THE RIGHT VIEW OF THE BIBLE St. Francis Bible Readers
> SCOT MCKNIGHT A STUDENT WALKS from the lunchroom to my office, sits down to chat, looks at me and asks this: “Why does my pastor ask me all the time if I still believe in the ‘inerrancy’ of the Bible?” Before I had collected my thoughts enough to begin answering such a question, he interrupted me with this: “You know, Scot, I really don’t give a d --- n what my pastor’s view of the Bible is because he doesn’t give one frickin’ dime to the poor and he’s never met a homeless person in his life and he didn’t even know about Darfur when I mentioned it to him at Christmas. At Christmas, Scot. Christmas! And he doesn’t even know about Darfur.” He was obviously setting me up because he asked me this next: “My view of the Bible is this: I read it often—not every day— and I do what I think God tells me to do. What good is inerrancy, if you don’t do what God says?” Then a kick-you-in-the-face question: “If I do what God says, doesn’t that show that my view of the Bible is the right one?” My student might as well have said—to swipe and adapt words from the letter of James—“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if people claim to have the right view of the Bible but don’t live it out?” (James 2:14).
When St. Francis of Assisi comprehended what Jesus had called His disciples to be and to do, he went for it. He gave up a life of luxury and sensual pleasures to follow Jesus as radically as he possibly could. The brown habit worn to this day by Franciscans embodies the vision of Francis. He reconstructed shabby old churches, he tended to the poor and the lame and the leprous, and he established a concern for God’s creation beyond what most had ever seen. Francis set off a revolution. All because his view of the Bible was one that went beyond having the right view to having a life that matched it. I’ve wandered through the famous Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy. His “relics” stun me. Shoes with blood stains; an old habit showing his intentional poverty. He gave up everything for Jesus because he lived what he thought the Bible said. I know many Christians who believe the right view about the Bible but don’t seem to live it out. In a day of dramatic poverty, how can one believe the right things about the Bible and not do something for the poor? Too many Christians are satisfied with believing the right things (orthodoxy) and not concerned enough with doing the right things (orthopraxy). Orthodoxy that does not lead to orthopraxy is dead.
Ruth Bible Readers The following words, when lined up in this order, lead to what many think is the right and proper view of the Bible: God, revelation, inspiration, truth, canon, Scripture, authority and human submission. For many, that’s the right view of the Bible. But I’m not satisfied with this formulation. There’s more to it than setting out the right terms in the right order. What we want is a rightly ordered life. What view of the Bible leads to a rightly ordered life? I want to appeal to the words of a forgotten woman in the Bible. The right view of the Bible
is living it out the way Ruth lived it out. Ruth lost her husband. Her mother-in-law, Naomi, also lost her husband. And Ruth’s sister-inlaw lost her husband. Three grieving women looking for a way to put life’s broken pieces together. Naomi decides to return to the Land of Israel to start all over again. What Ruth tells Naomi are words for learning how to be “Ruth” Bible readers: “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried” (Ruth 1:16-17). Ruth may have thought life would be better in the Land (the right view), but to get that better life she had to pack her bags and enter the Land. This is the commitment needed to get beyond the “right view” approach to the Bible to the “right living” approach. We have to be willing to let the Story of the Bible be our Story and to let its life be our life. We must be willing to pack up our bags, leave everything behind and set out for the Promised Land. Deep inside we know that the reason God gave us the Bible was not so we could figure out what the right view of it was. No, God gave us the Bible so that we could love God with reckless abandon and let that love overflow into reckless love for ourselves and for others in this world. There is a big difference between those who have the right view of the Bible and those who live it out. If your reading of the Bible leads you to a missional life—a life of loving God and loving others—you are reading it right. d SCOT MCKNIGHT is the Karl A. Olsson professor of Religious Studies at North Park College, Chicago, IL. He is the author of several books, including The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible.
26 / RELEVANT_JAN/FEB 09
rel_worldview_issue37.indd 26
12/2/08 6:14:57 PM