:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

Have you ever noticed that the dictionary is a boring read. The plot is lacking, the main characters aren’t developed, and after the first few pages you know that you’re in for hundreds, if not thousands, of pages that  feel exactly the same.

Clearly the authors of the dictionary did not care about words and language.

And while the dictionary is organized alphabetically, it’s terribly difficult to find anything in a dictionary. There’s no search box. If you misspell a word, it doesn’t supply corrections or words that you may have meant. You’re left flipping pages, hoping that you spelled the word correctly and can read the tiny print crammed onto the page.

Clearly the authors of the dictionary did not care about helping us find information.

Using the Wrong Standards

The Bible is capable of doing a lot for Christians today. Nevertheless, sometimes we ask it to do something that it cannot do and judge it by the wrong standards: to support our faith as the completely error free foundation. Even if we aren’t staying up late to line up the chronology of Israel’s kings, which some folks do, many of us still speak of the Bible as the number one item in our doctrinal statements.

Does that sound familiar? If I had a nickel for every doctrinal statement that lists the Bible first, I’d be able to buy a lake house… and probably a mountain or two.

The trouble is, we’re asking the Bible to be something that it is not able to do, and we’re using standards to measure it that are not relevant to its original intent. The Bible is a reliable and trustworthy source of information about God, it is not deceptive, and it certainly is essential.

However, it was not intended to stand as the foundation of our faith. Minor oversights in chronology or numbers do not nullify its status as inspired by God. We weren’t intended to read the Bible and to then worry about the Bible’s minute details.

If reading the Bible only makes you more obsessed with the Bible, you’ve missed the point.

Witnesses to What?

The book of Acts utilizes the word “witnesses” frequently in reference to the testimony the apostles gave. The Bible is the written account of witnesses—their testimony about something that happened.

The testimony itself can only be judged successful if that testimony persuades listeners and readers that the events described are true. A testimony from a witness points to something other than the testimony itself. The testimony is valuable and reliable, but as Christians we can take things a step further.

We ourselves become the witnesses.

So, we read the testimony, we believe, and then we meet with God. And when we meet with God, we have reached the goal of the testimony. The testimony remains valuable, but there is no other foundation to our faith than Jesus himself and no greater source of truth for us than the Spirit of God who was given to us. We use the Bible, and use it often, to keep ourselves focused on meeting with Jesus.

Whatever folks prove or disprove about the Bible, it only exists to connect us with God. And when we meet with God, encountering him becomes the evidence we rely upon. The testimony is proven true when we ourselves experience God as we were told to expect.

When you meet the living God described in the Bible, suddenly controversies about chronologies become moot points.

Keep in mind that significant chunks of the Bible, say half of Exodus and all of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, spell out the laws that govern God’s interaction with his people in the tabernacle. The goal is meeting in the tabernacle, not the boring book that explains how to set up the tabernacle.

I know we don’t usually read those books in the Old Testament, but that may be why we have this problem. Fellowship with God is our goal, and the Bible is one of the tools used to make that happen.

Note: This post addresses some of the issues brought up in Jason Boyett’s post.