God the Bible or God the Word?

Over the last three months I’ve encountered some incredible things. New friends, new ideas, and new understandings all wrapped up in a new environment in a new state with a new home and my new bride have spurred on some interesting developments in this new life. I hesitate to say this because I know next week will only bring a new emotion or new experience, but the most significant encounter I’ve had over the last three months has been my approach to the Scriptures.

My understanding of Scripture has drastically changed over the last 3 months. For most of my life, the reading I now bring to Scripture was known as a ‘liberal’ way to view the text. But I do not want to get caught up in that word. The terms ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ are simply words used to categorize people and label them, thinking we can understand them and thus judge/approve of them accordingly. I despise these words and only use them out of necessity. Besides, they are inadequate. For example, despite my ‘liberal’ reading of the text, I still consider myself a morally ‘conservative’ person. ‘How does that make sense?’ some might ask. That is the point; it doesn’t work because these words ultimately fail to provide any type of understanding or clarity.

Before coming to Duke I assumed a lot about my beliefs. By assumed I mean there were certain elements of Scripture and theology that I distantly knew about and for which I had opinions, but never once tried to understand or clarify. In some cases, I did not know why I believed what I believed. I simply believed. In some scenarios there is nothing wrong with this. I believe in many things which I cannot explain or clarify, like the Trinity or how the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ were necessary. These are mysteries. So in some situations, faith is all you have and all you need. Where this ceases to be OK is when one approaches certain issues in Scripture.

These issues are not unfamiliar to many in the scholarly world. They are points of tension and conflict between evangelical conservatives and Protestant liberals. These two groups barely exist as unified groups, but they very often say and write things concerning the other while rarely talking with each other. The left decries the fundamentalists (another inadequate term) while the right sets up bastions of apologetics against the liberal hordes. And nothing changes. What both groups refuse to see is that both sides are part of the Church. There is no correct side. From both groups have come encouragement as well as pain, liberation as well as imprisonment to lifestyles and ideas, harsh as well as loving words for the Church, and far too many words of misunderstanding and judgment.

Since coming to Duke, however, I’ve had some of the most passionate encounters with the Holy Bible that I have ever had. I’ve seen and learned things I’d never heard of before. And above all, I feel as if I’ve fallen in love with God all over again. There are weaknesses in how both conservatives and liberals read their Bibles. If one strays too far to the left, the Bible simply becomes a book of human texts, lacking authority and intentionality. Too far to the right and one’s faith rests in a book rather than in God. Textual contradictions and problematic historical data shake a faith founded on straw and toothpicks, and if one of those toothpicks falls then one’s world can shatter. Regardless, the Bible exists as the written Word of God, to serve as a revelation to the Incarnation of God, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. This is our God. May the Father keep us from making an idol of His revelation.