Going to the Bible Buffet

Last time, if you’ll recall, we talked about the Bible as a “Magic Book.” A friend of mine summed that attitude up well in his comment: “It was okay not to read it or ever incorporate it into your life, but DON'T EVER put anything on top of it!” The problem consists of having an outward reverence for the Bible but no actual use for it. However, for many people, this is not the issue. Many evangelicals have managed to get away from the legalism that says, “Don’t set anything on the Bible” but are still stuck in some extremely unprofitable and even dangerous ways of using it. I’m going to talk about one of those today.

One of the places we often take lunch meetings is at the Sushi House. It’s a good place – the sushi isn’t as good as some places, but it’s actually affordable. It’s done buffet-style and only costs about $7 to eat lunch there, so we go - if not every week, then at least every couple of weeks. You’ve got your choice of sushi (various vegetables and cooked fish with cold rice rolled up in seaweed), sashimi (raw fish on cold rice), various cooked Oriental foods (sweet and sour stuff, fried noodles, so on) and soup. Even people who don’t like sushi can find something they like, usually, so it’s a good place to go.

I usually get tekkamaki (smoked tuna rolled up in rice and seaweed) and kappamaki (sliced cucumber rolled up in rice and seaweed), tamago (scrambled egg layers on rice), various other vegetable rolls that I don’t know the names of, sake nigiri sushi (not the drink, smoked salmon on rice) and some of the cooked food. It’s really good. Other people get different things. Some of them can’t stand any of the sashimi or nigiri sushi, the kind with the raw fish on it. Some don’t even bother with any of the sushi, and instead just eat the fried vegetables and chicken on a skewer and stuff. That’s okay though, because it’s a buffet. You’re supposed to pick and choose, to take what you want and leave the rest.

Sadly, that’s how many of us read the Bible. We look through it, trying to find things that sound good to us. Searching endlessly for “a verse that will speak to me.” And when we find something that sounds good, we rip it from its context and enshrine it in our pointy little heads in a box labeled “God Says …”. Then, anytime we’re seeking “God’s will for our lives” we look in the box and pull out whatever verse we’ve cherry-picked that seems to fit.

We may find Jeremiah 29:11 – a very popular verse - and put that in the box. “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD , "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” What’s not to like? God wants us to prosper and for us to have hope and a future. Hallelujah! Now let’s get back to whatever we were doing when something intruded on our normal lives.

This is the error that lies behind the Word-Faith movement. Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer and their kind all teach that if you “claim” the promise given in that verse – that is, if you have faith and ask pray for prosperity using the right words (hence “Word-Faith”) then God has no choice but to give it to you. Still not prosperous? You must not have enough faith. A good way of getting more faith is to send Creflo or Kenneth or Joyce your money.

This is a terrible distortion of how we are to relate to God. Instead of treating God as a person whom we can know, it makes him a force that can be manipulated. It reduces him to a Cosmic Candy Machine: if we put in the right sort of prayer, then we get what we want.

Most of us don’t fall into the trap that far – but we do start down that path. Anytime we start taking a verse (or verses) to be “what God says” without considering the context of the book – and indeed of the whole Bible – we start to set up a false idea of what God is telling us. In the verse quoted above, what is God talking about? Who is he talking to? He’s speaking to the exiles in Babylon, the last remnants of his people who have been taken captive to punish them for whoring after false gods. This is the spot where God intends to burn the flaw out of them. The specific verse is referring to the future plans God has for Israel, to restore them to their land in 70 years. Can it also refer to us? Maybe. God is infinite, and there’s no reason that the prophet’s words shouldn’t have meaning for us as well. On the other hand, in what way? Does it refer to earthly prosperity? And if so, then why are there so many poor Christians?

Maybe it refers to God’s ultimate plans for us, that we will be redeemed from sin and live with him in heaven forever. And maybe it just refers to Jewish exiles in Babylon in the 6^th century BC. Whatever it’s talking about, the thing to realize is that verses need to be read in their context, as part of a book that was written at a specific time for a specific purpose, and as part of the Bible as a whole, which was given by God so that we would have knowledge of him down through the ages. If the meanings we put into a verse go against those two contexts, then they are (almost certainly) wrong.

If we don’t consider things in light of the whole Bible, we run the risk of developing a very incorrect view of God. When we look for a verse that “speaks to us” (or a promise to claim, if we’ve been watching Kenneth Hagin for too long) we don’t ever pick the harsh ones. We only pick the ones we like. You’ll probably never hear someone say “Lord I claim your promise from John chapter 15, that ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ Since they persecuted Jesus, I want to be persecuted as well.” No, we all want to be prosperous and normal, and live safe, happy lives – just like the rest of the world, the world that hates Christ and all he stands for.

I understand that sometimes a single verse speaks to us, and even brings out things we didn’t understand from the rest of Scripture, and I believe that God does sometimes use single verses or even passages to speak to us in a way that may go contrary to the meaning of the book in which they’re found, and that’s okay. Where we have to be really careful is when we start considering those verses to be the sum total of God’s revelation, or (and this way lies heresy) we start to use a verse or passage in a way that contradicts Scripture as a whole.

The Bible is not a buffet. Like a properly done formal meal, all of its parts work together to produce a greater whole. And also like a formal meal, all of it comes from the same kitchen. We are not allowed to pick and choose, to say, “Oh yes, lots of mercy and love for me, but hold the repentance and the suffering – I’m trying to cut down.” We are not allowed to take what we want and leave the rest. When we treat God’s word as less than the whole, we treat him as less than God.

In part III, we’ll take a look at another error, one that is less obviously bad but may lead to lots of subtle misunderstandings.

Magic Books and Vampires

I promised a while ago to write something about the Bible and how we treat it. What are the ways in which we use (and misuse) scripture? What are the ways we ought to be using it? This may in fact be the answer to all those questions. Or it may be a bunch of disconnected ramblings. We’ll know in a bit.

I grew up around people who had learned that the Bible was special, and not just because of what it contained. They had learned that the Bible was to be treated differently from other books. If you had a stack of books, for example, you put the Bible on top. Why? Because it wasn’t treating it with the appropriate respect to put something else on it. If you didn’t treat the Bible with respect, then God would get you, in one of those cool Old Testament ways, probably turning you into a pillar of salt by day and fire by night or something.

These were old-school SOUTHERN Southern Baptists, from Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and so on, and they knew that good SBs had a reverence for Scripture that set them apart from all those old dead denominations. We were people of the Word, and when someone said that we worshipped the Father, Son and Holy Bible, there was an uncomfortable amount of truth in the joke.

It was easy to understand how the Bible was used in horror movies, as the holy symbol that could turn away evil. If God was going to zap me for setting my hat on my Thompson Chain Reference KJV, then what would he do to a vampire when you shoved it in his face? No wonder the vampire cringed and slunk off – he knew what was coming if he went up against the Bible. (That was why I had the Thompson Chain KJV – it weighed about 15 pounds and if the vampire didn’t slink away on his own, I could have whacked him with it.)

What I didn’t learn from my missionary aunts and uncles was how to read the Bible. Not that they didn’t – missionaries who don’t spend time absorbing and understanding God’s Word don’t last long – but somehow it seemed disconnected from who they were. I managed to get the idea (and this was not something that anyone taught me) that reading Scripture was a grown-up thing to do, that when you turned eighteen you suddenly had this desire to read the Bible. I didn’t really want to, but I didn’t worry about it, since I wasn’t eighteen yet and God hadn’t put the magic desire into my heart.

I wound up reading the Bible quite a bit though. Not because I had to, but because I was bored. My parents had this thing about going to church, so we went a lot. Some of you may remember how boring “Big Church” was when you started going. (Some of you may still think it’s boring.) Imagine how much worse it would have been if you couldn’t understand the language being used. Our church services were all in the local tribal language, and while I understood a few words, I wasn’t up to following a sermon.

So I read my Bible. Not, again, because of some magic desire, or because I ‘m an MK and we’re perfect, but because I love to read and THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE available. We didn’t even have hymnals. There was a calendar on the wall, but it didn’t change much. (I think it was from several years earlier.) I read my Bible. Not in any organized way, but like a book, or at least like a bunch of books. I read Genesis twenty or thirty times, as well as the rest of the books of Moses. I found the Law fascinating – you mean, we’re not allowed to wear clothes made of two different materials? – although I didn’t really understand how it related to us as believers. I read Joshua and Judges because they had battles and killing and stuff. (There will always be a fond spot in my heart for Ehud.)

I read Proverbs over and over again; I loved how it put things. I read at least some of the Psalms, although I rarely read it as a book, being more inclined to read a few and then go somewhere else. I read the gospels a number of times, somehow without ever really encountering Christ. (Although, years later much of what I had read came back, and was a key part of me deciding to truly follow him.) I read John’s Revelation, because it was all about the end of the world and had cool things in it. (This was the era of Hal Lindsey, after all, and we all knew that Christ’s return was likely to be next Tuesday, so I figured I should know what was going to happen.) I don’t know why I thought that – maybe I figured there would be a test – but I did, and I read the book several times, although I don’t think I understood any of it. (This is where I formulated Scott’s Law of the End Times: Jesus never comes back before your homework is due, so you may as well just sit down and do it.) I read some of Paul’s letters too, because I liked the way he turned a phrase, and, they were often short. I read some of the prophets, although Isaiah and Jeremiah were a little long to get through during one service. I read a lot of the Bible without ever trying to really understand it, without seeing it as a special book, without looking for verses to live by.

I had outlined this post as having four parts. Since I see that I’m only through with one of them, I’ll end here and post the rest later. In Parts II and III we’ll look at some of the common bad ways to use the Bible, and in Part IV I’ll explain what I think is the best method for Scripture reading.

People I respect, Part 2

People I Respect

Part 2

Steve Taylor

Okay, I’m going to talk about a time way back in the mid-80s, a time when Christian music was starting to get Really Bad. And I don’t mean “bad” in a good way. I mean cheesy lame lyrics, cheesy lame synthesizers, and cheesy lame drum machines, all backed up by cheesy lame theology and cheesy lame spiritual walks. My grandfather died, and my mom went back to the US for his funeral. When she came back, she brought me some Jams, and a couple of cassette tapes: Dr. Demento’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 5 (Thanks, Mom!) and another by a group called the Rap-Sures. The Rap-Sures used the cheesiest drum machine ever (it was like a $19.95 Casio keyboard, only without the coolness) and did cheesy lame white-guy rap. These guys made Vanilla Ice sound cool, they were that bad. Try to rap something like:

“We’re rap-sure about the Rapture,

That’s why we’re rappin’ ‘bout the Rapture!”

I don’t care how ghetto you are, it’s gonna sound stupid.

I’d been listening to Christian rock and pop for a while. It was one of the adjustments I had to make when I went to boarding school. I got there, and everybody would ask, “What’s your favorite group?” And I’d say, “Well, I like Quiet Riot, and Asia, and …” And they would get all Ernest Ainsley and smack me in the head and say, “Deeemons, OUT!!!” and I would go back to the dorm and blast “Cum on Feel The Noize” or “The Smile Has Left Your Eyes.” Actually, some of them didn’t even know who those people were, because all their parents had ever allowed them to hear was Christian music, and none of that-there eeevil hippie rock’n’roll, neither. Some of them did know who those groups were and didn’t condemn me, though, which was good. My best friend Andy introduced me to Rez Band, and I can’t count the number of hours we spent sitting in his room talking and listening to “Bootleg.” (I’ll probably write one of these about Glenn Kaiser and Rez.) And Tim, one of the guys in my dorm, spent a great deal of time listening to Steve Taylor’s “Meltdown” album, which was great. I heard it a lot, because Tim roomed with one of my best friends.

Steve Taylor had something that a lot of Christian artists (indeed, a lot of pop artists) didn't have: talent. Meltdown had catchy tunes, solid rhythms (except for "Am I In Sync?" but that was the point of the song) and good solid thinking. Excellent stuff.

Steve’s music attracted me for two reasons: one was that he wasn’t afraid to take on hypocrisy in Christendom. You’d never hear Steve say, “Don’t condemn what the Lord is blessing.” He’d say, “Is God really blessing it, just ‘cause a bunch of people are giving money to it? Compare it to scripture, and if it doesn’t fit then it’s gotta go.” The second reason was that he had a wicked sense of humor. Whether he was picking on modern thought (“You say humanist philosophy is what it’s all about/You’re so open-minded that your brain’s leaked out”), “Christian” politicians (“When you need supporting/Tell ‘em that you’re born again”), or Bob Jones’ university’s racist policies (“Bumper sticker on his Ford/Says ‘Honkies if you love the Lord!’”), Steve always had the right turn of phrase to make you laugh and make you think. Listen to his take on TV Evangelists:

“It’s a telethon Tuesday

For the Gospel Club

‘Send your money in now

or they’re gonna pull the plug!’

…You could be smelling a crook

You should be checking the book

But you’d rather listen than look …”

He talked about greed and materialism among Christians:

"It was a morning just like any other morning
...in the Sinai Desert
...1200 B.C.
It glistened, it glowed, it rose from the gold of the children of Israel
(and most of the adults)

The Cash Cow

The golden Cash Cow had a body like the great cows of ancient Egypt
And a face like the face of Robert Tilton (without the horns)"

He had some genuinely moving lyrics as well:

“It was a confidence that got you by

when you knew you believed it but you didn’t know why

no one imagines it will come to this

but it gets so hard when people don’t want to listen…

don’t you know by now why the chosen are few?

It’s harder to believe than not to.”

or

"I saw a man who was holding the hand that had fired a gun at his heart

Oh, will we live to forgive?"

or

“Just as you are, just a wretch like me

Jesus is for losers, grace from the blood of a tree.

Just as we are, at a total loss

Jesus is for losers, broken, at the foot of the cross.”

Steve was real. He taught me that the Christian life could be hard, that there would be times when I would doubt, that there would be times when I would fall. And he taught me that God still loved me and wanted me for His own, no matter how often I had to pick myself up. I’m not going to quote them all here, but go here and read the lyrics to “The Finish Line.” That’s what Steve taught me, and I’m better for it.

People I respect, Part 1

People I respect
This post is the first in a series I plan to put up of people who have influenced my Christian walk. It seems like a good way to pay tribute to the people who have helped make me the person I am today.

C.S. Lewis

I'd like to think that even without Lewis I would be a Christian today, but I'm not sure. As a child I'd read the Narnia series, and the space trilogy when I got a little older (not old enough, I suspect - it can be a bit spooky) and had tried some of his other books but found them to be a bit of dry going. My senior year of high school, I started to get serious about knowing God, but I wondered if it was possible to be a Christian and use your brain. All of the people around me seemed to be saying, "If you'll just believe and never question, then you'll be happy. Remember, act good, because blind obedience and acting good are what make a good Christian." I ran across Mere Christianity in the school library and read it. I think I read it at least four or five times that year, and it changed my life. Lewis, the unbeliever who had come to believe, taught me that it's all right to question God, that it was all right to seek and look and search to see if He was true. Lewis seemed to say, "God created you with a brain - use it for His glory!" Lewis treated Scripture not as something to be worshipped, but as something to be examined, to see if it did indeed point the way to the only One who deserves our worship. He concluded that it did, and I agree entirely.

Lewis’ intellectual acceptance of God made it possible for me to do the same thing. All along I’d wondered if it was okay to doubt at times, to be unsure, to put God to the test. What I learned from Lewis is that it is okay, and that in fact, if we truly believe God is the answer, then we can’t be afraid to ask the questions. If Christianity is valid then it will stand up to the test; if it isn’t, then we should find out quickly and go do something else, so that we won’t be “pitied more than all men” (tm Paul of Tarsus). But in either case, if we’re being honest, testing our beliefs is a good thing.

If you're interested in Lewis, the links above have some info, and I'm certainly willing to lend out books. Let me know.