Christian, Open Your Bible

I spent much of my teens and early twenties loudly professing a faith I knew almost nothing about.  There's no silencing a passionate believer who has no clue how ignorant she is.  Ignorance, coupled with passion (and disguised as wisdom) has done more damage to more of God’s children than anything else in this world.  Think of how Christians across the millennia have used the Bible to justify atrocities like slavery, the Holocaust, the Crusades, burning people at the stake, segregation, forced conversion, the Trail of Tears, and even things in recent history like the bombings of abortion clinics.  You will never meet a person on the face of this planet that God loves any more or less than He loves you, but Christians without an intimate knowledge of scripture will use their surface knowledge of scripture like a torch and pitchfork.  I know this because I've done it.
 Despite knowing how it all turns out, Christendom has produced multiple generations of biblically illiterate Christians.  I was the product of years and years of surface-level theology.  I would authoritatively proclaim extensive knowledge of a gospel I didn’t actually spend any time studying.  I knew some of the key verses (especially the ones I could use as weapons), and I knew the sanitized (read: "Children’s Church") versions of the big stories (Noah, Jonah, Job, Moses, Creation, the Crucifixion, etc.).  If I observed a “quiet time” in the mornings, which I did about once every six months, I did it with a feel-good devotional for women or a cleaned-up version of someone else’s perspective on a passage of scripture.  I never rolled my sleeves up and allowed myself to wrestle with doubt and with God’s beautiful continuous pattern of death and resurrection as it's presented in the Bible.  Death and resurrection are the whispered refrain of every story.  It's so beautiful, and I had no idea.  I still have no idea, really, but I'm going to keep digging.
 Here’s what I now know to be true: My pastor cannot be my only source of Bible intake.  If I sit in church on Sunday morning and absorb an excellent three-part message.  And then I get into my car and turn on K-LOVE.  And then I go home and post Bible verses on Facebook, but I never crack my Bible open and study it, I am not a biblically literate Christian…I’m merely a loud one.  Biblical literacy is our responsibility.  Not our pastors'.  They've got enough on their plates without having to limp us along in our faith.
 

As I've attempted to dig into what the Bible actually says (as opposed to what I want it to say), I've been fortunate to have many spiritual mentors who have taught me a few invaluable things about studying and citing scripture.  I've referenced them countless times...I'm including my favorites here in case they're helpful for you, too:

1. I need to be wary of anyone who thinks God agrees with them about everything…including myself.  If God already agrees with me about everything, then I've allowed myself to create a god in my own image…not the other way around.  There's no point in reading the Bible if I'm my own god.  
2. Err on the side of love.  If it’s not loving, it’s not biblical. 
3. Similarly:  If I don’t have a relationship with someone, I don’t have the necessary influence or authority to point out their sin.  If it’s really, really important to me to pull that splinter out of their eye, first I need to build a loving, trusting relationship with them.  (It helps me to imagine myself pointing out a stranger’s gluttony while I’m eating at Outback Steakhouse: “Hey, Ma’am…I mean this in the most loving way possible, but your ongoing sin of gluttony is going to keep you out of Heaven.  I see you with those onion rings.  Jesus loves you too much to leave you this way.  Repent, and put down that onion ring…the hope of Heaven is on the line.”  The message would be given more lovingly and received more readily if I had a relationship with Sister-Onion-Ring, n'est-ce pas?).  Remember:  Love first.
4. I must remember that the Bible is not a story about me…it’s a story about God.  When I read the stories of Daniel and David and the Good Samaritan, and find myself tempted to compare myself to them, I have to remind myself to think of them as harbingers of the Christ.  David slew Goliath: this is not a metaphor about ME slaying giants.  This is a foreshadowing of the Messiah slaying giants on my behalf.  When I feel tempted to place myself as the hero or "good guy" in any Bible story, I try placing Jesus there instead.
5. True wisdom knows only that it knows nothing.  God’s plan is simple, but his mind is unfathomably complicated.  We can’t even come close.  Wisdom tells us not to pretend that we can.

Christian, open your Bible.  The biblical “facts” we are so sure we know may be opinions cushioned comfortably inside of cherry-picked verses, but we won’t know for sure until we prayerfully consider the Bible in its full context.  Teach yourself.  Teach your kids. Can we raise up a generation of people who are eager to know the Jesus the Bible teaches us about?  ...the Jesus who condemns the Pharisees, but not the prostitutes?  The Jesus who could fight the devil's out-of-context scripture with His abiding knowledge of the Law and the Prophets?  The Jesus who weeps for us and with us?  The Jesus whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light?

I want to have passion, yes...but I also want to keep seeking God even after I am sure I've found Him.  May my children and their children and their children's children do it better than I ever could.