The Bible Is Not about You
Byron Yawn
From Christianity.com :
I hate to disappoint you, but the
Bible is not about you. Specifically, it was not written to improve the quality
of your daily existence (in the way you think). It is not a spiritual handbook
and it is not a guide to determining God’s will for your life. The Bible is not
a story of God determining in eternity past to send His Son to earth to create
a more satisfactory existence for you. But, this is usually where we (American church-goers) take the story.
We are seriously self-absorbed when it comes to our Bibles.
Who else could take the
unbelievable episode of Moses and the burning bush and bend it back toward our
everyday experience? Or, the life of Joseph and draw out principles for
effective management? (Or mine Nehemiah
for leadership advice. Yes, I’m talking about you MNU Biblical Leadership class.)
Your life and happiness are not adequate points of reference for the scope of
what God has done and is doing. Neither are mine. It’s bigger than you and me.
In the Bible we are watching as
redemption comes to pass on the pages of Scripture, one unbelievable event
after another, eventually leading to Christ. Each page rumbles with
anticipation. When you see it from here, the Bible opens up in ways you’ve
never imagined. It takes off.
Unfortunately, we’ve been
conditioned to read ourselves onto the pages and into the events of Scripture (this is called Narcissism). We don’t even
realize we’re doing it. What’s the first question we ask of the Bible in our
personal reading times or church services? “How is this relevant to me?” This
is the wrong question entirely. No question could push us further from the real
story. It’s very much like walking out into the night sky and assuming all
the stars showed up to look at us.
When we approach the Bible this
way, we can’t help but read it as if we’re the center of the biblical universe
and all of its history revolves around us. When everything is read through the
lens of self, self-improvement, and self-contentment, we’re destined to miss
the point. But this is what we always do. Is it any wonder most Christians—even
those who care deeply about the Word of God—are unable to put it all together?
Usually, biblical stories are
approached as a set of isolated events with no connection to each other or to
the greater redemptive plotline of the Bible. Without the real story, the
events of the Bible become merely parables for better living, moral platitudes,
character studies, or whatever else we can come up with. In the absence of a
greater plot this is all we have. Over the years popular (mega-church, seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven) “Christianity” has practically rewritten the Bible. Our version
of various events reads more like a fairy tale than God’s
story.
·Eve’s
decision to eat of the fruit and the subsequent disintegration of humanity
becomes a lesson on the effects of negligent leadership and an absentee
husband.
·Cain’s
homicidal rage becomes a lesson on avoiding sibling rivalry.
·Abraham’s
attempted sacrifice of his only son becomes a lesson in trusting against all
odds for God to provide, or how we should all surrender our children to God.
·Moses
before a burning bush becomes a prototype for decision-making.
·Gideon
becomes an example of how to determine the will of God.
·The
prayer of Jabez becomes a lesson about expanding our personal influence.
·David’s
encounter with the fighting champion of a hostile nation becomes a lesson in
overcoming our greatest personal challenges (“our giants”).
·Jonah, a
prophet miraculously swallowed by a fish and vomited out on a specific
shoreline, becomes an example of the futility of resisting God’s purpose in
your life.
·Jesus’
testing in the wilderness in a template for how we resist temptation.
·The
story of a caring Samaritan is a model of how we should reach out with
compassion to those of other races and classes.
·A young
unnamed paralytic dropped through a roof at the feet of Jesus by four men
becomes a lesson on the value of friendship.
None of these interpretations are
remotely close to the real point of
the events themselves. We’ve told them wrong. You may think I’m crazy, but
stick with me. I used to approach the Bible the same way. I totally missed it.
Or to be more specific, I missed the point. All these events and people lead us
to the person of Jesus. It’s about Jesus.
The lessons we typically draw out
of the biblical stories are secondary observations at best. Usually this is because it’s all we know to do with them.
Fact is the same sort of life lessons could be derived from any contemporary
biography or history. The meanings and
applications we’ve given these events have nothing at all to do with what’s
going on in the true story. Our approach is about the same as looking for stock
tips in the sonnets of Shakespeare. This oversight is so very tragic.
Something so much greater is
underway in these sacred pages. These events were not intended to be
spiritualized into oblivion and dissected as lessons about raising kids or starting
businesses (or having more satisfying
sex, or vision-casting leadership principles or anything else seeker-model,
mega-church pastors life-coaches preach about). They are intended to
be marveled at by God’s people. We stand and point at what God has done. They
are each a link in a chain of redemptive history that moves from Genesis to
Revelation. They’re not isolated at all. They’re amazing demonstrations of the
divine continuity of God’s power. They are each the commitment of a Holy God to
keep His promises and honor His holy name among men.
Our response to the individual
incidents should be, “Look how God used this to get us to Jesus,” not “Look how this relates to my longing
for significance.”
We’ve lost the main story line
that pulls all the pieces together and gives them a consistent meaning, so we
essentially take what’s available and make up a story. What we’ve come up with
in evangelicalism is a bit like Little House on the Prairie. (Didn’t Michael Landon bare a strange
resemblance to King David?) The Bible is now the epic tale of trials and
triumph on the frontier of a long-ago land. It is no longer about what God has
been doing for man and is more about what humanity has
done to impress God. We approach it more as a collection of fables that indirectly
offer principles for life (a successful
purpose-driven life). The Bible is no longer about how God went about
saving humanity from the brink of desolation. The Bible is more the account of
how God occasionally stopped to applaud the faith of a few exceptional people.
It’s less about what He has done. It’s almost exclusively what we can do if we
learn from the lives of heroic figures in God’s Word.
We do the weirdest things to the
Bible in the absence of the cohesive theme. No other book is treated so
recklessly by people who honor that same book so greatly. Among our favorite
rewrites are character sketches. We like to examine the lives of Old Testament
saints—triumphs and tragedies alike—and offer various patterns for living.
Almost everyone assumes this is the very reason the Old Testament saints show
up in the biblical record. Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, and Deborah
have all come to represent examples to live by (or not to). What else could be
the reason for the focus on their lives? Therefore we mine them for spiritual
and moral principles (or business
leadership ethics scenarios – MNU Biblical leadership class!). Sermons are
preached and books are written about their lives and offered as blueprints for
daily life, success in business, or practical decision-making skills.
Every Sunday kids sit in Sunday
school classes, look at flannel boards or snip at construction paper with
safety scissors, and learn how these ancient figures are examples of
faithfulness or failure. The consistent message is, be like them and life will
work out better. Or don’t be like them and life will work out better (I think he means “worst” here). Work
harder, make good decisions, and stay out of trouble like Joseph, and God will
bless you.
When these same kids reach their
early twenties, struggle with real life, and fail to reach Joseph’s moral high
ground, they despair. They can’t do it. Joseph was exceptional. They get angry
with God when life does not work out according to the coloring pages.
Eventually they find Christianity irrelevant and powerless to save them, and
they walk away.
They’re exactly right—Joseph is
powerless to save them. We’re creating angry moralists, setting them up for
failure, and blaming it on the Bible. Tragically, the one message that actually
could save them from their failure was before us in the story of Joseph the
entire time. We failed to mention it. Families would run from our children’s
programs if parents knew the effect our Bible lessons are having on their kids.
This approach to understanding
this amazing book could not push us further from the real message and central
character of the Bible. I know this sounds ridiculous to most of us and maybe
even sacrilegious to some, but it should be obvious. The Bible is about Jesus,
not Moses or any other biblical figure. The point of Moses is not Moses, but
the one to whom Moses points. The Bible explicitly argues this very thing.
Therefore,
holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and
High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as
Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory
than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the
house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is
God. Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of
those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son
over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast
of our hope firm until the end (Hebrews 3:1-6).
[Editor’s note: taken from the
forthcoming book by Byron Yawn, Suburbianity: Can We Find Our Way Back to Biblical Christianity?Used by
permission.]
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