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Bible Problems
I stopped reading the Bible the moment I joined the Lutheran church. For I was exhausted. The American Evangelicalism in which I was raised taught me an intensely personal and immediate reading of the Scriptures. In my waffling adolescence, I augured clear answers for my own murky future. My favorite passage came from Jesus’ mountaintop sermon: “Do not be anxious about your life.” My assurance came from Jeremiah’s only good word: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” I loved James, and not only because my youth pastor had prescribed its balm. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” Give me that joy! Give me that resolve! “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, Who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him. Let him ask in faith, with no doubting.” Each passage was addressed to me; every reading the occasion for an oracle. I had problems with the Bible...
I stopped reading the Bible the moment I joined the Lutheran church. For I was exhausted. The American Evangelicalism in which I was raised taught me an intensely personal and immediate reading of the Scriptures. In my waffling adolescence, I augured clear answers for my own murky future. My favorite passage came from Jesus’ mountaintop sermon: “Do not be anxious about your life.” My assurance came from Jeremiah’s only good word: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” I loved James, and not only because my youth pastor had prescribed its balm. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” Give me that joy! Give me that resolve! “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, Who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him. Let him ask in faith, with no doubting.” Each passage was addressed to me; every reading the occasion for an oracle. I had problems with the Bible.
My Lutheran mentors showed me a way from this terror toward a gracious God. They presented the Bible not as a book of laws alone, nor a font of psychological epiphanies (which is even more oppressive), but as Luther says in the preface to the Old Testament, “the swaddling clothes and the manger in which Christ lies.” By giving me this key, this famous distinction between law and gospel, Lutherans solved my problems with the Bible, which I summarily laid aside.
At least by this point I knew Scripture quite well, and it was only gradually that I realized that Lutherans didn’t. I was content to fill in the lectionary’s glaring gaps with residual knowledge. But a further decade among increasingly lapsed Lutherans has confirmed a suspicion that my troubles were a blessing. And now, having grown up a bit, I would not trade my burdensome childhood catechesis for anything in the world. I am convinced more than ever that our problems with the Bible are necessary. For they are born of a simple faith that that God speaks through the Scripture, and so the Scripture is worth knowing, even if we get it wrong.
Lutherans today are so concerned with getting Scripture right that we neglect Scripture itself. And when we get it right, with shallow (and, I should add, frequently erroneous) appeals to law and gospel, or to the theology of the cross, we are somehow permitted to set Scripture aside, tossing the rest of the incomprehensible mass on that great scrap-heap labeled “mystery.” Whatever we may opine about the ELCA’s leaders and their social activism, they have failed to hand down the font of their own convictions: the problems they had with their parents’ take on the Bible. Self-satisfied in their rebellion, these trustees have fizzled away their pietist inheritance, harvesting its fruit of civic righteousness and neglecting to replant the seeds of their own unrest. They’ve solved the Bible problem.
Lutherans love to talk about the Bible and its authority, but the Reformation’s sola scriptura was accompanied by heroic efforts to make this source of teaching and confession—this cradle for the Christ child—accessible and understood. Why else would Luther, along with Tyndale, Olivétan, Enzinas, and countless others have labored to translate the Bible into so many languages, commenting upon it and preaching it from thousands of pulpits? The doctrine of scriptural authority compelled the propagation of the Bible to one and all. Widespread literacy itself stems from this development in religious education. And a very good education it can be. America’s literary giants—Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, even Lincoln—were raised on little but the King James Version, sprinkled with Latin epic, and I defy our contemporary divines to produce anything so perceptive or erudite.
But for sundry reasons Lutherans have only occasionally taken this effort to heart. As the Israelites longed for a king, so we long for specialists, contracting Bible knowledge to certified religious professionals. Today’s parents drop off kids at church to get their dose of catechism. The best Christian education programs feature significant lay participation, but it is often terrified and reluctant, if my experience and scuttlebutt are anything to go by. Once involved, the laity usually defer to another specialist, namely the curriculum writer, to tell them what to say, and how. Long lost is the Reformation conviction that the Bible is basically comprehensible, and that religious instruction should happen principally in the home.
In this morass, what’s certainly not needed is one more tired appeal to the “authority” of Scripture. But Lutherans can certainly reclaim that grand Reformation practice of handing over the Bible, in all its splendor, in all its confusion, in all its horror, to the whole of God’s people. The ELCA’s Book of Faith initiative a good start, but it will take far more than a five-year grant to overturn half a century of neglect. The Lutheran heritage has far more to offer than this. First is the ecclesia domestica, which is just as great an idea as Israel’s jubilee, and about as common; Luther never intended for pastors to catechize, but heads of households. And next, how about some hard-nosed Sunday schooling, with plenty of memorization? Modernize it with an app, SMS, Facebook, emails, or whatever. Turn loose a coding army. And further, there’s plenty of room for a new, online Bible school movement to populate the volunteer ranks. And congregations: how about demanding your pastors spend less time as managers and more time studying, teaching, and preaching from the revealed word of God? The Bible’s certainly interesting enough without the winsome anecdotes.
Of course the people might get it all wrong. Hermeneutics will get woolly. Heresy will abound. People might be disturbed by what they discover. And those who develop problems with the Bible just might grow up and try to solve them. In any case, they will have wrestled with something worthy, rather than having their problems solved before they’ve even begun.
Andrew L. Wilson is Pastor at the International Church of Strasbourg and Production Editor of Lutheran Forum.
Excellent read
Agreed!
Your journey has been much my own as well. I also grew up steeped in Scripture and with a sense of immediacy about Scripture. I also sometimes experienced an out-of-balance fear that the grace found in Lutheranism helped me greatly with. But what also attracted me to Lutheranism was Martin Luther's love of Scripture. He too was steeped in it. In seminary, Scripture was dry, managed, manipulated. What would Luther say to all this? I am finding my way back these days to the old days, but without the old fear that sometimes dogged my path. Still, sometimes I miss the simplicity of the old days. I find that sitting under evangelical teaching helps a lot. I may disagree on some theological distinctives but these teachers of the world I grew up in KNOW THE BIBLE. A lot of seminary students have never even read the Bible all the way through ONCE.
A mature church takes responsibility to know God's Word for themselves. But too often the Lutheran Church relegates this to the pastor. And then gives him/her no time to study. It's ridiculous. Thanks for saying some things that needed saying!
Amen!
Agreed!
You said: "The best Christian education programs feature significant lay participation, but it is often terrified and reluctant, if my experience and scuttlebutt are anything to go by. Once involved, the laity usually defer to another specialist, namely the curriculum writer, to tell them what to say, and how. Long lost is the Reformation conviction that the Bible is basically comprehensible, and that religious instruction should happen principally in the home." Amen to that! Thank you for saying that! It's refreshing to read such blatant truth!
The good thing about Lutheranism is GRACE.
AND
The bad thing about Lutheranism is GRACE.
But often,it's ONLY about Grace. Live and let live. Love everybody. We are told: Love the sinner and hate the sin but then that becomes, "love the sin" as well. Because that makes the person happy. And because Lutherans are grace-filled people, they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. There is a time when that healing of Grace is a lifeline, but then when one is ready to grow on past that, there is still often only grace and so little personal Bible study. Leading to such little growth spiritually. Sadly, few pastors even have their Bibles in the pulpit with them when they preach. And few have read it through even once, let alone once a year, which would be a good plan. We must choose carefully where we are "fed". We become like those that lead us. May our pastors and their sheep hunger and thirst for the word daily!
Bible knowledge or Trusting Christ?
The problem is not in what the Bible says but how we interpret it. If we interpret the Bible strictly through the experience of our own culture (i.e. extreme feminism, liberation theology, reader-response method, etc.) we just might miss the central gospel message of Christ alone for salvation. There are many lenses through which to read Scripture, but as we were reminded at the recent CORE/NALC Theological Conference by the Rev. Dr. Steven D. Paulson, The Formula of Concord, Article V does not refer to Law-Gospel interpretation as a lens, but as a "brilliant light."
I quote from the Tappert Edition, Solid Declaration: "The distinction between law and Gospel is an especially brilliant light which serves the purpose that the Word of God may be rightly divided and the writings of the holy prophets and apostles may be explained and understood correctly. . ."
It is my opinion that when interpreting Scripture, we need to do responsible exegetical study of the text and then apply the bright light of Law-Gospel interpretation in order to proclaim and teach the good news of Jesus. And this comes with great prayer. For the agendas of the culture and politics too often try to pull us into other directions. It grieves me as more and more Christians teach that one can find salvation through other paths and not through faith alone in Christ alone.
Struggling with the text is one thing, but struggling with the text without the clear hope of Christ is yet another.
Bible knowledge
Then I'll start worrying more about the proper interpretation, and at this level of scholarship there are indeed explicit and battles being played. But at this point I'd be happy if more people than ever were, whatever the method, learned to love many, many specific passages of scripture, and the Bible as a whole, so that they may be truly prepared when matters of faith arise. This would be much better than the confessional sophistry I hear so often, the general gist of which is a very broad, "well that isn't Lutheran" under various guises. The last time I checked, Luther translated the whole Bible, wrote a couple of catechisms, and preached a lot of sermons so that people would come to believe in the Gospel by finally having access to its principal witness, the scriptures.
Reading the Bible
Several years ago, a husband and wife in the congregation took to heart my suggestion that they read the Bible every day. They began reading at least a chapter a day together. More than once I ran into them in a local restaurant or coffee shop as they sat together with their Bibles, doing their daily reading. As time went on, one of them began to suffer noticeably from Alzheimer's disease. Yet they continued to read the Bible together each day until the spouse who was ill entered the hospital for the last time. Even in those final days, the trust in God and the love for one another that developed during those times of Bible reading were evident between them.
On the other hand, I was once reprimanded by a council member for making my sermon "too much like a Bible study" by making to many references to Scripture. In a recent survey, someone complained that we needed more programs for members that didn't include Bible study. Somehow they idea has arisen that too much emphasis on the Bible is a form of legalism that is un-Lutheran.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!