In light of Brian’s last post, I thought I would put my comments into a separate post and continue my thoughts on our view of the Bible.

The t-shirt Brian referenced is a good example of something that bothers me about the way we refer to Scripture. The issue is… We treat it like a FORMULA. It seems we have the idea that we can take Scripture (out of context usually) and apply it to our lives directly and get a specific result. This is usually without considering the situation in our lives or the point of the story in the Bible. If you read Scripture in context, it seems to me that Jesus dispels the idea that understanding God and how He works can be computed as a formula. The way God works in our lives isn’t always a 1-2-3 step process. He works in many different ways with all people, even though His character remains unchanged.

Now please don’t misunderstand me. I do believe that Scripture is given to us by God and is for our benefit to teach us about Him and about life. I also believe He put it together through divine Inspiration and Sovereignty. It is a great book that tells us the Good News of God’s love and His plan to rescue us from our sin.

I guess it is this notion of the Bible being a ‘manual’ that bothers me somewhat. I do think it has GREAT instruction for us, but labeling it a ‘manual’ tends to make people think they can just look up a ‘problem’ in the Table of Contents, find the chapter that deals with it, and then read the ’solution’. Presto - problem resolved! Does that make sense?

Again, the issue I have with ‘Our View of the Bible’ really isn’t about the Bible itself. It is with the ‘labels’ we have attached to it and the way we read it and speak about it. God has given us a great gift, and it bothers me how we try to reduce it to a human formula for an ideal life.