My very first Bible came to me in a Christmas stocking when I was about five years old. A tiny New Testament that I still have and that seemed like a treasure trove of all things good. As I considered writing about reading the Bible, my first thought was how tired people are of hearing that they should read their Bibles.
We are a busy people, filled to the brim with so many things, and many of us are exhausted. How can I make more time to read a book that is just plain old, filled with violence, and quite frankly, seems to be more of a weapon for some groups in the Christian faith than anything else? Why should I spend my time reading something that is dated and boring? Sure, some of those things Jesus said are nice and good, and helpful. But isn’t there a summary of all the major points to break things down?
I’ll start by saying this … you don’t have to read the Bible. This is not a post that intends to make you feel like there is one more thing you’re supposed to do to be good and worthy and deemed sufficient. God loves you. Absolutely. Just as you are.
But it is a post that understands that maybe you’re hungry for God. Maybe you want to live your life rooted and established in God’s love and you aren’t quite sure how to do it. Maybe you’re confused and scared about all the political upheaval, or you are afraid of your own mortality. Maybe you’re worried that you’ll lose your job, or you’ve discovered that parenting is so freaking hard it’s not even funny. Or maybe your boss is asking too much of you and you don’t know what to do about it. Maybe you’re dealing with strange feelings of confusion or depression, or just simple spiritual hunger for something more and even though you’ve read all the self-help books on the shelf, you sort of want to find your place in this world and you need something or someone who will give you a sense of purpose and grounding.
I am a practicing Christian, as in, I practice following the ways of Jesus, and I practice living by faith and not by sight. I call it practicing because I’m learning and growing and figuring it out, and because a practice is something we do even when we don’t feel like doing it. Our practices are our habits and if we practice them long enough, they shape our whole lives.
The Bible is the compiled letters and stories and books that Christians call their own.
So I read it.
There are certainly things in the Bible I don’t understand and that make absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. This is a good thing. If I understood the entirety of my sacred faith then there would be no mystery or need for faith. There would be no need for searching or wrestling with it. I’d get bored with it. Instead it’s offensive and rich and textured and beautiful and awful and striking and so tender I cry when I get to certain parts. Like every time I come to a verse that talks about God’s unfailing love I get weepy. Or when I come to a place where a person discovers God’s presence in their life, I mark it. If God was present to them in the middle of dire circumstances, then maybe God is present to me in the middle of mine. If God talked to that man in a burning bush and the bush did not get consumed, then maybe God will talk to me and I’ll live to tell the story. If people hated Jesus for being radical and offensive, for breaking the rules, then maybe I should not be surprised when people get mad at me for speaking my mind.
We find our lives in the scripture and we find the God who loves our lives in the scripture. We discover there is more than one way to do the right thing. That our pastor knows a lot of stuff, but not everything. We discover that it’s okay to ask God to vindicate us, to dash our enemies on the rocks, and we discover that forgiveness is a practice we don’t learn in a day, but it’s worth the effort, because it turns out that God loves our enemies and lets the rain fall on them, too. We discover that Jesus loves widows and orphans, that God sees us, that God is our help and our strength, that women and old men can preach and prophesy, that God even loves short tax-collectors who steal, but feels a remarkable solidarity with the wounded and outcast.
We discover that love and faith grow by thinking about love and faith, and that the faith journey is a pilgrimage, not a quick trip to the mall. It’s long and arduous and even on the days when it doesn’t feel worth it, we keep going because we’ve set our hearts on pilgrimage and those who do that, go from strength to strength.
We discover that Jesus makes a mean breakfast and can walk through walls, and that being crucified hurts. We discover that God loves trees and rivers and bread and that God is relational and always ever on our side cheering us on and inviting us to love Him back. We learn over time that when we choose to make our life about loving God back, we find the purpose and the anchoring that we have needed. We need someone to love. And we learn that when we love our neighbor, or the stranger, or our spouse, or our frustrating boss, we are actually loving Jesus. This too, grounds us in a faith that is mysterious and beautiful and filled with paradox.
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There are so many programs and strategies and methods to read the Bible. You’re intelligent and thoughtful and quite able to figure something out that works for you, which is the whole point to this Practicing Christian thing. We take our faith seriously and practice walking with God. Not because we have to but because we get to, but over the next few weeks, I’d like to share some of my reading practices because I find it helpful to hear what other people do.
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I’d love to hear from you.
