Imagine you wanted to open a one gallon can of paint. Most all of us have a flathead screwdriver lying around in the kitchen junk drawer or else someplace handy. You grab that and pry the lid from the can. It’s not exactly what the screwdriver was made for, but it does the job well enough. The Bible is like that also.
A few days ago I posted on slavery. During the nineteenth century, many Southern preachers used passages of scripture to support the institution of slavery. I mentioned several specific locations of such verses in the post. There are also verses, however, about how masters are to treat their slaves, and a reminder that even the slave is created in the image and likeness of God. Nowhere in scripture are we ever excused from treating other people as anything less than human beings. To use Bible verses to support the Southern U.S. abomination that was slavery was a misuse of God’s word. Some would use the Bible to support the notion that inter-racial dating is forbidden by God. The Jews were instructed to only marry other Jews, but that was not about race. It was about God’s people remaining God’s people. In both cases, the Bible is being used to debate one’s position; a misuse of the Bible.
Just like flathead screwdrivers were never made for opening paint cans, the Bible is not a tool to be used to win arguments, or to support one’s own warped ideas of right and wrong. The proper use of the Bible is to read THE WHOLE ENTIRE THING so that we can understand God’s message to us. All too often we pull the verses we like, or that fit our immediate purpose, and ignore the rest. The Bible is not a set of legal briefs; the Bible is not an encyclopedia of unrelated information. If I want to know about birds, such as which ones are migratory, then I pull a volume of the encyclopedia from the shelf and look up birds. That’s not what the Bible was written for. Bible study should take place one book at a time, for each is telling a part of the story. Some books are narrative, some are law, some are poetry; but all the books of the Bible come together to tell one story. Telling that story, how a holy God relates to a fallen people, is what the Bible is made for.
Here’s a common example: Let’s say that someone believes homosexuality is a valid expression of love. They may have heard at some time the God is love. They look up the verse in a concordance, slap it into a blog post with chapter and verse numbers, and go on to expound that if God is love, and two people love each other, then God is in favor of it. All Christians who thinks it’s wrong are close minded bigots who need to read the Bible. The reason that doesn’t work is not only is there a verse in the Bible teaching that God is love (1 John 4:7,8, and 16 by the way), but also many verses explaining what that means. The Bible has a lot to say about what our relationships with other people and what our relationship with God ought to look like. And we need to hear everything God has to say before we draw conclusions about what God is like. Reading Romans chapter 1, even in a hurry, should make one think twice about the homosexual thing. Then read Leviticus, the rest of Paul’s writings, Galatians, etc. This is not an article about homosexuality, but this is a typical misuse of scripture.
Christians do it, atheists do it. Church members do it, those who don’t believe in attending church do it. When you need to know what God says to his children, read the Bible. When you need a screwdriver, don’t use your pocket knife.
Suggested: Old Testament God is the God of the New Testament. It is on this same line of thought.
The Master's Table 
Using the Bible to win an argument seems OK to me. After all,
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” 2 Timothy 3:16
I enjoyed reading your words…
Dance the Spears,
“teaching, rebuking, correcting and training” are the uses of scripture given in this verse. We should not, however, be arguing. Using scripture to win an argument just adds insult to injury. Like I said, I do the same thing myself; so I can’t argue that with you 🙂
Pingback: Old Testament God is the God of the New Testament « The Master’s Table
I couldn’t agree more. The moral progress made over the past centuries (which I hope will continue in future centuries), didn’t come about because someone found a new way to interpret the Bible. It happens because society comes to realise a great injustice, say slavery, women’s suffrage or gay marriage equality.
Generally religious institutions resist such change and quote their scriptures to back up their positions. Eventually human compassion and common sense wins through and becomes widely accepted. Later the religious institutions realise they are at odds with the commonly accepted ideas of morality and have to reinterpret their scriptures to claim they were in support of this moral progress all along. In my opinion we shouldn’t be relying on a single ancient text to work out what’s right and wrong.
In the ongoing saga that is the Master’s Table, Eshu has just agreed with me, and while I appreciate that, I must in turn disagree with some of his reasoning.
The Bible is not a tool to be used to sin arguments… Read his block quote. On this point we agree, and that was the main point I wanted to stress in writing the original post. Eshu goes on to say, howver, that when an issue becomes widely accepted by the culture that religious individuals reinterepret their understanding of scriptures to claim they were behind the idea all along. Has this happened and will it happen? Consider the following.
Proposition 8 passed in the California reforendum, but the debate is hardly settled. I have no doubt that in the near future gay marriage rights will be upheld in California. I do not think conservative evangelicals are ever going to look around at the public climate on this issue and re-evaluate their position from scripture to accept it. When Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the United States, Christians begin to organize efforts to preach against abortion, elect anti-abortion candidate’s and change state and federal law to limit the practice. Their are still Pro-Lifers who believe the federal decision will someday be reversed. I personally doubt this action will ever occur. The point, however, is that just because the public accepts it does not mean that religious groups suddenly rally around it.
The same liberal democrats who fight for women’s right to abort their children also oppose things like the war in Iraq and capital punishment. In thier mind, killing the innocent is acceptable, but punishing the guilty or fighting for democracy is wrong. Biblical concepts teach us that the innocent should not be punished. The Bible is not a tool for winning points in a debate, but I believe if we carefully consider the message of the entire book as a way of establishing a world view in line with the mind of Christ, we would come to believe that killing the innocent is wrong. By the same token, I’m not going to throw verses at you about homosexuality, but I believe interpreting the entire body of scripture reveals that God opposes homosexuality. Whether gay marriage is legal or not does not change what the Bible says about it. The social climate does not mandate scriptual interpretation.
The Bible is the Word of God, not just “a single ancient text.” It is living and dynamic, and yes it should be relied on to work out what is right and wrong. Perhaps not issue by issue like a line item veto, but it is our primary look into the mind of God. Can we know the mind of God? That’s what he meant for us to do by giving us his Word.
No, I didn’t. Please quote carefully. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this was unintentional. What I said [emphasis added] was:
I only quibble because I think it’s important to my point. I am not claiming that all religious people suddenly change their mind when society does. I’m claiming that religious institutions do so. This happens over a long period of time. If it didn’t, then the ideas of morality from the early centuries would be the same as they are today. I’m quite glad they’re not. Those ideas of morality were worked out partly by Christian theologians, some of whom are now considered saints. I’m sure they spent more time studying the Bible than you or I ever will.
As an aside, the same thing can be seen with scientific claims. Only in recent years did the Vatican issue a formal apology to Gallileo over their misguided geocentric model.
So why did ancient theologians come to such different conclusions about say, women’s rights, slavery or racial differences? The Bible hasn’t changed (has it?), so it must have been something else.
As for knowing the mind of God, the fact that different Bible scholars throughout the world and throughout history have come to some very different conclusions is enough to show that the Bible has failed as a form of communication. Is it really beyond God’s ability to communicate a clear message to the entire world?
I think Eshu has hit it this time. The Bible has not changed, God has not changed. Over time as society changes, what we think the Bible says does change. Remember the idea behind the original post, though. While southern preachers and slave owners used Bible verses seemingly pro-slavery, they ignored verses given to slave owners about how slaves should be treated. They were reminded that God was their master, and that we should treat others as we wish to be treated. Abolishtionists read those verses, and the two sides simply threw verses at each other. That is a misuse of scripture. Eshu mentions the Catholic Church using the Bible to prove the earth was flat, and the center of the universe, and condenming Galileo on these counts. The Bible has not changed, the earth has not changed shape, but the Catholic Church backed down. While aquiting Galileo, incidently, the Church maintained that Chruch leaders of the time acted with the best scientific knowledge of their day. Wow.
No one is reading “The God of the Old Testament is the New Testament God,” which goes on with some of these same notions. Click on the home tab above, and scroll down a few posts. It’s almost like a part 2 of this post.
Pingback: Introduction to Genesis « Bible Survey