So many times this week, as I have been doing my readings in the 90 day Bible and having conversations with others about the passages I have been reminded of the perspective I shared on Sunday from Brian Maclarens book “ A Search for What is Real.” In case you missed them I thought I would share some of the quotations again. Its rather long but well worth the time . . . .

I have a confession to make: I have often wondered about the Bible, as I have about the church: "God, couldn't you have done better than this?" If God were trying to give us a holy book, a self-revelation, couldn't God have made it clearer, less controversial, more universal, less vulnerable to cultural Irrelevancy? Couldn't there have been, instead of a collection of varied genres and wildly different writers living and writing in vastly different times and cultures, a single individual or committee inspired to give a coherent, chronological spiritual primer?

Instead of historically rooted books like "First and Second Thessalonians," "Psalms," or "Nehemiah," with mixtures of poetry, history, legislation, personal letters, and fiction, couldn't there have been clear, expository, timeless prose, with titles like, "First, Second, and Third Books of Theology," "The Truth About the Trinity," "How to Have a Good Marriage," "A Clear Guide to the End of the World," or "Seven Easy Steps to Cure Greed and Lust"? Couldn't God have anticipated every heresy, schism, problem, and controversy and made clear, unarguable, foolproof, preemptive strikes through some inspired chapter of a divine textbook?

What could God possibly think we gain by having a collection of Holy Scriptures in this seemingly disorganized, patchwork form, if indeed they come from God at all?

After my mind follows this train of thought for a while, I begin to ask a different question: How else could it be? If God is indeed having a real story unfold through history, then of course, the story has to "happen" with freedom, and the reports of it have to come to us in their raw, unedited forms, warts and wrinkles, bizarre twists and unpredictable turns. And even if God were to edit the stories into a more "acceptable" form, for which audience would God edit them? For scientific, college educated rationalists? For wild-eyed artists and poets? For rice farmers in the East, fishermen in the North, hunter-gatherers in the South, or philosophers in the West? For gender-egalitarians from the West (guaranteeing it wouldn't be read by more patriarchal folk from some other Places), or vice versa? Would it really be better for us to have the story rehashed and "sanitized" so we like it more readily and accept it more easily? Or is there some benefit to getting it gritty, breathless, and warm from the lips of those who were there, told in their idioms, through the lenses of their cultures -leaving the job of interpretation and application for our myriad and dynamic settings up to us?

If God wants us to interact personally with the story, to go deep with it, so that it captivates and inspires and transforms us, then of course, it must offer challenges, mysteries, amazements, bafflements-not just journalistic clarity or technical precision. If it describes astounding, s hocking realities (visions, miracles) experienced only a few times in history, how could there be easy language and common metaphor that would render the unexplainable as explainable, the uncommon as pedestrian? No wonder parts of it are unheard-of, bizarre. If God wants it to be a book that interests and challenges people around the globe for their whole lives, that guides us into life's deep mysteries,that trains us to see the world from diverse points of view and in so doing, stretches us to not be so limited by our own inherited point of view, then of course it can't be like the phone book, a government code, or a high school biology textbook- easy reference, fully indexed, conveniently formatted for quick, easy use.

Nor can it be a one-read book, after which we say, "The Bible? Oh, yes, I read that years ago," implying that we will never need to look at it or think about it again. If God wants the book to be an authentic medium of spiritual enlightenment and instruction, then how can it be a book that we feel we can fully grasp, have control over, take pride in our knowledge of, feel competent in regards to?

Mustn't it be an untamed book that humbles us, that entices us higher up and deeper in, that renders us children rather than experts, that will sooner master us than we will master it?

If the book isn't only to be about God, but also about us ... not only revealing the Creator, but also contributing to the formation of a family, a movement, a heritage, then mustn't it have our fingerprints on it, showing us not only God but ourselves in relationship with God and one another? And if God is interested in recording an unfolding story in such a way as to foster its continued unfolding, without so explaining and clarifying it that the story is spoiled, bled of its drama, de-plotted, demystified ... then wouldn't the book you would expect look very much like the book we actually have?

Cantankerous Form

Might its cantankerous form tell us that there are things more important in life than a good, logical, linear outline? That we are more than brains ... that we have imagination, passion, fury, hope ... and that God is as interested in converting and informing these as our conceptual selves? Might it tell us that all contact with God (at least for us humans, and for now) must be situational ... that there is no way for us to know God except in the ways that people in the Bible story did: in the middle of feast and famine, good and bad governments, changing economies, disappointing marriages and dysfunctional families, poignant moments and exhilarating victories, deep friendships and bitter betrayals?

And might it have a built-in security system, so the insincere or halfhearted find nothing, so the prejudiced find exactly what they were expecting, and so those who are hungry and thirsty for God find a spiritual feast?

So, I complain less about the Bible these days, and appreciate it more, without asking it to be something else, which would, I now realize, be something less. And I encourage everyone I cannot to bypass the Bible, but rather to dive into it with gusto, for it provides amazing resources for those on a spiritual journey.

Just to be clear, since I have not read the whole book I am not able to recommend it unreservedly for lack of knowledge. However all the passages I have read are very thought provoking!