Our Relationship to Sacred Scripture – Part 2

One thing that I learned after a very long hiatus of reading the Bible is that I miss the text. I miss the way it moved me. The way it seemed to illuminate life around me. It pushed me. Pulled me. Rattled me. Surprised me.

I miss that.

I took a long hiatus because I just couldn’t sit and read the Bible in a way that wasn’t about preparing for a sermon or some lesson or in a way that treated it like a textbook. All this was my past training and my past life.

So I took a long break.

But in my break I discovered that I missed my relationship to the Bible because of how much it showed me about God, life, myself and others.

I think this is what it means for the the Bible to be inspired by God. The idea of inspiration is that it is breathed out by God. How exactly God accomplished this and to what extent has been a debate for along time. But when I step away for a minute from those debates I begin to see that it comes down to me and the text and what it says. It always does.

Sometimes what it says is downright archaic and at times seeming nonsense. Some of that is because it’s based in ancient times.

Other times what it says is exactly what I needed to figure something out.

It is bizarre.

Like I said people have come up with all kinds of specific theories about what the Bible is, the nature of divine inspiration in the Bible, how many books are supposed to make up the Bible itself and a whole list of other things. All of these theories have been described as theology but I refer to it as philosophy based on human experience and thought. I think that every theory and conversation I have had about this subject is valuable because they highlight things that I may not otherwise think about which is what philosophy is all about. But I think that is where it ends.

I’ve found that the more people constrict the Bible and make it what they want it to be the less it has a positive impact on people.

I got tired of constricting the Bible the way that so many do. I got really into that style of thinking. It was hard to weed out and get out of my system. It still is in some ways.

Where I find myself now is wondering if it is possible to live in a world where we don’t have theories on what the Bible is and what it isn’t. I would if we could be transported to that moment before all these decisions and creeds were made that synthesized it all in a one sentence and statement as a guide for the faithful and tell them “don’t do it.” I’m not sure what change that would make but it’s an interesting thought to have. Another way of saying this is to be transported to the time I was a teenager before I got engulfed with all these theories and started my journey of faith with God. I wonder how things would have turned out if I just stuck to me and the text and left it there?

I’ll never know.

All these theories swarm in my head and they are part of me. Part of my history.

But what I can do is create a new direction. Embrace a new relationship with the text of the Bible and start new. Not starting over. But starting new.

I wonder what would happen.