Things I Probably Won’t Ever Have the Chance to Teach at Youth Group

Part II: The Bible

by Elanor

When I was growing up, they taught us in Sunday School that if you are a Christian, you should be reading the Bible. Note the use of the ongoing present tense: not “should read,” but “should be reading.” I was twenty years old before I was able to rid myself of the guilt incurred by this simple injunction, because, stated in that way, my Sunday School teacher should be able to check in at any point in time and find me reading my Bible. And since God can and does “check in” on me at all times, I felt almost a constant sense of neglecting something I was supposed to be doing. I would think of the Bible and drop my eyes to the floor. I would hastily attempt to distract myself from the thought of the chapters I hadn’t read that day, of the verses I was not in the process of memorizing. It took over a year of decidedly refusing to read the Bible on my own before I could beat the guilt out of my subconscious. I had to experience firsthand that I can be a Christian, God does teach me things, God even uses me to influence other people’s lives, when I don’t read the Bible.

My feelings of guilt are one symptom of a shortsighted understanding of the Bible. I saw it as nothing more than a means to my own personal righteousness. Other symptoms might be the tendencies to use the Bible as a self-help book or a moral law. These misguided views of the Bible are sometimes exacerbated by our tendency at church to try and draw an application from a few verses at a time, or from a single chapter of one book, without ever placing the short passages in the context of the entire narrative.

Here, I want to draw back from a close study of individual passages. I want to discuss what the Bible is, why it was given to us, and why, at the risk of incurring guilt in the heart of other poor hapless children, Christians should read (but not “be reading”) the Bible.

The Bible is the story of human salvation. That is its scope. There are many people who read it looking for information on the metaphysical composition of angelic beings or a decisive conclusion to the creationist-evolutionist debate. These are the kinds of students who, during a class lecture on the quadratic formula, ask the teacher who invented algebra in the first place. The question might be fascinating, but it is detrimental to the rest of the class: if the teacher spends her limited time teaching about Arabian mathematics, none of the students will learn how to solve quadratic equations, and none of them will pass the test at the end of the week.

In this way, although it also happens to be the greatest work of literature the world has ever seen, the Bible is an eminently practical book. It tells us what we need to know and then advises us to stop asking irrelevant questions until we can first demonstrate a working knowledge of the foundational material. Seen in this light, it is also quite inflexible. We ask it at what point during the pregnancy does the fetus become a human soul, and it answers Jesus—which is completely useless from our perspective; from the Bible’s, it’s the only useful answer there is.

I seem to have answered two questions in one: the Bible is the story of human salvation, and it was given to us so that we might be saved. In accordance with God’s customary elegance, the story of salvation is also the means to salvation in that it is a way for us to encounter the Person of salvation: Jesus.

My third question also seems to be mixed into the first two: we as Christians should read the Bible because it is one way for us to encounter Jesus. Because of the nature of the book, and because of the Holy Spirit inside of us, it is possible for us to have such an encounter by reading only a single verse. And that is very good. But we were not given only one verse. We were given an epic history spanning at least six thousand years. Why should that be?

I believe there is a second reason why we should read the Bible: because it is the story of human salvation. It is our story—ours, as humanity. In the entirety of the tale, we learn where we come from, which in turn enables us to understand where we are now. We are even told where we are going. From paradise lost to Solomon’s temple to year 0 on the calendar to the heavenly Jerusalem: this is who we are.

Why not read history books instead? Don’t they perform the same function of placing our lives in the context of the human story? For Christians they are not enough, because we understand ourselves in the present as being in contact with God. We believe He can and does interact with us and with the world. History books are so far silent on the matter of divine intervention, so until they address the matter, we look to the Bible, not only as the story of humanity being saved, but also as the account of its Savior stepping into the created world and transforming it.

So I amend my initial description. The Bible is the story of God’s people, how they fell into slavery, how their Father did not leave them alone but came to rescue them, how He Himself died in the attempt. But, just when we think all is lost, He rises again, and the family reunites for a wedding feast in a glorious city by the crystal sea.

It is wrong to guilt one another into reading the Bible. We can read it as the Psalmist did: songs of delight in the house of our sojourning, sweeter than honey, more precious than fine gold.