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Ryan Moore asks Eric another question . . .
What is The Bible’s Role in Our Lives?
As a child, I grew up with the Bible. In fact, I have vivid memories of scenes from the Picture Bible, which is a version of the Bible condensed into comic form. I used to pore over it and absorb it. To my dismay, as an adult, I still imagine many of the biblical figures as cartoon characters.
This transition into a mature reading of Scripture brings with it the question of how the Bible should be approached: what is its value to us? The answer to that question may not be as obvious as one might think. In fact, there have been many answers proposed. David spells out a poetic treatise in Psalm 119 on the Bible as law. Paul explains its power in one of his letters to Timothy. The protestant reformers suggested that the Bible should be elevated, and people should arrange themselves under it submissively. Even these concepts require further fleshing out as we live with Scripture.
I find it very helpful to realize that the 66 books of the New Testament and Old Testament, as recorded by some 40 authors, are living witnesses to how God interacts with people in time and space. As we’ve gone through 1st Peter, I’ve mentioned that we need to realize that the people who’ve written these poems and prophecies and stories are people who had real human experiences with God: each had his own personality, his own doubts and struggles, his own experiences and interactions with God, and God chose to use them to communicate to us His will and law and His own story. The words that we read are not to be approached as a formula for getting things right, but as authoritative, true stories that communicate God’s intentions for the way life is supposed to be.
This brings us to the difficulty of engaging with ancient texts as authoritative.
As you read the Bible, you see that much of the content is communicated in story form, not in rules or explanations. In fact, most of the rules in either testament tend to be contextualized in particular situations. Consistently, however, Scripture points away from itself and toward the Triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) as the ultimate source of authority.
With this in mind, it is important to avoid the pitfalls of simplifying the Bible into either a collection of allegories or a history book. The theological tendency in the medieval era was to take each section of the Bible and read it strictly as allegorical – to interpret each statement as a timeless truth from God and boil it down to some “moral of the story” which disregarded the context in which it was written. On the other hand, reading the Bible as simply an accurate portrayal of events in history suggests a limit on what its stories and broad use of literary forms can communicate. Both of these readings tend to lead to an approach which will only recognize the Bible as a rulebook, where we come to Scripture looking for what is right or true in our specific situations.
I would rather see us come humbly to the Bible by reading it as the way that God puts His divine plan into action. It is how He brings His glory and healing to the world. It is how He articulates His judgment and His salvation. It’s also what empowers His community (those who follow Jesus) to articulate God’s judgment and salvation to the world around it. I think Jesus used stories and parables to communicate because these were an invitation into the kingdom. If He had spoken prescriptively with rules aimed at specific scenarios, people would have been boxed in and turned away.
The Bible in our lives is an invitation to see things the way God sees them. God in all of Scripture encourages us to act in the Spirit: to step into the world and glorify him as we offer hope to other people. This view of Scripture recognizes that we are in one of the acts of the all-important play which has been unfolding since eternity past. The Bible describes the earlier acts of creation, fall, and redemption, with many intricate details. It describes what is to come in the later acts of judgment and eternal intimacy with God. And we find ourselves in one of the acts somewhere in between. Our lives dwelt in the Spirit, giving glory to God and expressing hope to the world, are a holy drama. We have a sketch of our parts. We have the other acts of the play to inform us about how it all works and to give us a window to how God has interacted with other people along the way. Pastor Eric | 
