Phoenix Affirmations #2

2. Listening for God’s Word which comes through daily prayer and meditation, studying the ancient testimonies which we call Scripture, and attending to God’s present activity in the world;

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This one is hardly edgy, but it's very true. There is a great deal to be said for being grounded in an ancient spiritual tradition. If you don't have something outside of yourself to rely on, you run the risk of letting your own desires and prejudices become the standard of truth. (This can happen even if you're got scripture and tradition to help you, but they're the best safeguard I know of. The fact that a lot of smart and faithful people before you have asked a lot of the same questions is helpful. You don't have to buy their answers, but it's wise to consider them thoughtfully.

I've often heard the objection from non-Christians that the Bible should be abandoned because it has morally questionable rules and stories of God-sanctioned atrocities. I can understand the objection, because those things are real. They aren't 99% of the Bible, as some claim, but you don't have to read too far to run into one of them. From the laws that ban the eating of shellfish, to the call to execute someone who works on the Sabbath day, to the story of God sending bears to eat the young boys who made fun of the prophet Elisha's bald head, there is a lot in the Bible that is hard to read, let alone understand.

But it shouldn't be a matter of throwing the whole thing out because of the difficult parts. There is irreplacable wisdom about who God is and what it means to be human. The issue is one of learning to read in a careful, disciplined manner and learning to distinguish timeless wisdom from ideas (like slavery, genocide and the notion that women and children are only property) that belong in a long gone era.

It wouldn't be honest to pretend that the ugly parts of the Bible aren't there, or to try to pretend that they aren't ugly. At the same time, it isn't fair to judge the whole of scripture by the worst.

It's probably best to give an example of what I'm talking about. I know someone who dismisses the idea that there is any truth in the Bible by quoting the following three verses.
1 John 4:8 - "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
1 Corinthians 13:4 - 4Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant..."
Exodus 20:5 - "You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me..."

He's clearly right that there is a logical contradiction here. I could argue that it's not the same word being used for jealous (it's not even the same language, Exodus was written in Hebrew and the others in Greek). That's kind of a technical argument though. The more important thing is that these are three different books written by three different authors. Finding this kind of contradiction is a challenge to the idea that the Bible was transmitted verbatum from the lips of God, but it does nothing to challenge the idea that they were written by human authors who, though all faithful and inspired, expressed themselves in very different ways. They were influences by the context they lived in, bu the immediate needs of their own communities, and by their own understanding and personalities. It's no surprise to see that what they wrote contains contradictions, but that doesn't invalidate the writings. That would be a little like suggesting that an idea of Dickens contradicting an idea of Shakespeare's would invalidate all of English literature.

I know that seems like a bit of an apples and oranges argument, but it's not. The reality is that, for all that holds it together, the Bible is a very diverse collection of books, which don't always agree with each other. The holiness code of Leviticus butts heads with the justice-preaching of the prophets in a way that foreshadows a similar argument between Jesus and the Pharisees. Ezra and Nehemiah rail about the evils of Israelites taking foreign wives, but Ruth (written at roughly the same time) exalts just such a marriage.

There are a number of these arguments imbedded in the Bible. People living during it's writing had theological arguments, just as faithful people continue to have. What's remarkable is that both sides of the arguments are preserved in the scriptures, which brings to them an honesty that a book written to push one and only one understanding could never match.

In my opinion, that honesty and struggle are a lot of what gives the scriptures their lasting value. I really see that in the story of Jacob, whose name means "one who wrestles with God". Like him, those of us who are guided by these scriptures, are grappling with a complex relationship. That's not as comfortable as the assumption that the Bible is a book of easy answers, but it's ultimately much more beneficial.