The Bible and Our Faith - Part I

What role does the Bible play in informing the faith that we proclaim as members of the United Church of Christ?

As a part of the Reformed Protestant tradition, this is for us a foundational question. Enter any UCC congregation in the Indiana/Kentucky Conference and one will find a Bible on either the pulpit or the lectern and sometimes on the altar-table. Many of our congregations have Bibles in the pew racks. Central to every worship service, baptism, celebration of communion, marriage, funeral or memorial service in any of our congregations is the reading of Scripture. Bible study groups are standard in most of our churches. Biblical literacy among our members is strongly encouraged.

However, as central as the Bible is to faith development in the United Church of Christ, we are not always of one mind about the role of the Bible in helping up to encounter God and to determine what is right and ethical behavior. Therefore, I would like to contribute to the dialog by sharing this month and next some basic understandings about the Bible and its place in my own faith development.

1. The Bible opens a window to the initial divine activity of God in human history. The Bible tells us about the nature and character of what we proclaim is the one, true God. It does so through stories, the most primary of which are the stories of the Exodus, the birth, life and death of Jesus and the birth of the Church. It is in reading and re-reading these stories, in all their ambiguity and complexity, that we can begin to appreciate a God who is at once distant to us and yet is as close to us as our breath.

2. The Bible was recorded by human hands. While the Bible is about and inspired by God, it is a human document, written by human hands. The difficulty we have in understanding portions of the text results from a failure to understand the culture, context and metaphors in which they were written. Once informed by those fluent in Hebrew and Greek and conversant with Middle Eastern culture and custom, many texts speak to us who's meaning was before hidden from us.

3. The Bible always points beyond itself. The Bible is never an end in itself, but always points beyond itself. Theologian Karl Barth described reading the Bible like sitting in a living room, looking through a picture window and seeing a man on your lawn, jumping up and down, pointing to the top of your roof. The point, said Barth, is not to examine the glass through which you see the image, but to get outside and see what the man is pointing to.

4. The Bible provides direction; not detailed instructions. In reference to the Old Testament, Walter Brueggeman says that God gave the "Ten Utterances, all the rest of the testament is cultural commentary." While some attempt to reduce the Bible to a rule book for codes of conduct, I do not understand it to be for that purpose. Rather, the 10Commandmentss and the parables and stories of Jesus must be interpreted within the culture and context to which they are applied.

What are your basic understandings about the Bible and its use for faith development in your life?