Are we missing the point of the Bible?
We all thought there were four but actually there are five. Not Gospels, but tastes. There’s sweetness, sourness, saltiness and bitterness. And the fifth is umami, the Pete Best* of the culinary world that was there from the beginning. Umami is a meaty, broth-like, or savoury taste.
James Cary
What’s your favourite taste? For me, there’s nothing better than a juicy ripe sliced tomato with olive oil, salt, red onion and basil, accompanying a medium-rare T-bone steak with some twice-cooked chips. And mustard mayo. There’s a restaurant in Stellenbosch in South Africa which did that to perfection. One day, I hope to return there for that transcendent experience.
A meal may be there to nourish, but we prepare it in a way that is to be experienced and enjoyed. Even in the centuries when the Bible was written, and food was frequently scarce, there was time and produce set aside for feasting. It may be interesting to have a meal explained scientifically, and that has its place. But someone who only relates to food on a nutritional or biological basis is missing out on the joy of food.
Is there anything more sad than Huel? It’s a heavily marketed food substitute which implies truly awful things about our society today. Huel’s promotional material says it’s a good swap for lunch (no, it isn’t), providing ‘all the carbs, protein, fibre, fats and 26 vitamins and minerals you need from a meal. Plus, save time on meal prep. From only £1.32 per serving’. Tempted? Me neither. If I’m eating Huel, I’m assuming that something, somewhere has gone wrong.
I presume the name ‘Huel’ is meant to sound like ‘fuel’. This is something that charges you up so that you can be productive. But given Huel’s black and off-white marketing and that it’s essentially a powder to which you add water, I can’t get away from the fact that ‘Huel’ sounds like ‘gruel’.
Do we see Scripture this way? This may be a surprising analogy for evangelicals who are serious about the Bible. But are we in danger of explaining or using the Bible rather than delighting in it – and God?
Be productive
Let’s take Huel as a parallel. You’re a Christian. And you want to be faithful and productive, building the kingdom of God. Great. Are you mostly using the Bible as a fuel source? You read Scripture a few times a week for your regular top up of wisdom, motivation and repentance so that you can go out there and get on with the job. Reading Scripture has become a habit – and it’s a really good habit. But is it food for your soul? Or just a necessary pit stop?
The Gospels are littered with people who saw the Scriptures in this functional fuel-like way. They were productive, observant, religious people. Some were influential. Some were popular. They knew the Scriptures off by heart. They had it tied around their arms and strapped to their heads. But it hadn’t made its way to their hearts.
These were the people who tried to trap Jesus in contradictions and absurd hypotheticals, like a widow married to seven brothers in turn. The most charitable version of this incident (in Mark 12:18-27) is to see them pursuing these idiotic scenarios as thought experiments in all seriousness, face-to-face with the incarnate God who stood before them.
The alternative is that they are mocking Jesus with these scenarios. This is quite likely as they are Sadducees asking about a resurrection that they don’t believe in. We are told some mocked and sneered while Jesus was gasping for breath whilst nailed to a cross, so the shoe fits.
It is easy to demonise this group, as if we could never be a part of it. But let’s not be too hasty. What were these Sadducees, Pharisees and teachers of the law missing in their approach to Scripture? Joy. Delight. Wonder. They would have known Psalm 34:8 which famously says: Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! (Ps. 34:8).
They were not tasting or seeing the goodness of the Lord. They were using Scripture in their own mission for their own ends. It sounded like jealousy for the name of God, but their hard hearts and their crucifixion of Christ shows how wrong their motives and priorities were.
Are evangelicals, those who claim to be most serious about Scripture, in danger of doing just that? Using Scripture for our mission rather than delighting in it? Do we use it as fuel for our mission, rather than revelling in the stories, the poetry and the One who caused it to be written, who entered human history so that we could delight in Him?
Be serious
The key word here is the word ‘serious’. What does it mean to take God’s word ‘seriously’? It would be easy to say that if you find yourself laughing at Scripture, you aren’t taking it seriously, but in fact, as G.K. Chesterton would say, the opposite is true. On a YouTube show I host called The Sacred Art of Joking – named after my previous book in this area – I say in the introduction that ‘if you’re not finding any of the Bible funny, you’re not taking it seriously.’
What I mean by that is to say that the Bible contains a lot more comedy than you might previously have thought. There may be the obvious moments where Jesus talks about the absurdity of having a plank in your eye when you are pointing out the speck in your brother’s eye. This is funny and Jesus is speaking in a way that invites us to laugh. But there are countless other moments which are clearly comic in structure or situation that require a little more work to appreciate. But not much.
To see the comedy in Scripture does not require further consultation of fatter commentaries, retranslation in the light of later manuscripts, perspectives from early Church Fathers and Puritans, and placing within systematic scholarship. It just requires the skills you need to watch a box set on Netflix: eyes, ears and a brain.
The key is to actually read the text with your eyes and listen with your ears. When the text is read aloud well – as opposed to monotonously and without preparation as it is in some evangelical churches – the most striking thing you notice is how funny it is. This is especially the case if you read whole chapters, so you have a chain of stories and events that have a cumulative effect, just like it does watching a show on Netflix. You don’t watch a comedy or drama in 90 -second chunks at seven-day intervals. Try watching Only Fools and Horses that way. It won’t be very funny. You watch for 45 minutes, at which point you are often so gripped you watch for another 45 minutes.
The story of Scripture is inherently gripping. How could it not be? It comes from the God who made us and caused the events to happen to people like us and be recorded by people like us in that exact way in Scripture and is present with us now as we read it.
But some things we do with Scripture can make it boring, incomprehensible and joyless. We smother it with poor public reading and chunk it up into bite-sized portions – like cutting up meat for a toddler – because we have a hard time imagining a congregation being enthralled by the word of God.
Perhaps we look for ways to make the readings shorter. Yes, shorter. This means we are trying to have less Scripture in our services. Why? Non-evangelical Anglican churches that stick to Common Worship and the lectionary typically have significantly more unadulterated Biblical content than the services of many evangelical churches. Is that healthy?
Understanding the text
Ah, but we evangelicals pride ourselves on understanding, explaining and applying Scripture. This may be true, and important. But have we forgotten to enjoy and delight in God’s word first – so that we can taste and see how good the Lord is? Do we need to remember our first love?
In reality, we evangelicals are more likely to be the food scientist or dietician who explains the meal, and how the taste affects our tongues and brains, rather than one who really savours the food, sending it around our mouths, letting the umami do its work and allowing it all to nourish our hearts and gladden our souls, as well as our stomachs.
Seeing the funny side
This is one of the reasons I wrote The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer. I’ve been writing comedy for the last 20 years, mostly for the BBC, figuring out how it works, and what’s going on when people are laughing. My previous book covered the theory, but this latest book is attempting to show what I mean when you read the text of Scripture and imagine being there.
Things get quite comic fairly fast once you see the events of the Gospels through the eyes of Peter and John, Nathaneal and Philip. Remember, they didn’t know Jesus was going to do miracles. When He did, they didn’t understand them. Or the parables. Eventually the authority of the teaching and signs and wonders made the disciples realise that Jesus was clearly the Messiah and divine, to the point that His talk about being betrayed and killed was baffling.
Meanwhile, the temple priests heard Jesus was raising people from the dead, and their response? Kill him. What a bizarre reaction! And then Jesus was arrested and executed, and His disciples were stunned. And then He rose again; He said He would quite clearly and on a number of occasions, and they were astonished. And then He ascended into heaven.
Of course, there is far more to Jesus’ miracles than a raw display of power. They are primarily teaching us about Jesus Himself, who He is and why He has come. But let us not rush to explain before we stand back with a sense of wonder. The Ascension is a truly odd event. Why does Jesus ascend into heaven? We can talk about Jesus following the example of Elijah (or Elijah pre-figuring Christ) and how those who are left are to receive a double portion of the Spirit. But let’s just stand and stare for a moment. Jesus has ascended into heaven. Wow! Taste and see that the Lord is good and surprising and enthralling and wonderful.
*Pete Best was the Beatles drummer, fired from the group in 1962, shortly before they became famous. He went on to work as a civil servant.
James Cary is a professional comedy writer, mostly for BBC, and an evangelical Christian. Church of England. For the moment.