I was talking to someone last night who is relatively new in her faith. She just read through the book of Matthew, the first time she's ever done anything like that. I said "That's great. What's the biggest thing you learned from it." She said, "Jesus wasn't like I expected him to be. Like, he was kind of mean to people." She was talking about the times when he seemingly berates the disciples, and calls people hypocrites, and broods of vipers, etc., which truthfully is not a small part of the Gospels. I thought about it, and I said something like, "Yeah, the Jesus of the Bible isn't exactly the placid, Dalai Lama-type Jesus we're sometimes told he is. He's loving, but he also had alittle bit of an edge to him."
Now I think that this person is mature enough to move on and keep reading her Bible 'cause that's kinda how she is. But I was wondering today about how I could better prepare people for the Bible. Really. We always say to people, "You need to start reading your Bible," and tell them you need to do that in order to have a "personal relationship" with Jesus, but how much of the Bible is the least bit understandable to the average person with no background in Ancient Near Eastern Culture?
People can probably get through most of Genesis, although there are some pretty difficult stories to understand there too (The rape of Dinah, Lot's incestuous rendevous with his daughters). Exodus through Deuteronomy has plenty of examples of God laying the smackdown on the Israelites, which seem pretty archaic and malicious to modern ears, not to mention the pages and pages of ancient laws concerning how to sacrifice your goat, and what to do if you have a skin disease. You've got the genocides in Joshua, the gruesome stories of Judges (like the levite and the concubine), Ecclesiastes, Job, the prophets-- these aren't easy books to read. Then consider the difficult and pointed statements of Jesus in the synoptics, the pseudo-chauvinistic language of Paul, and let's not forget Revelation. In the end, I wonder how many of us, when we say, "You should read your Bibles," really mean, "You should read the book of John and maybe 4 or 5 epistles." Everyone always says, "When you start reading your Bible don't start with the Old Testament." It's like we know that people aren't prepared to read it. And let's be honest, one read through the New Testament isn't going to give you much help when you're knee deep in Leviticus.
The point is, I'm not sure modern evangelical churches are doing a good enough job preparing people to read their Bibles to do the typical evangelical guilt-trip that everyone should be reading their Bibles every single day. On the flip side, we don't want to revert to the old pre-protestant "only the holy or select few get to read and interpret the Bible," but it may be wise to change our approach too. I wonder if we need to start treating the Bible more like dynamite. It can do alot of good and can be very powerful, but you need at least alittle instruction to handle it well. The Bible can do alot of good but it can do alot of damage too, and we need to teach people how to handle it with care. Just thinking and blogging at the same time. What do you think?