“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me”; who was told that as a kid? How many of you actually believe it? We like to pretend that words don’t hurt us but very often words can leave deeper and more permanent wounds than any physical injury. I’m going to come back to this idea but first I’m going to tell you a story, the story of my relationship with the Bible, this being Bible Sunday.
When I was little I went to Sunday school, so I knew a lot of bible stories, especially the ones we like to tell children and we had a Children’s Illustrated Bible that I think was my brothers which I would flick through, sometimes read bits of but mostly look at the pictures. At some point I was given the story of “the baby in the rushes” which I read dozens of times, but like most kids I never actually read the bible.
When I reached high school I realised that most other children didn’t have bible stories inside them like I did, so much learned from the osmosis of being around church at a young age. In that first year we were all given a Gideon New Testament, an easy to read Good News Bible and I read the gospels but not much else. At Uni I saw the film The Prince of Egypt and decided to read Exodus whilst staying at a Christian friend’s house.
In 2002 I started to attend St Michael’s and decided I’d better buy one of those bible things- a big one with the old AND the new bits. I went along to Wesley Owen on Deansgate, when it still existed, and bought a lovely midnight blue New King James bible. I opened it up and didn’t understand a word of it.
By this point I was getting quite serious about this Christianity business and WANTED to read and understand scripture, so I headed back to Wesley Owen and picked up a more modern translation, the “New Living Translation”, after someone I spoke to was sniffy about the Good News bible. This bible was great- I understood it! Sort of. I also picked up a copy of The Message and The Street Bible. I’m a simple girl.
Later on I was told the NLT was a bad translation as it had been translated by a group of people with a particular theological leaning so I should get myself a New Revised Standard Version which is the translation we use here. I spent 10 years of my adult life utterly confused about WHICH bible I should be reading whilst trying to get my head around what it actually MEANS at the same time. Its amazing I ever ended up in this pulpit at all.
Surely the bible is the bible?? And of course there was that other bombshell; it’s not a book but a library. Super.
You’ll be pleased to know that shaky start did lead me to developing a much deeper love and understanding of scripture. But what is the bible, and how should we read, use and understand it? Is it even relevant is this modern world? If we’re lucky we might be finished by this time next week!
Let’s start with the basics, and at its most basic the Bible is a collection of ancient poems, letters and stories. Who wrote it? A whole bunch of people. Most of the older parts began as the stories of the Hebrew people, retold from generation to generation, until someone thought “hey, let’s write this all down”, can you imagine how different those early stories of creation, exodos, and the patriarchs were before being retold and retold, each retelling altering a word here or there, before they were set into a more constant form when written down?
Even the newer bits of the bible have origins shrouded in mystery, we don’t really know about their authors but a lot of mythology surrounding them makes us think we do- and what of the bits that weren’t included? The biblical canon we know was pretty much established in the 5th century but loads of other stuff could have ended up included or excluded.
What purpose does the bible have today? There is so much that is wonderful and beautiful about scripture. You may have the belief that The Bible is the inerrant spirit-breathed Word of God, and we say that after our readings don’t we? “This is the word of the Lord”. I believe it to be inspired by divinity but very much have its place in humanity. The bible, for me, is all about what it means to be human.
Rob Bell in his recent book, “What is The Bible” says the bible is this; “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”. These things are the human experience, and all contained within these pages.
It’s about how we relate our human experience to the divine being who created us, it’s where we search for purpose and meaning in the complex mess of everyday life.
But the words of the bible have also been used to harm, to wound, to supress and to oppress. Words have power and words can hurt, especially when those wielding them as weapons have the certainty of their interpretation of God’s will. Slavery, subjugation of women, colonisation, war, persecution of the LGBT community. In some countries the words of the bible are still used to punish and even put to death thieves, adulterers and LGBT people. Words can indeed hurt us.
Recently I read
Vicky Beeching’s book “Undivided” about her life spent supressing her sexuality and the ongoing damage done to her psychologically and physically by growing up within a form of evangelical Christianity which was obsessed with sexual sin and in particular homosexuality.
We all have parts of scripture which speak to our very souls of what our experiences of being human are, and those parts which cause us discomfort or are more obviously of a particular time or context. I find it mind-blowing that we can focus so much of the churches time and debate on the relatively tiny passages on sexuality whilst ignoring the constantly recurring themes of social justice, community, wealth distribution and caring for those in need.
St Paul tells us “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”. Do we believe this? Is it an all or nothing deal? A more accurate translation of inspired by God is God-breathed. All scripture is God-breathed. The Greek word here for breathed can also mean spirit. The scriptures are spirit-filled, but so are we and we aren’t inerrant.
The only lens I have for interpreting the bible is Jesus. Does it fit with Jesus’ teaching or not? If it doesn’t there’s probably something else going on there. Jesus is how we know God’s character and is the truest reflection of The divine we can ever know.
I want to leave you with two questions from Rob Bell’s book, which I really recommend, for your ongoing adventures and struggles with the bible. When reading a passage ask yourself; firstly, why did someone write this down in the first place? And secondly, why did this passage endure?
Very often the answer to the second question is “it speaks to our human experience.” If, as Jesus accuses his listeners we “search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life” then we are missing so much. The bible at it’s very heart signposts how we live in the here and now, what an amazing gift our human lives are, and how best we can use this grace-filled gift.
Loss anger transcendence worry empire money fear stress joy doubt grace healing. The Bible speaks to us across the centuries, it’s a central to our struggle to know where we fit and who we are. The bible is a collection of ancient poems, letters and stories but most of all its our story, each and ever one of us. It didn’t matter which Bible I was reading all those years ago, it just mattered that I was reading it, grappling with it and eventually falling in love with it.
