"First, the Bible isn’t a Christian book. I say that because many people have come to understand the Bible as a book for a certain group of people to claim and own and then help them divide themselves from everyone else. But the Bible is a book about what it means to be human. And we are all, before anything else, human." (RB)
Before I go on to expound on what this book has done for me, I need to tell you a story.
Yesterday, I was going through some boxes of books and keepsakes that I have stored out at my Mom's farm. I found a red pocket Gideon New Testament with Psalms that some people were handing out at my elementary grade school.
I would like to confess that by now, my angst against religion has subsided, but I discovered yesterday that is just went into hiding. It came out yesterday when I realized what that little red book was telling me.
"I can't believe that anyone would think a child would get anything out of a Gideon. It's like handing the King James to a kid."
It started something like that and went down hill from there. It was a New Testament, but it opened up with a verse from Joshua that raised the hair on my back.
This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success. (Joshua 1: 8)
What is a preteen supposed to do with that introduction to a book so small, so thick and so unreachable? That's right... unreachable. The bible has been unreachable for me for a good portion of my life. And the secret comes out.
So back to my question... what does a child do? Enters the guilt for not measuring up, not being or hope to being what that book told me to be. What hope did I have to be prosperous, or successful, when I couldn't "meditate day and night" on something so foreign to me.
But how could I even hope to understand that something lied deeper in those pages, when I was given what was a big locked treasure chest and instead of a key to open it, I was given a dirt shovel.
I hope I somewhat redeemed myself by thanking my mother for making an attempt at downsizing the opening devise for that treasure by giving me the Living Bible, and a Picture Bible. But when I think about it, as sincere as those efforts were, they still weren't the key I needed to unlock the treasure chest.
Later on, I was given a NIV study bible at Christmas, during my first year in Bible School. Now I belonged, I remember the feeling. The Living Bible paraphrase wasn't "good enough" for serious bible study. I felt like that child that brought the wrong kind of bread in my school lunch.
As the years progressed, I collected bibles. I collected different versions and even different languages. Not only English, but German, Spanish and Greek... none of which I could read anyway. It was all in an effort to get into that treasure chest with the right key.
I kept that book and copies of that book around for all the years I was attending some form of "church". It was the class text book and mandatory reading for passing the course. But... I still didn't have the key to the treasure chest.
It wasn't until authors like Peter Enns, Rachel Held Evans and Rob Bell introduced me to a library of books that were about humans like me. Humans from a different time and place and culture... but maybe not so different in the grand scheme of things. I just wasn't introduced to them as humans.
"This is a book about a library of books dealing with loss and anger and transcendence and worry and empire and money and fear and stress and joy and doubt and grace and healing, and who doesn’t want to talk about those?" (RB)
I don't think I was given the chance by anyone, even me, to explore the stories from a human perspective. I had convinced myself that the "Holy Bible" was a divine revelation of a people that were divinely inspired to divinely write a transcript in a time of divine living. Instead of a collection of stories about humans like me.
"...you don’t have to believe in God to read the Bible. In fact, as you’ll see in these passages, the Bible is filled with people wrestling and struggling and doubting and shouting and arguing with this idea that there even is a god, let alone some sort of divine being who is on our side. If you have a hard time swallowing the god talk you’ve heard over the years, great—this book is for you, because these are exactly the kinds of things the writers of the Bible are dealing with in their writings." (RB)
Lately my focus has been one of understanding my purpose on Earth. I am not interested in living the rest of my life in pursuit of some cosmic dream I have no proof of attaining. As fun as Southern Gospel music is... it no longer motivates me to be excited about life after death, Heaven, Eternity... I need something to give me purpose where I am... right here... right now.
"That’s why the Bible is not a book about going to heaven.
The action is here.
The life is here.
The point is here.
It’s a library of books about the healing and restoring and reconciling and renewing of this world.
Our home.
The only home we’ve ever had.?" (RB)
Wow!!!... if this is true, maybe the key to that treasure is within my grasp! It's not some hard to read rule book for how to get to Heaven... this is a right here, right now story and collection of stories about the right here and right now. Humanity 101. So they are stories from a different place, and a different time, but put into perspective... the humans of three thousand years ago, had the same struggles we have. And for some reason, their struggles didn't get whited out of the pages that have survived for so many millennia. There has to be a redeeming reason that the hard times made it into this library. We are human. Hard times are our reality.
"When you read the Bible, then, you read it as an unfolding story. You don’t edit out the earlier bits or pretend like they’re not there; they reflect how people understood things in that time in that place. You read the stories in light of where they’re headed. The earlier bits reflect how people understood things at that point in history, but the stories keep going.
The Bible comes out of actual human history, reflecting the funky, flawed, frustrating world these stories came out of. And right there in the midst of those stories, you often see growth and maturing and expanding perspectives." (RB)
So thank you Rob Bell... and Pete Enns and Rachel Held Evans... and all those who have had a hand in getting the key into my hand so I can open up this treasure chest... we've come to know as the Bible.
One more confession. After reading this post, one might assume that I am going to be abundantly enthusiastic and start "meditating day and night" on the Bible... I can assure you that most likely won't be the case. I don't live in the treasure chest, but it is there for those times when I need some inspiration, wisdom, comfort and understanding.
I don't ever want to go back to the place where obligation and guilt were my companions. I want to enjoy my journey and my helpful guides in this life. I just hope that I can embrace this library in a new way as Rob Bell and the others so graciously have encouraged me.
"Interpretation, incarnation, now then, a bit about invitation.
Jesus tells his disciples at one point that whatever they bind will be bound and whatever they loose will be loosed.
What’s he talking about?
Binding and loosing was a first-century way of talking about interpretation. Jesus tells his followers that it’s their turn to make decisions about what’s written in the Bible.
It’s as if he says,
You watched me do it.
Now it’s your turn.
Figure out what it means to put flesh and blood on it.
In your place,
at your time,
in your world,
figure it out.
He says at one point that it’s like someone who keeps bringing new treasures out of a storehouse." (RB)