I'm Don't Get Paid

Well, I officially applied to AU's School of Theology and so we'll see what'll happen with that, I suppose. Anyway, part of the application process is to write two essays, so I thought I'd submit one of them here in lieu of original content. Like most things I write, it strikes me as being more and more platitudinous every time I reread it. But that's all right, because I'm don't get paid.

Revelation

The Holy Bible is considered to be sacred to Christians. Why should it not be? It is the miraculously long-suffering account of humanity's journey away from and back to perfect communion with its Creator. It spans millennia and is surely tied together with the theme of Jesus' Christhood and perhaps most amazingly, its precepts are as clear as glass. One simply cannot examine scripture and leave with any sense of ambiguity; its principles and direction are definitive and allow no room for misinterpretation or uncertainty. Or is that not the case?

If the Bible is, in fact, the "fully authoritative" word of the one true God, how can it be used to support seemingly contradictive perspectives? The God of the Old Testament showed Himself strong to His people through victories in battle. He showed Himself strong by hardening the heart of Pharaoh and extracting the Israelites from captivity and then He revealed His will to Moses on Mount Sinai through a Decalogue of maxims that assert, among other things, "You shall not kill." In dealing only with the image of God as the triumphant warrior who delivers the enemy into the hands of His children and the image of God as He who would not have you raise your hand in violence, one may wonder, how can these two narratives represent the perfect will of the same Entity?

This sort of question is not original nor is it new. It is an example of the seeming disjoint that can be seen between the picture of perfect love and the reality of death. It can be difficult to interpret such mysteries through the revelation of Jesus Christ because in Him we see a vivid picture of self-sacrifice and boundless love. How can such mercy and grace as is found in Jesus be reconciled with the unflagging holiness, righteousness, and justice with which God the Father abides?

When confronting paradoxes such as this, one may ask, is all scripture created equal? Does the easy-to-endorse, difficult-to-live-out message of complete self-sacrifice that is seen through the earthly life and death of Jesus trump all other scripture that seems to associate the will of God with ideas that are not so easy to endorse? Or is it possible that somehow that these two perspectives are not mutually exclusive but rather it is our understanding of them that is at fault?

The reality seems to be that the Bible, while held by the church as complete, absolute, and divinely inspired, is, at the very least, not so easy to understand. What could it mean to say that this collection of texts is "fully authoritative and sufficient for Christian life and practice" when it appears to contain themes and imperatives that run afoul of our understanding of mercy, forgiveness and love? The answer must lie in the gospel of Christ. It is through His sacrifice that humanity is shown most clearly that God is good and that He loves His children enormously.

Does this response put to rest all of the questions and concerns that may naturally be raised out of a study of the scriptures? No, it doesn't put them to rest. Rather, it cultivates an environment where such questions may be asked and considered critically. So with this in mind, it is important not to mistake the "authoritative and sufficient" label that has been placed on the Bible as an invitation to passively consume all logic that cites it. It is better considered a call to duty; a call to study the scriptures and meditate upon them, all the while holding in faith that God is good and that He desires to be known.

-Ryan