
8. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I/1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1936), 295–310.
9. Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
10. Lee Martin McDonald, The Biblical Canon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007).
11. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998).
12. John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009).
13. Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014).
14. Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006).
15. BibleProject, “What Is the Bible?” video series.
16. Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).
17. Richard Bauckham, Bible and Ecology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010).
18. David J. Griffiths, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
19. Dave Goulson, A Sting in the Tale (New York: Picador, 2014).
20. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Row, 1954).

Bibliography

Bauckham, Richard. Bible and Ecology. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010.

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. Vol. I/1. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1936.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. New York: Harper & Row, 1954.

Enns, Peter. The Bible Tells Me So. New York: HarperOne, 2014.

Goldingay, John. Old Testament Theology. Vol. 1. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2003.

Hauerwas, Stanley. A Community of Character. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981.

McGrath, Alister E. Christian Theology: An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017.

Walton, John H. The Lost World of Genesis One. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009.

Wright, N. T. Scripture and the Authority of God. New York: HarperOne, 2013.

BibleProject. “What Is the Bible?” Video series.