Today's question is: What are some of the barriers that keep you from taking the Bible more seriously than you do?
Oof. That's a rough one.
I get hung up with the texts of terror in the Bible -- the ones where God does something violent, or instructs someone to do something horrific in God's name.
What do you do with that?
How do you preach that?
Seriously?
For someone who believes in a loving, caring, compassionate god, i have a hard time taking these references to a vengeful, violent God seriously.
My gut reaction is to ignore those passages. But ignoring them does no one any good. To take those passages seriously, I need to dive into them. I need to unlock them.
One way to do that might be to ask this question: why might the people have thought God would want them to act violently? Recently in an email devotional from our United Church of Christ, Ron Buford remarked, "...the ancient Israelites living among people who honored their gods in these ways may have begun thinking that their God deserved similar devotion, zealously attributing such words to God."
Ron's response helped me so much, and I hope it helps you too.
Showing posts with label Chapter 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chapter 1. Show all posts
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
For the Bible Tells Me So
Today's question: How has your own understanding of the Bible changed over the course of your life?
Even though no one in my immediate family was a literalist when it came to scripture, I am pretty sure I went through a literal phase when I was younger. But, then again, I literally thought Santa Claus was real too. We tend to be literal creatures as children. At some point, we figure out that the world is not always what it seems. We also figure out how, as children, to take the grain of truth from a story while simultaneously understanding that it's just a story. But, for some of us, we aren't able to do that with the Bible. We set the Bible apart and can't seem to say, "I don't know if it happened in exactly this way, but I know this is true."
In college, I took a lot of theology classes and learned to love the meaning of the text beyond the literal word on the page. I craved the way we approached texts in school as something to be dissected. But, that made my devotional reading of scripture take a nose dive. It took years for me to be able to let me experience interact with the text on face value. Most days, I do a combination of both. But, always, i have to open myself up to the presence of the Holy Spirit in reading, asking god to "add blessing" to my reading and understanding of the text.
Even though no one in my immediate family was a literalist when it came to scripture, I am pretty sure I went through a literal phase when I was younger. But, then again, I literally thought Santa Claus was real too. We tend to be literal creatures as children. At some point, we figure out that the world is not always what it seems. We also figure out how, as children, to take the grain of truth from a story while simultaneously understanding that it's just a story. But, for some of us, we aren't able to do that with the Bible. We set the Bible apart and can't seem to say, "I don't know if it happened in exactly this way, but I know this is true."
In college, I took a lot of theology classes and learned to love the meaning of the text beyond the literal word on the page. I craved the way we approached texts in school as something to be dissected. But, that made my devotional reading of scripture take a nose dive. It took years for me to be able to let me experience interact with the text on face value. Most days, I do a combination of both. But, always, i have to open myself up to the presence of the Holy Spirit in reading, asking god to "add blessing" to my reading and understanding of the text.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The Bible says...WHAT?!
First, let me apologize for being lax on blog postings. It was part my fault, and part technical difficulty -- our Blogger site insisted for several days that they were "unable to upload new posts at this time."
Now, onto the question at hand. Today's question is this: When have you experienced the conflict between the different ways that people read and interpret the Bible?
If you were in church a couple of weeks ago for my first sermon in this series, then you've heard this story. But it bears repeating because it addresses this question so completely.
When I first discerned my call to ministry at age 17, excitedly, I shared my revelation with my friends. Everyone was positive, except for one friend who said the following to me:
"It's really great that you've figured out that God has placed a call on your life. But I doubt God would be calling you to be a pastor because, you know, in the Bible it says "women should not speak in church"...so maybe, God is calling you to be a Christian Educator, or maybe..."
...he said the following with great enthusiasm...
"...a Pastor's Wife."
So, if you ask me whether or not I have experienced conflict in the different ways people read the Bible, undoubtedly, my answer is, "YES, yes, I have!" It took me a long time, a lot of prayer, conversation, and learning to get past this one.
What became critical for me and my relationship to the Bible was to learn about the history an context of Biblical texts as I read them. Take the passage my friend referred to, for instance. In context, this text doesn't say anything about women preaching. It's referring to women who were interrupting worship with their questions. Without understanding the history related to and context of the passage, it would be easy to misinterpret.
You should know that I am still friends with the person who said that to me. That may seem unfathomable to you. But, I really believe in the Unity of the Body of Christ. Maintaining relationship with people who are different from me expands my worldview and enables me to better understand what I, personally, believe. It also allows me to experience the grace of God in profound ways. There's a lot of grace involved when you are in relationship with people who are diametrically opposed to who you are. That grace is real and so is the relationship that follows even if we disagree on how we read our Bibles.
Now, onto the question at hand. Today's question is this: When have you experienced the conflict between the different ways that people read and interpret the Bible?
If you were in church a couple of weeks ago for my first sermon in this series, then you've heard this story. But it bears repeating because it addresses this question so completely.
When I first discerned my call to ministry at age 17, excitedly, I shared my revelation with my friends. Everyone was positive, except for one friend who said the following to me:
"It's really great that you've figured out that God has placed a call on your life. But I doubt God would be calling you to be a pastor because, you know, in the Bible it says "women should not speak in church"...so maybe, God is calling you to be a Christian Educator, or maybe..."
...he said the following with great enthusiasm...
"...a Pastor's Wife."
So, if you ask me whether or not I have experienced conflict in the different ways people read the Bible, undoubtedly, my answer is, "YES, yes, I have!" It took me a long time, a lot of prayer, conversation, and learning to get past this one.
What became critical for me and my relationship to the Bible was to learn about the history an context of Biblical texts as I read them. Take the passage my friend referred to, for instance. In context, this text doesn't say anything about women preaching. It's referring to women who were interrupting worship with their questions. Without understanding the history related to and context of the passage, it would be easy to misinterpret.
You should know that I am still friends with the person who said that to me. That may seem unfathomable to you. But, I really believe in the Unity of the Body of Christ. Maintaining relationship with people who are different from me expands my worldview and enables me to better understand what I, personally, believe. It also allows me to experience the grace of God in profound ways. There's a lot of grace involved when you are in relationship with people who are diametrically opposed to who you are. That grace is real and so is the relationship that follows even if we disagree on how we read our Bibles.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
It's Complicated
Our summer sermon series draws from the Marcus Borg book Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. Throughout the summer, I'll be blogging about the issues raised by the book. My friend and colleague Rev. Tom Ott, Sr. Pastor of the church I served in Battle Creek, developed the questions I'll be blogging about. Join in the conversation!
Here's today's question: How would you describe your own relationship with scripture? What feelings, experiences, or reactions does it evoke in you?
My relationship to scripture has been...complicated. Even though I was raised in your average, middle of the road UCC church, I went though a literalistic phase. That didn't last long. Then, when I went to college and took a bunch of theology classes, I had a crisis of faith. I could not reconcile all the things I was leaning in college with my Sunday School education. How could no one have ever taught me about the canonization process, the way in which the Bible came to be? How could no one have ever told me there were feminine references to God contained in scripture? I felt lied to and I was angry. Now, in all fairness, knowing my pastors, it could be that someone did teach me these things. I just wasn't paying attention at the time. Regardless, at that point in my life, I had very mixed emotions about my faith. I loved my theology classes, but they became a substitute for my own experiences of worship and personal devotions.
I think that's when I stopped reading my Bible. When I moved to Florida, I started going to St. Luke's United Methodist Church. Bill Barnes' preaching was revelatory to me. I started picking up my Bible again. Throughout my time in Florida and Seminary in Chicago, I finally felt like I was able to reclaim scripture as important in my life. I figured our how to believe in the truth of the Word even when the words were not factual. I also figured out how to argue with the text. I began to understand that I could disagree with the text. But, I also, finally, understood that I could dig deeper into the text, discovering its historical and cultural context. When I did that, I would always come away with a fresh perspective on the text.
These days, I go to scripture for insight when I need help figuring life out. I also go to it for comfort when I feel as if the whole world is falling apart. Mostly, though, I read the Bible because I can. It informs my faith journey. So, most days, I read the Bible devotionally, not looking for anything in particular. That's when I find the most wonderful things.
Here's today's question: How would you describe your own relationship with scripture? What feelings, experiences, or reactions does it evoke in you?
My relationship to scripture has been...complicated. Even though I was raised in your average, middle of the road UCC church, I went though a literalistic phase. That didn't last long. Then, when I went to college and took a bunch of theology classes, I had a crisis of faith. I could not reconcile all the things I was leaning in college with my Sunday School education. How could no one have ever taught me about the canonization process, the way in which the Bible came to be? How could no one have ever told me there were feminine references to God contained in scripture? I felt lied to and I was angry. Now, in all fairness, knowing my pastors, it could be that someone did teach me these things. I just wasn't paying attention at the time. Regardless, at that point in my life, I had very mixed emotions about my faith. I loved my theology classes, but they became a substitute for my own experiences of worship and personal devotions.
I think that's when I stopped reading my Bible. When I moved to Florida, I started going to St. Luke's United Methodist Church. Bill Barnes' preaching was revelatory to me. I started picking up my Bible again. Throughout my time in Florida and Seminary in Chicago, I finally felt like I was able to reclaim scripture as important in my life. I figured our how to believe in the truth of the Word even when the words were not factual. I also figured out how to argue with the text. I began to understand that I could disagree with the text. But, I also, finally, understood that I could dig deeper into the text, discovering its historical and cultural context. When I did that, I would always come away with a fresh perspective on the text.
These days, I go to scripture for insight when I need help figuring life out. I also go to it for comfort when I feel as if the whole world is falling apart. Mostly, though, I read the Bible because I can. It informs my faith journey. So, most days, I read the Bible devotionally, not looking for anything in particular. That's when I find the most wonderful things.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)