Books and 'the Book'

He was an unusual character. Small, squat and very lively.

A group of bright-eyed, intelligent students were gathered around him, crowding out the large room in which we were meeting. There were books everywhere - wall-to-ceiling bookshelves with line upon line, double-shelved large volumes of theology and philosophy, science, and you name it.

He put me in the middle of the room behind a table, a table which had a rather tatty-looking large book on the corner of it. I was there to tell this group of Christians about the new campus Bible study that was being set up in their university and to ask for their support and involvement. To break the ice, I looked up around the room, and remarked: 'I like the books.' His response was swift: 'I used to as well, but then I became a Christian, and now I just love the Book', holding up what I now realised was a Bible from the table in front of me. 'I am a person of one book now.'

What about . . .?

They all smiled eagerly and I felt defensive. What about learning? What about the importance of study? What about all these bright-eyed, intelligent students and their need to construct a Christian mind?

What I now realise is that he was right and I was wrong. Let me explain.

Recently, it has become almost a sign of orthodoxy in conservative evangelical circles to espouse the importance of learning and thinking. It has always been like that, in a way. The Puritans, in particular, argued persuasively for the importance of an 'educated ministry'. But it's now got to the stage where Christians seem to be almost encouraged to spend more time reading books about the Bible (if you're lucky, more often about apologetics or the emerging mission in the post-modern world' or the Westminster Catechism) than the Bible itself.

Taking it seriously

I have recently had several interesting encounters this way. I suggested to someone in answer to a request that it would be a good idea to read through Paul's letters to Timothy to get a sense of his burden of the heart of the pastoral ministry. The inevitable question back was: 'Can you recommend any good commentaries for them?' No! I wanted to scream: 'Just read the Bible, will you?' Or someone else sent me a long article arguing for one rather tenuous piece of Christian polemics, only to find when I read it through that the majority of the article had nothing to do with the Bible's teaching on the matter (though there were proof texts listed), but with so-and-so and what they said about it (whose words were, of course, quoted at length).

Is it too much to ask that evangelicals study the Bible and take it seriously? I know that there has been this move to regain the evangelical mind, and to defend us against being ignorant and 'pietistic'.

Creating heretics?

But, you know, the funny thing is, what this seems to mean in practice is encouraging people to read lots of long and incredibly heavy books, rather than listening to the Word of God, and letting that form our 'mind': as the psalmist says, 'I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you' (Psalm 119.11).

You see, there is more than one way to create heretics. Either you get them to think that the Bible is a joke, and not really authoritative, and then they make up what they want to believe. Or you get them to think that studying the Bible is so important and so 'inerrant' that they write long articles about it on why it is, and don't actually read it. It's the reading, believing and obeying that counts.

Which reminds me, enough of this article; time to get back to the Bible.

Dr. Josh Moody is pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in New Haven, Connecticut. Website: http://www.trinity-baptist.org. Author of Authentic Spirituality.

© Evangelicals Now - January 2001
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