Question of the Week: Literality of Scripture and Biblical Law

This week's queston:

"Your book talks of Christians lack of love and compassion and you are right. There is no way we could match God in that area. If you believe that the Bible is the word of God, you have to accept the Old and New Testaments. The Bible makes the clain of inspiration. That is either true or it isn't. Of course it needs to be believed literally. If it isn't then we are all just wasting our time.  If its inspired then we must accept it all or we are mocking God.  IITim. 3:16-17 says all scripture is inspired. Read Jude 3 and Jn:17:17.

Each Christian has a responsibility to Christ and His Church. Acts 2:42, Acts 20:27-31, Heb. 10:24-25. WE have to walk by faith and we are accountable to God. Jn. 12:44-50, Romans 1:16-18, IIThess. 1:6-9, IIJn. 9.

We do have to live by the law. Do you expect us to do away with law? Christ died to establish the Church in order to save us from our sins. So the law is a must.  How else do we know what sin is? 

I hope you take time to read the above scriptures. I want you to go to Heaven.” (from Brenda in Indianapolis, Indiana)


RESPONSE:

"First, your comments and thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to contact me. Our difference in opinion stems from our interpretation of the Bible—and further, what the Bible is and is not. To me, the Bible contains both profound spiritual wisdom and blatant blasphemy. I believe it is up to us to use our God-given abilities of discernment to tell the difference. For instance, I do not believe for one second that God commanded Samuel to slaughter an entire village of women and children (I Sam. 15:3). Rather, I believe Samuel was a bloodthirsty man who used God as a smoke-screen to justify his violent agenda. The same thing happens today as well. People use God/Holy Bible quite often as a smoke-screen to promote their own agendas…whether it’s hatred of gay people or someone with a tattoo for that matter! For example,  I had one person tell me it was sinful to have a tattoo and quickly pointed to a verse in Leviticus—of course, the same verse speaks against “piercings of the flesh”, of which she had both ears pierced! Now, I have no desire to get a tattoo but—but I have less of a desire to judge someone who does. To me, it's personal expression--not my forte, mind you, but live and let live. After all, my job is simply to love unconditionally and live with a drive for compassion. THAT is what the “law” was founded on. THAT was what mattered to Jesus.

To comprehend scripture, we need to grasp culture, custom, context and language. The Christian educational process has seriously fallen short in this area. We do more proof-texting than anything. Actually, when you closely examine scripture you can see the impact the Biblical writers, and further scribes and copyists, involved in the early Christian movement made with their own agendas and eventually the direction the Jesus movement went. Their “believe in Jesus message” is a wonderful reflection and, I suppose true from a certain perspective, but it eventually evolved into more legalism.

Jesus wasn’t denouncing one form of legalism (the purity system of cleansing rituals, sin sacrifice, Sabbath observance, etc.) just to establish a new system of legality (“believe in me…be baptized and follow a bunch of new rules).  Rather, he was saying, “The Kingdom of God is right here and beyond here…we just need to move beyond conventional thinking and start loving one another to see it!” Honestly, I don’t believe Jesus was trying to start a church at all. I think he would look at how the church has evolved, stemming from his works, and say, “You people still don’t get it!”

Finally, I don’t necessarily agree with the line of: “Jesus died for our sins to establish a church, etc.”—I think that is true in the sense that Jesus died to bridge the gap between an exiled people and their God. I believe that to be his true intention rather than putting salve on an individual’s guilty conscience. Honestly, I don’t believe an omnipotent God needs a system to “save” a human soul. To me, that notion resembles humanistic thoughts that have merely merged with the lofty expectations of conventional wisdom.

In all honesty, I believe that everyone has a unique spiritual path. I embrace the teachings of various faiths without getting caught up in the labels attached to each. As such, I learn much from Hindus, Muslims, Jews, even fundamentalist Christians!

As for a literal interpretation of scripture…

Well, one of my biggest issues with such a belief is that Jesus and other first century Jews did not adhere literally to the Torah (first five books of what we call the Old Testament). That much is evident based on how violations of the Sabbath were dealt with in first century Jewish culture. Those violations were not punished by death as commanded concretely by God in those writings, but with a sin offering. That speaks volumes to me in terms of literality.  Again, thanks for your question and thoughts. Hopefully, this provides some clarity! Have a great week!"