How not to read the Bible
Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Nehemiah 8.1-6, 8-12, Psalm 119.9-16, Colossians 3.12-17, Matthew 24.30-35
It’s Bible Sunday so I thought today we might think about the most important aspect of Scripture: How not to read the Bible.
Now lots can be said about how to read the Bible and we’ll come to that in time, but no one who’s been watching American politics, attended a University Christian Union, or dealt with the many religious eccentrics in the world can deny that we cannot be too clear about how not to read the Bible.
One of Rhiannon’s favourite things to tell people is how until she met me she didn’t believe Christians could be intelligent. It’s not that I’m super smart, but she had met a lot of Christians who didn’t know how not to read the Bible.
So let’s get on with it.
Firstly, deceptively, the Bible is not a book. Ironically, the word comes from the Latin Biblia, which literally means ‘Book’. However, the Romans were tragically always short on culture, plundering everything they could from the Greeks. Biblia, then, is in fact a stolen word, only in Greek Biblia is the plural form of Biblion, and so means ‘Books’. Only of course that’s anachronistic because books didn’t exist, so really it means ‘scrolls’. But the plural form is right. It’s not a book. It doesn’t have a start, middle and end. It’s not a single narrative. And, yes, it’s very laudable, as some do, to try and read the Bible cover to cover. But it’s not how it’s intended to be read. You’re not starting with the oldest even, the first book. And many of the books are collections themselves. The psalms is a song-book. Not many people would just read through the collected lyrics of Lennon & McCartney. The Beatles are over-rated. And even the epistles are not single letters, but edited collections of letters; so not intended to be read all in one go.
On the other hand, there are some who, looking for inspiration or guidance, will simply open a Bible and read a verse. You also come across Bible notes, or little pamphlets with a verse for the day, where you get a sentence – out of context – and allow it to speak to you. This practice – widespread in the church – is really not that different from reading horoscopes. There’s a heavy reliance on chance; we’re taking a verse out of context; we’re reading in to Scripture; I’m not saying that God couldn’t speak to you in this way, but he might also speak to you while you’re doing a crossword or listening to Giles Fraser. It’s not how to read the Bible.
There are then people who read the Bible because it’s interesting. I know. Actually large parts of the Bible are quite dull: no-one gets excited about a reading from the Book of Numbers, Jeremiah is fine in small doses, but after a while gets a bit ‘complainy’; but there are some good bits. And it’s old, ancient even, there are languages, and people have and still do disagree passionately about it. But the Bible is not history. It refers to historical events. Certain books intend to try and set down some events as they happened.But it’s never just history. Also, if we read it because it’s interesting we’ll miss the point. Faith isn’t about the accumulation of facts. The winners of the Sunday School Bible Quiz don’t necessarily make the most faithful Christians. And part of the danger of just approaching the Bible because it’s interesting is that so much within it is contested, complicated, miraculous, a matter of faith. To read out of interest suggests a detachment, which means the stories will never truly come alive, or speak personally to you.
Next, the Bible isn’t a code that is only becoming relevant now. For all those Dan Brown aficionados and biblical conspiracy theorists: The seven crowned dragon is not an apache helicopter; the six-winged angel is not the Star Wars missile defence system. The horseman of pestilence is not COVID. Do not read the Bible to predict the end of the world. It’s been done before and we’re still not at Armageddon. There’s at least 3 horsemen still to come.
Finally, do not read the Bible to justify your own actions. That includes not clearing out a crowd in front of a church to have pictures of you taken holding said Bible, hoping to imply you’re a good Christian with God on your side. You could justify a great many things with the Bible, and they would not make the world a better place.
So now I’d like to turn to a couple of positive ways in which we should read the Bible. Firstly, own it. I don’t mean buy your own. I’ll lend you one if you need it. But own it as your identity, as your people, your history. It’s hard enough to relate to events thousands of years ago, but if you don’t think on some level that these are people are like you and me, that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, then it will never speak to you.
So yes, like Ezra we have our wooden platform, Ezra blesses the Lord, and the people answer “Amen”; there are readings from the scrolls and an interpretation. And yes, I want you to go away with joy, despite the weather, despite the current madness, because you are a child of God, just like the people of Israel in today’s reading from thousands of years ago. These are your people. Own the Bible. Own its stories. They are your stories.
And if some seem like you wouldn’t want to own them, just remember that 200 years ago the British were still trading slaves; that when I was born it was illegal to be gay in Scotland and Northern Ireland; that America may still vote in Trump for two terms.
Humanity is a work in progress.
Secondly, we have to believe that there are universal truths. Not that every single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife. Wrong Bible. But we must clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience; that we live better if we forgive one another; that love is the highest virtue and ideal; these are truths that we can hold on to whether we’re living through the fall of Rome, enduring the Black Death, struggling to make sense of the pattern of the stars, exploring new continents, fighting a distant war in Japan, trying to find ways of regulating the internet and social media, considering when to help and when to stay at home during a pandemic; these universal truths have carried the Church through every generation and country without alteration.
Finally, we have to engage personally with the text. The Scripture we heard earlier was not written with today in mind, but part of what it means to be a Christian is to engage with these stories, to wrestle with them and allow ourselves to be transformed by them. We should feel admonished hearing God’s Word, but more, we should find joy in it, especially when we hear it together, knowing the love God has for us. I would like everyone to be sanitising their hands with more joy as they walk out than when they sanitised their hands on entry. If you let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, you will know to forgive those you struggle with, that you’re called in one body with the people here; you will find a moment in this service to be thankful, you will try a little to let the peace of Christ find your heart; and you will have confidence that when Christ comes to gather his elect, you will be with your people. If you only find time to read the Bible in church that’s okay. The layering of Old and New Testament, with psalm and Gospel and an interpretation, even from one such as myself, gives the model for how we read. Though there’s more for when the time comes. But do not read the Bible as a single story. Do not read it as spells and horoscopes. Do not read it as a quasi-history or interest-piece, as a code for the future, or to justify your own prejudice or make yourself look better.
Own the Bible – it’s your heritage. Know that there are universal truths which have guided humanity to better ways of living for centuries. And engage with it. Allow it to speak to you, to transform you, to help you find more and more in yourself, what Adam found near the beginning, that as the word of God dwells richly in you, so does the image of God. Amen.