She sat on the very edge of the seat, making sure there was no air between her body and the chair. No hovering, no cheating. Two feet firmly planted on the faded linoleum in the church basement, ready to propel her up in a split second.
The adult spoke. “For God hath-” Up she jumped. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
Take that, slackers.
For years I won the Bible awards. Trophies, medals, and badges galore.
Bible Jamboree. Bible quizzing. Bible drills. Bible verses at summer camp.
You guys, I just win at all things Jesus. I don’t know what else to tell you. It’s like it’s my spiritual gift or something.
One summer at VBS, I tied with another girl for how many verses we memorized. Our prize? (Of course there’s a prize for Jesus!) More Jesus!!
It’s quite a heady feeling to know for a fact how talented and brilliant you are. To know that you are making your Sunday school teachers proud. To know that you’re obeying God so well. Because knowing the Bible is what’s important to him, right?
*****
And then your children are born and you’re excited, because now they can learn about Jesus and win at Bible drills. And so they sit on the couch, arms up, spines down, and you shout, “1 Timothy 2:1. Go!”
And the 7 year old flies to the spot, and the 9 year old gets it slower. Much slower. And the exercise ends in pride and tears.
Which brings with it the heart-wrenching realization that memorizing doesn’t make you a spiritual giant. It just means your brain works in a certain way. And that means that my childhood pride and skills might not have been as important as I thought.
*****
For many years I would inwardly disdain the people who found Bible reading difficult. I would smile when pastors advocated reading the Bible, because, score. I was winning at that. Team Jesus all the way.
But over the past few years, as my faith has rotated and my understanding of God has changed, I’ve discovered something.
I don’t like to read the Bible.
I don’t get anything out of it.
It’s so well hid inside me, that I know the verses and the stories. I know the meanings of the parables and the applications we’re supposed to get. I know what putting out a fleece is. I know that I should think Satan asks God for permission to tempt us, like Job. I know that Ruth is a model of faith (although, strangely, I was never taught Deuteronomy 23:3 in conjunction with this), and the sun shone still for Joshua (although don’t think about the universe screeching to a halt for this to be plausible), and Moses wrote the first 5 books (apparently from the grave).
Why do we flatten our communal, historical experience of interacting with God to a surface reading of these black and red words on onionskin paper?
Christian culture continually claims, ‘it’s in the Bible,’ and ‘Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth‘, and ‘it’s our authority‘, and ‘it’s black and white‘, and ‘the Bible clearly says‘. We double down on the fundamentals that we grew up on, but we never move deeper in. We hesitate to grasp the humility that says there is more, and there is different.
Because we’re proud of our rightness. We’re proud of our knowledge. We’re proud that we can quote 2 Tim 3:16 as proof positive for inerrancy. We’re proud that we know 1 and 2 Chronicles comes after 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, but how many of us know why it was written?
How many of us know there are books in other cultures similar to Proverbs? That the authors had different reasons and intentions in writing their story down? How many of us know there were other ancient civilizations with stories, laws, and sacrifices like the Israelites?
I didn’t know any of this, and I have plastic proof that I know the Bible!
We think that following Jesus is about knowing the right answer. But is faith a mathematical equation?
Inspiration and Incarnation is showing me a depth to the Bible that I was never taught, and it can’t be measured in awards. Can we become known as a people willing to wrestle with issues, such as ‘the central function of the Old Testament may not be there to ‘tell us what to do”? Or are we going to reinforce the idea that we can’t handle tension?
When we put the Bible behind glass, like a specimen to be observed instead of a living thing to interact with, we suffocate our faith.
Honoring the sacredness of the Bible goes beyond knowing the verses inside it. It’s like getting glasses for the first time and seeing how the trees aren’t just green; they have individual leaves.
As it is, there are many leaves, but one tree. Handling the Bible is more like climbing a tree to look at each leaf individually. Some people will look at different leaves and have different descriptions. Some might look on the underside and have a completely different understanding.
And even if you think you’ve managed to catalog the whole thing, by the time you’re done, new branches have grown and the buds have sprouted. It’s constantly growing, constantly changing, and looks different as the months change.
But it’s always a tree. It’s solid. You can climb it’s branches and rest against it’s trunk. It’s safe. It can handle your explorations and investigations.
I think there is value in memory, but can we create a balance? Can we learn the histories and evidences while we learn the stories? Can we cling to humility, acknowledging that ‘our own theological thinking is wrapped in cultural clothing,’?
Because I would much rather look at a leaf under a microscope than win a trophy for telling you it’s an oak tree.
I identify with everything about this post. It encourages me to read it. Of course now I really want to read Inspiration and Incarnation!
It’s a really fascinating book. I keep turning the page and saying ‘I didn’t know that!’ or, ‘oh wow, that’s a really good point.’. I’m about halfway done with it and I love it.
I grew up the Bible memory champion, then my faith mutated and the Bible isn’t quite so simple any more(it never was really). I think it is time for to pick up Inspiration and Incarnation…great post!
You were a quizzer! Yay-yah. I knew we were kindred spirits. (;
But seriously, there is something absolutely traumatizing about growing out of that youthful, uncritical (and unthoughtful) view of Scripture. We were taught to think of the Bible as both panacea and weapon in our youths, but this is both absurd and cruel. I certainly felt wounded when I figured this out. I think this is why I avoid Bible reading, even though I love, love, love talking about Scripture. I agree that reading I & I might help get rid of some of that Bible-baggage. Loved this!
I go from 0 to Bitchy almost instantly now when I see proof-texting. I probably shouldn’t be quite that upset about it, haha. But it just drives me up a wall to see verses just quoted, as if that solves everything. Life’s not that simple!!!!!
yes! My morphing has been done really slowly, so it’s not quite as traumatic. But yeah, I love reading books about the Bible from other people. I just learn so much more from their take and exploration of it, then for me to just sit and read it on my own. The only exception to that is the gospels. I can read those now with more of a critical eye, seeing towards the heart of Jesus than the simple lessons I was taught.
I totally relate to this. I haven’t read Inspiration and Incarnation, but I went through something similar last year around this time when I read Saving Jesus from the Church and a couple of Marcus Borg’s books. I knew a lot from the Bible but it turns out I didn’t know so much about the Bible, because we didn’t talk about those things in Sunday School. But the thing is that I kind of like the Bible now in a way I never did before.
This was great. I didn’t grow up having to do any of that type of stuff, and I don’t have my kids do it either, but I know people who do. I figured I was just lazy about making them do it 😉 I have mixed feelings though…because while I love reading the Bible, I don’t do it anywhere nearly as often as I should. I struggle with it not because I don’t get anything out of it, but because when I read it, I want to sit down and really study it for hours with commentaries and my journal and pen. I always end up with so many thoughts and questions that lead me into other parts of it that it often seems daunting to start. Last year, before we moved, we were doing a read-the-bible-in-90-days plan at church, and I started it but due to lots of sickness, packing, and moving, didn’t get through it. And even though there was a blog for it that the pastor and other church staff was doing, I was the only one commenting, so there was little interaction with anyone about what we were reading.
I haven’t read the book, but this piques my interest. I still find newness in the Bible, though as soon as I became a Christian at 14 I dove right into the Bible to make up for lost time and so I could win those bible quizzes at youth group. I do still love it, and I do think it holds up under our questions, and our pressing. A great post to encourage people to really do that engaging.
I was totally a quizzer too 🙂 We even did ours on radio. (I may or may not have been the best on our team).
I honestly haven’t been able to read the Bible in a really long time. I’ve tried. I’ve read great books that should have helped, but everytime I open it everything from the past is back. It was an idol in the world I grew up in, so now… I want to be able to again, someday.
caris! this is SO GOOD. so glad we’re on this journey together, and that you’re writing abut it in your voice – it’s awesome. and i’m so glad you linked to those places, too, cause i NEEDED to find addie’s space, and the violence thing is something i’ve been wondering more and more about. and i MUST read this inspiration & incarnation book! (i have totally gotten thrown by stuff in the past, like when i learned about the other proverbs, that only a small percentage of the book is unique to “god’s word”). you were a Godsend tonight. thank you
I relate to these thoughts so much. (right down to being a Bible quizzer as well…did you use the questions in that box with green, yellow, and white cards?) I too have struggled with reading the Bible because I am no longer comfortable with the answers I was taught, but I have a hard time removing that filter as I read. I am loving Incarnation and Inspiration.
Radio is just awesome.
You mean the Bible Fact Pac? Why yes….I still have it, sitting in the game closet, lol. I thought I’d use it for the kids at some point, but I haven’t yet.
Thanks!! It’s such a great book.
ohhhh….Bible as idol. That’s such a good description of it. :/
This is fascinating to me, and yet it makes sense for you too. I can see how that would be hard in the opposite way.
That’s what I’m hoping is the case for me when I’m done reading this.
thanks Kirsten!
Wow. I am completely speechless by how profound and resonant this is. Thank you.
I loved this book too! It’s interesting though, after knowing so many of the little verses (leaves), I feel like the book has allowed me to see the whole tree and a cross-section of the tree at the same time.
Thanks for the beautiful response to the book!