Do I value the Bible more than God Himself? If I no longer had a Bible at my fingertips,
what would happen to my relationship with God?
Scot McKnight, professor of religious studies, profoundly
says, “Without denying the legitimacy of the various terms in the authority
approach, those who have a proper relationship to the Bible never need to speak
of the Bible as their authority nor do they speak of their submission to the
Bible. They are so in tune with God, so
in love with him, that the word “authority” is swallowed up in loving God. Even
more, submission is engulfed in the disposition of listening to God speak
through the Bible and in practice desire what He calls us to do.” (page 93, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read
the Bible).
I had been taught the “authority approach” to God’s Word,
defined with words such as revelation, inspiration, inerrancy, authority,
submission. I had a relationship with
the Bible. Scot McKnight showed me that the
Bible is far more than submitting to an authority. It is an integral part of a relationship with
God. Our relationship to the Bible
should actually be a relationship with the God of the Bible.
In Psalm 119, the psalmist declares God’s word to be
delightful and expresses a love for doing whatever God asks. He does not say, “Your Words are
authoritative and I am called to submit to them.” Instead, he says, “Your words are delightful,
and I love to do whatever you ask.” The
first approach emphasizes a relationship to the Bible. The second one emphasizes
a relationship to God.
We should stop asking what the Bible says and instead ask
what God says to us in the Bible. Is this just semantics? Is it the same outcome,
different perspective? I think it boils
down to relationship. God gave the Bible
– not so we can know it, but so we can know and love Him through it.
The best way to read His Word is to be in conversation
with Him. To listen to Him. To be attentive to His voice. To absorb what He
says, and then to act on what we have heard.
The Bible is the vehicle for knowing God. It is the means
to the end, not the end in itself. God wants us to take the two-dimensional
words on paper and allow them to become a three-dimensional encounter with Him.
Sounds like a very good book...a philosophy I truly believe in. I have feel the Bible is an introduction to God, a means to build and at times bring security to us about our relationship with God. The greatest men in the Bible, the ones we marvel at their deeds and how God spoke to them, they did not get their instructions from the Scriptures but from God directly or a messenger of God (angel or prophet). Those are the stories we can read in the Bible, but our relationship has to go beyond the what has been written on paper to what He is writing--IS writing--on our hearts.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed over the years that those using the authority approach with the Bible, are also into using the Bible to assert their own authority, for which is was not intended. I always ask those who quote scriptures with that authority approach if we will need a Bible in heaven. It usually takes them by surprise, realizing that their idea of perfection (and their own righteousness) has a serious flaw, as they admit that it would not be necessary there. That is when I ask about what we are missing with God so that the Bible is necessary here. How and why does our relationship with God in heaven's realm differ from the relationship we have with Him here on earth?