Okay, two rules:
1) This will be short,
B) this will be the beginning of more regular postage.
Promise.
Sitting at IHOP a couple of days ago and I found myself reading and meditating deeply upon Romans 8. I decided then and there, in true keeping with the ‘anything goes’ espirit de summer, to pay no attention to amount ingested, how “far I got” from my starting place at Romans 8:1, or to even be conscious of “how many verses I read this morning”.
That triggered the realization in me that there is a lot packed into our Scriptures.
Why rush?
When I taught at the School-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named, there was an, ahem, very ardent Republican lady with whom I occasionally crossed paths. We would always share good banter, never anything serious or heavy (at least to me; I’m sure I wasted valuable real estate on her “God Please Open These Sinners’ Eyes” list).
Well, all in good fun (I think…), this lady one time told me that she and I were one day soon going to sit down and talk politics, Bible-to-Bible, and hammer out which position, hers (ardent GOP) or mine (not-ardent-for-either), was “more Biblical”.
The reason this exchange stuck in my mind is that, almost immediately, I realized that I don’t know my Bible well enough to make that argument on one side or the other.
I didn’t then and I don’t now.
Nor do I think I ever shall.
I hope I’m never that convinced of my own grasp of God’s Word, as well, I really do hold that if we have even a moderately high view of Scripture, as we go through life we’ll invariably be confronted with our own shortsightedness with regard to it. We’ll grow, change, and even laugh at what we used to believe they said about God.
So back to the Maison des Pancackes.
I’m reading Romans 8 and all I can do as I go is ask the inspired writ as I go, “what does this mean?” and “why?” or even “why not?”.
Alongside. Every. Verse.
Just yesterday I returned to church after about a five-week uhhh, sabbatical from there.
The question I asked myself almost as soon as I got done talking to Ryan was, “what in the world was I doing, thinking I knew God, the Bible, and His world well enough to imagine I was getting the whole picture doing Christianity by myself?
Who did I think I was?
As most who know me well are aware, I’m sort of a student of church history and what those who’ve had the same Book and Savior as us have done with It. The more I study and think deeply upon just what we are to do with this “Jesus Thing,” I stand ever more convinced of the need for deep and profound humility before God, our tradition, and the Scriptures.
The Spirit of God, alongside the Scriptures, has been at work in God’s people for some two millennia now-and we haven’t exhausted the meaning or power of Holy Writ just yet.
I’m not sure I should alter Augustine this way, but he famously said that “When you’ve found yourself a god you understand, you have built yourself an idol.”
I wonder if it’s okay to say something similar about the Scriptures?
I know I err more often than not on the side of epistemic impotence, but I really did shudder at my friend’s presumption of knowing the whole of Scripture that well, and it made me wonder if she had not in fact erred on the side of building herself blueprints for an idol.
May the Scriptures never conform… to anything.
Not a song, political platform, doctrinal presupposition, or anything else.
May they define, not deviate.
May they always shape, mold and polish.
And may they always inspire thanks to our holy God.
Good stuff, maynard.
Hey, Dixon, this is James Rice, a good friend and colleague of Mary Beth Watson whose lovely self referred me to this blog. She has said much about you for the last couple of years, but I’ve never stalked your blog before now. By the way, she forwarded me your email of Erin Bode’s mp3’s, and I am now rather addicted to her interpretation of “Graceland”. So, this is a very belated “Thank You”.
To comment on your article, though, I pretty much agree with you in what you’ve said here. I’d like to add, though, that it’s not really for us to “understand” the bible in our own strength, but to rely on the Holy Spirit to come and, as Christ put it at the last supper, reveal to us “all truth”. That doesn’t mean to go off in to Charismania, but to assume that all those parts of the scriptures that we do know will be brought back to mind as we need them… that our meditations on the words of God will bring fruit either now, or later, or even both and more… and also that, like body building or martial arts training, a certain amount of “rote” exposure to the Word is good for us, like eating our Wheaties and taking vitamins. All of which I think apply in equally valid yet orthogonal ways, to create a multi-dimensional relationship with God through the portal of his scriptures, and with the scriptures very much as a seat belt as well as a cattle prod.
But, to say that one can’t really “know” the Scriptures is, I think, false humility, because, let’s be honest, it’s only one thick book (composed of 66 different writings, yes…). There are only so many words. There are many a young Muslim whose family beams with pride when he or she manages to memorize the entire Qur’an and recite it by heart, in rhythm and tune, beginning to end. They KNOW their Qur’an. Does that mean they have the complete grasp of it, or that they have even ONCE thought critically about a text that will go on to define and shape their very experience of all that passes before them in their lifetime? Absolutely not.
And, yet, you and I have a God-given charge, a duty, a right, and a privilege, to MAKE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, and we can’t do that without knowing Christ and his own relationship to the Word. Heck, we can’t make disciples of others until we ourselves are disciples who know God’s word that well, or better, because, honestly, if you look at the way Christ lived his daily life – as recorded – in his ministry years and even before, the resounding message of God’s holiness, faithfulness, goodness, and desire to lift up the surpassing goodness of trinitarian glory in all his interactions with his creation is the very fiber and being of who Jesus – the God-souled man – was.
He was just a man, from nowhere special, with no special training, but not just any soul, but the very soul from whom all other souls are patterned, in whose image we are made, and on whom was the Holy Spirit to inform and empower for the work his Father had given him.
If the scriptures were so central to who he was on earth that it’s words – HIS words, if you think of Jesus as the incarnate LOGOS – were constantly flowing from his mouth – the RHEMA word, for your Charismaniac friends – for instructing and healing, commanding and rebuking, restoring and rescuing, then I think we ought to jump with abandon into our own relationship with God through the scriptures, and see where he wants to lead us personally from there.
And, that said, I’m a reforming hypocrite on this point so please don’t see a flame war coming from a stranger. I’ve just been burning with this passion lately for every believer I know who at ALL takes Jesus seriously to see that it is COMPLETELY POSSIBLE to live like him, even in the difficulties and pains and heartaches, because Jesus is our only master plan. Everybody else is a copy of a copy of a copy… which is why I respect tradition and history for what they are, but am VERY wary of their attractive pull. I find that the tendency in my own soul for omphaloskepsis (that is, navel-gazing) is mightily intoxicated by heady learning, and needs the kinds of challenges that a fully engaged life with the Father, in and for his kingdom, brings into my life.
Where has God’s word been challenging you of late? Where is that nagging tug in the back of your mind, and heart, pointing you? And have you asked God what it means yet?
Dixon, I came across this quote from Gregory of Nazianzus after I read your post.
“The noblest theological interpreter among us is not the one who has mastered the text completely, since our earthly limitations do not allow us to see the whole. It is rather the one who is able to conceive of God a little more substantively than his predecessor, and gather into himself more of the Image of shadow of the Truth, or whatever else we may call it.”