Some might find this an interesting read:
Reading the Bible vs. Being Read by the Bible
What is the Bible?
The Bible is the witness of Israel, the prophets and the Church to the Logos, the One Word of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.
Like John the Baptist pointing to Christ, the Bible is testimony which points to the One Word God speaks to us in Jesus.
Therefore, we do not believe in the Bible; we believe in the One to whom the Bible bears witness.
We do not have faith in the Bible; we trust that the Bible’s words are reliable- not inerrant- testimony about the Word of God, Jesus Christ, in whom we have faith.
“He Scripture came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him scripture. He scripture himself itself was not the light, but he it came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”
- John 1.7-9
(How) Is the Bible the Word of God?
The Bible is the Word of God in that scripture- when proclaimed rightly and received faithfully- is the reliable testimony to the one Word of God, Jesus Christ who is the logic of God made flesh.
So when Christians use the term ‘the Word of God’ they’re actually referring to multiple forms whose authority and ‘infallibility’ varies by degrees.
Imagine, for instance, the image of three concentric circles.
At the center, in the inner, centermost circle, is the Logos, the eternal Word of God that was made flesh in Jesus Christ.
Christ is the only capital ‘W’ word of God in which Christians believe and after which Christians conform their lives.
Next in the trio is the testimony to the Word of God given to us by Israel, the prophets and the Church. This testimony to the Word of God is the word we call scripture.
In the final, outermost, circle is the word of God as its proclaimed and interpreted in the worship and ministry of the Church to which Christians will often reply: ‘This is the word of the God for the people of God/Thanks be to God.’
The only true, literal, infallible, eternal Word of God then is Jesus Christ, the Logos of God.
The bible is the word of God in that it points us to the one Word of God, Jesus Christ.
Our reading and preaching of scripture is- or perhaps more apt, becomes- the word of God for us only when it faithfully proclaims and embodies the one Word of God, Jesus Christ.
“Many other signs therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” - John 20.30-31
Should We Interpret the Bible Literally?
The form of the scripture text should determine how you interpret scripture.
If the scripture text is poetic, then you should it interpret it poetically. Metaphorically.
If the scripture text is exhortative, then you better go and do whatever it says. Whatever is the best modern-day equivalent of what it says.
If the scripture text is parabolic, then you should scratch your head and look for the scandal of the Gospel. Or whatever would be likewise scandalous in our day.
If the scripture text is fabulous, then you should dig for the deeper meaning, the text’s artist seeks to show rather than simply tell. e.g., Garden of Eden.
But when Christians refer to the bible as the word of God, don’t forget that while Christianity is indeed a revealed religion, the revelation of the Word of God is a mediated revelation.
Our access to the Logos comes to us only by way of scripture and the Church. Scripture therefore is not revelation. The pages and printed words in your bible are not, in and of themselves, the Word of God. They are our testimony to God’s Word as its been disclosed to Israel and the Church. Because of that testimony, scripture is authoritative for us and it is sufficient for communicating all we need to know of and follow this God.
At the same time, one’s testimony is never identical with the person of whom one testifies. Scripture’s testimony can only partially and provisionally capture the mystery of the eternal Word.
None of this threatening should be threatening, however, because the Word of God, Jesus Christ, is a mediated revelation.
Testimony can be imperfect without jeopardizing the perfection of the One to whom scripture testifies.
In other words, the bible does not (always) need to be interpreted literally because we do not believe in the bible; we believe in the One to whom the bible testifies. We worship Jesus Christ not the bible.
And, it should be pointed out, Jesus himself did not interpret scripture literally:
I say “You are gods,
sons of the Most High, all of you;
nevertheless, you shall die like mortals
and fall like any prince” (Psalm 82 vv. 6-7)
What’s Wrong with Reading the Bible Literally?
Biblical literalism attributes a supernatural origin to scripture. The bible, in this view, is the direct, unfiltered Word of God. It’s an approach to Christian scripture that has a correlative in how Muslims understand the Qu’ran as containing the very words God dictated to the Prophet.
Scripture, it is held, is as free of error as had it fallen from heaven printed and bound. This view of scripture is a modern belief, arising only in the late 19th century.
Such an absolute assertion of scripture’s divine origins and textual infallibility provoke several significant problems.
First, positing every word of scripture as the literal, inerrant word of God flattens the whole of scripture, making every word just as important and authoritative as any other. The purity of codes of Leviticus are now logically equivalent in importance to the sermon on the mount, God’s instructions to the take the holy land by bloodshed as critical as Christ’s self-sacrifice.
By flattening scripture and making it all of equal import, the central thread gets lost:
the One Word of God, Jesus Christ.
Biblicism makes Christian scripture, like the Qu’ran, into a collection of equally authoritative precepts, teachings and codes instead of diverse, polyvalent testimony to the saving love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.
Second, demanding that every word of scripture be infallible forces the Christian in to a kind of cognitive dissonance where we must ignore or disavow what we learn in the natural world should our learning seem at odds with scripture. So then a literalistic rendering of the creation story, for example, forces some Christians to dismiss evolutionary theory or prehistoric life.
Gripping onto scripture’s infallibility can also lock Christians into defending or perpetuating the social mores of the cultural context in which scripture was first recorded.
Third, biblical literalism is an unmediated revelation.
Scripture is the Word of God with or without the testimony of faithful witnesses.
While, in the fundamentalist minds, this secures scripture from the acids of the modern world, it does so at the expense of any role for God’s People. Rather than the Word of God being mediated through the testimony of God’s People, and hence being inherently relational, it is instead presented in an authoritarian mode.
Scripture is something to which we must conform; it’s not something which invites us into a transformative relationship.
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”
- 2 Timothy 3.16
How Do I Read the Bible?
The bible should not be treated as a talisman as though it will yield any answer to any question we might ask.
Scripture does not ask us to treat it as a magical object. It does not call for our passive reverence; scripture expects our engagement. With that mind, I offer some guidelines for you to consider when reading a given text:
1. Scripture should be interpreted in light of its historical and cultural context.
This is where an annotated, academic bible can transform your reading of scripture. Knowing the original context of a given passage not only can open up that text to new and fresh hearings it can also prevent uninformed, personal interpretations that are wide off the mark of the text’s original intent.
2. Scripture should not be bound by its original context either.
If, as we believe, God’s Spirit can use the testimony of the past to speak a fresh Word to us, then knowing the original context can help us sort out right and wrong interpretations but it does not limit our interpretations. That is, what Paul said is not necessarily what Paul says to us to day.
3. Scripture should be read theocentrically, with God at the center as its primary protagonist.
Maybe this strikes you as obvious, but in our culture today many Christians value scripture only for its utility, for what it says to me. Scripture should necessarily have implications for our lives so long as we realize that it’s not first of all a story about us. The parable of the prodigal son, for example, is primarily an illustration of God’s character; it’s not first an illustration of us. ‘What does this passage say about God?’ is a question that should always precede ‘What does this passage speak to me?’
4. Scripture should be read corporately.
The bible is the story of God’s engagement with God’s chosen People, Israel and the Church. The bible is testimony about God for the community of God; therefore, you can’t truly read the bible rightly apart from God’s People. Reading scripture with others, on Sunday morning or in small groups, is the best way to hear clearly what the Spirit says today to us. Jews and Christians read in company with others, adapting and even submitting our understandings to the understandings of our fellow saints, living and dead.
5. Scripture should be read in light of one’s own context.
This is both a caution and a command. Realize that what you see or hear is determined by where you stand. A poor Mayan woman in Guatemala who’s suffered exploitation and war will hear the Magnificat differently from a white, upper class woman in the United States. Very often the Word both these women will hear will be a true Word for their context.
‘Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path…’ – Psalm 119
Is the Bible our only authority?
Of course not.
Jesus Christ, the fullness of God made flesh, who reigns the Earth from the right hand of the Father, is our sole authority.
Jesus is Lord not the Bible nor our imperfect interpretation of it.
The Bible is our primary witness to Christ, but even the Bible’s witness is mediated to us by the witness of the saints and our own experience of the Holy Spirit’s work in the world- the gift of the world itself speaks to the sheer gratuity of God.
And because all truth is God’s truth, our reason and apprehension of the created world elaborate upon (and sometimes correct) the witness to God we find in the Bible.
‘Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.’
– Acts 2.36
