Sunday, November 04, 2018

Reading the Bible Seriously, but not Literally

Numbers 22:21-31 by Rev. Susan Lukey
Series:Why We Are A Church Community Fall 2018

The Bible is this amazing, wonderful, & fascinatingly diverse collection of sayings, stories, genealogies, poems, proverbs, historical writings, parables, and more. It’s not a book – it’s a library. It contains the most comforting words: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” And the most poetically beautiful words: “They shall rise up on wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint.” And the wisest words: “Love your enemies; do not repay evil for evil.” And the strangest stories.... When we choose to follow the Way of Jesus, then we choose this book as our guide and our wisdom, and that includes all the strange and weird parts, as well as all the beautiful, wise and wonderful parts. It includes all the imperfect, stumbling, bumbling characters, as well as the compassionate, wise ones. Then, there are the many Christians who declare that the Bible must be seen as inerrant, infallible, and it must be taken literally. They resist asking any questions about why things might be contradictory in scripture or why the Bible says things that science and life experience might tell us are no longer accurate. In a way, they are trying to protect the Bible, to build a fence around it so it doesn’t get trampled down. Perhaps, underneath, they are afraid that the Bible will be dismissed as irrelevant, and so they protect it with words such as literal, inerrant & infallible. But the Bible doesn’t need protecting. In fact, the more it is protected from questions, debates, and wrestling, the less relevant it does become. So, what is the Bible? How would I describe it and my relationship to it? I believe the Bible is a collection of writings from dozens, if not hundreds of people. I believe, as David preached from 2nd Timothy last week, that the Bible is inspired by God. Yet, that inspiration was given to fallible people, people who can misunderstand and make errors, people who were shaped by their own cultural understandings, even as they tried to express their experience of God.
Duration:17 mins 47 secs