Getting the Most Out of the Bible

[HKHaugan]

When I say “Getting the most” I mean the attitude with which we approach the Bible. That has everything to do with what the Bible offers. In Matt.16 Jesus asks Peter who people think the Son of Man is. Peter says, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. “But what about you?” He asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

The Culture of Acceptance

I grew up in a cultural atmosphere that accepted Christianity as the supreme religion and the Bible as the supreme religious document. It wasn’t a matter of personal belief. It was a matter of acceptance. I accepted them because that’s just what you did. I held them in a kind of distant respect. I never considered the idea of their authority or questioning them or denying them. Take the Bible. Beyond it being something that was culturally approved, quoted frequently and read in churches I never saw it as more than literature. I guess that is pretty much how I approached the whole idea of being a Christian. Everybody went to church, prayed in public meetings and businesses shut down on Sundays, Christmas and Easter. What was more important, I was an Episcopalian and that kind of set me above whatever all those other expressions out there were, especially the fundamentalist groups. The rituals were impressive and kind of mystical. Churches were ornate, majestic and Gothically impressive and just the setting made you feel like you had been in church. I had sung the good old hymns, been an acolyte, did what people do and go to church. A friend recently said that one bishop he knew when asked what his definition of a Christian was replied, “Well suh, I am an American and a Southerner, ‘tha-uh-fo’ I am a Christian.” Really?

Acceptability motivated me to go to college where I was involved in an Episcopal student center and went to church in its chapel on Sundays. It seemed logical to me that seminary was a fulfillment of the acceptance of a primary cultural value, religion. So after saying the proper words and obtaining the proper acceptance it was on to seminary, where I studied a lot about God, but still the idea of a distant special historical religious figure and a special book stood out there on the fringe of my consciousness. Jesus was actually more symbol than substance like goodness is better than evil. The Bible was really all about the Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments. Oh yes, I said the creeds with all its belief statements and went on with the idea I needed to be an Episcopal clergyman but it wasn’t because I really was personally involved.

As a teenager church was my safe haven in a youth group it sponsored. It was a kind of sanctuary for my mind and its fear when I wasn’t involved in surviving socially and economically. What I was doing for most of my life was learning how to fit the outside world into me. I had earned my way into the backdoor of the upper classes and some interpersonal acceptance. Still, whatever religion was, I leaned toward it but never into it. If you need a picture of what I believed about religion it was this: religion was a distant drum in a cultural symphony in which I was the director. Seminary and ordination into its professional ranks simply gave me more acceptance, accessibility and accolades.

My religious conversion was actually not religious at all. It was a personal slogging through the mud of self-realization that being a Christian was leaving religion and finding a relationship. That is I had to face the fact that I believed I believed when all I believed in was an institution. It was a part of my self-survival training in the culture of acceptance. It was like going through Wal-Mart. I took what I needed and could afford. My credit card was acceptable which made me acceptable. If the ideas of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection were intellectually difficult I would look for ways to get around them. If the Bible presented difficult passages I found ways around them. I just accepted them as part of the package, because that’s what you did in the culture of acceptance. What I had studied and been trained to do and teach, was to be religious, and religious was being up-to-date on the latest relevant ways to impress peoples’ minds and have them feel good about being in church. That, I believed, was my job.

What was really happening in this institutional approach? I was justifying everyone’s non-personal involvement in the very profession that was supposed to do the opposite. That’s what you do in a culture of acceptance. You use religion to make people feel good about where they are and whatever they believe since everyone is on a faith journey that needs no personal interaction, only professional membership, committee involvement, minimal financial dues and attendance. It is so easy in a liturgically oriented church for professional clergy to be considered ‘the theological experts’ and to sit in a pew enjoying the mystical rituals in which God was honored. That attitude neutralizes personal testimony since religion is their responsibility, an attitude that enables people to feel more comfortable in their ‘personal religion.’ The accepted cultural mandate has been met and everyone is satisfied. One’s religion is private, institutional and obvious. It’s just a ‘being there/drop in’ spirituality.

In June of 1969 that all changed. A relationship with Jesus replaced my religion. Through a set of real spiritual circumstances, what I had distantly accepted became a personal reality not because I realized ‘it’ but because I realized Him. This was no longer institutional religion it was personal acceptance. What I had lived as a religion of acceptance was now realizing a person of acceptance, the God of acceptance, the Lord Jesus. This was not a culture where what people thought measured acceptance but what God led me to understand. He personally accepted me. And that’s what He does for everyone. He personally accepts them. If there is a culture of acceptance it is a spiritual culture founded in Jesus. Acceptability comes through the willingness to be open to Him. To know you are really acceptable and acceptable far beyond the cultural, family and social definitions that you grow up with is to know and see God in Jesus. In Him is eternal acceptance. “Then Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness (Jn.12:44-46).”

So life is not about who in this temporary changing social world thinks I’m acceptable. The shift is to see who and what Jesus thinks is acceptable and that real acceptability is spiritual, personal and eternal. His is the measure by which I accept others. It’s not about being a member of a denomination but being born from above in Christ (John 3:1-21). And being in Christ is being in His Word and Words, “If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day. For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say (John 12:47-50).” Now we know that the words Jesus spoke are the way we learn about Him and how to accept others as He does. So that deals with the New Testament.
But what about the Old Testament?
Is it as valid as the words Jesus spoke? On the day of His Resurrection Jesus appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus and asked what they were discussing. They were saddened and in grief about Jesus’ death and they did not recognize Jesus. “They stood still, their faces downcast (Luke 24:17).” They heard that some woman had found Jesus’ empty tomb but not Him. Then Jesus said, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself (John 24:25-26).”

It’s the whole of the Scripture that reveals Jesus.

So what does all of this say?
First, the Bible is God’s Word about Jesus. It is a spiritual history of God’s purpose in Creation and therefore a faith text. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God (Romans 10:17).”
Second, it is written to believers to build their understanding and wisdom. It addresses our spiritual origin, our meaning and purpose, our morality and our past, present and future life.
Third, it is the only set of documents designed to give us spiritual and personal insight into God, His nature and our nature.
Fourth, it is the only authority for relational living with God and one another.
Fifth, Scripture is our cover for all Body of Christ activity in worship, discipleship, ministry and mission.
Sixth, Scripture is 100% written by man.
Seventh, Scripture is 100% inspired by God.

What the Bible is not:
First, it is not a scientific commentary.
Second, it is not a sociological or psychological manual.
Third, it is not a chronological history of mankind.
Fourth, it is not a literary anthology.

Going back to the passage in the beginning of this testimony it asks the basic question that Jesus directed at Peter but in turn was intended for me and all people, “Who do you say I am?” It is only when I answer that question that the Bible makes sense or becomes just another piece of religious literature.

Therefore it is the attitude with which I approach the Bible that either makes it a cultural piece of literature or the Word of God. There is no in-between. Now when I read a passage I’m coming with some attitudinal specifics.
First, God loves me and has written this for me. I’m reminded of Jesus’ words to Thomas after the Resurrection, “Because you have seen me you believed, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (Jn.20:29).”
Second, it is a growth project and one that only begins in this world. “I have come that you may life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10).”
Third, we all carry some attitudinal differences into it and that’s OK. Those are strongholds that need healing until Jesus becomes the only stronghold we need. “He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold...(Ps.144:2).”
Fourth, it is my inerrant, infallible and unchangeable assurance of an eternally present Lord. “The ordinances of the Lord are sure and all together righteous (Ps.18:9).”
Fifth, the most dramatic assurance of its purpose and authority was on the night before His crucifixion when He prayed for His disciples and all of us, “Father, sanctify them by the truth, your Word is truth (John 17:17).”
Sixth, the Resurrection sealed any question as to its central purpose, to reveal Jesus and build a relationship with Him (the Gospel accounts).
Seventh, accepting Jesus was my personal Pentecost so I come with the expectation that the Holy Spirit will provide all kinds of insights that bring substance, specifics, blessings, wisdom and personal direction (John 14-16).

I always feel like every day I’m just starting. “For the Word of the Lord is living and active (Heb.4:12).”