Personally Interpreting Jesus
Why Christians Need Not Fear Biblical Scholarship
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This essay was not generated by an AI but was written by a human with 52 years of experience in Christianity.
Introduction
There is no reason for Christians to fear the results of biblical scholarship, even if it is done by scholars whose personal tradition leads some to think such work must be bad, such as an atheist Bible scholar or a scholar from the wrong denomination. Biblical apologists reacting to scholars seem to depend on words and concepts alone to defend the Gospel, as if the truth of the Word is nothing more than a battle of spoken human words. We can be free from anxiety over the issues raised by biblical scholarship, as we express a much greater power: our power to personally interpret Jesus by living His teachings. The truth of the New Testament is a living expression, not just a collection of words. We verify the truth of the Gospel by living His teachings. Our proof is compassion. Our evidence is humility. Our testimony is forgiveness. Our witness is love.
The idea for this essay came from watching the YouTube work of Dr. Dan McClellan, who brings biblical scholarship to the public. In his videos, he is often correcting apologetic and other Christian video commentary on Scripture with the relevant biblical scholarship. The essay moves from the problems created by endless words seeking certainty in biblical interpretation toward a Christianity grounded and proven in acts of living obedience. I argue that the saving and transformative power of the Gospel is revealed in the transformation of our own being. As we live by the teachings of Jesus, the meaning and truth of the Gospel becomes plainly visible and simply expressed in acts of love, forgiveness, humility, and service. In the power of such a personal interpretation of Jesus, Christians are freed from needing to fear or fight against biblical scholarship of any kind.
Interpreting Ourselves is a Christian Duty
The obedient Christian, who is faithful to the Lord, is not just an empty bag of words breathing out Jesus’ name every hour, while most of what they do violates or otherwise ignores His teachings and commandments. Nobody honors a teacher by forgetting the teachings. Nobody obeys a commander by ignoring the commandments. Nobody honors Jesus by advocating for and doing that which violates his teachings and commandments. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”. The faithful Christian, who honors the Lord, puts their living where their mouth is as they choose to live by Jesus’ command every day. There is no other way to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ than to honor His teachings and commandments in our daily living.
Restricting our interpretations of Jesus to purely verbal concepts is a primary cause of the hurtful defects of America’s overly word-oriented Christianity. We get our Christian words from Bible reading, from our denominational traditions, from a local pastor’s teaching, or even understandings of the Bible from our family. None of this, to the extent that it remains words alone, is even close to being a full interpretation of Jesus as our Lord. Even if I knew all things and could express all godly words, but did not live by His teachings, not allowing the expression of His commandments to reshape my heart, I would still be nothing as a Christian. It is when we begin to live by His teachings that we start to actually begin to personally interpret Jesus. Our obedience to become what he taught is how we honor the Lord in our living. It is our living expression of Jesus’ teachings in our own lives that is our unique interpretation of Jesus Christ. Interpreting Jesus in this way requires that we question and interpret ourselves.
How can I love this particular neighbor as myself, in these particular circumstances, on this particular day? Nobody can live by the intensely demanding commands of Jesus Christ without questioning their own being. Nobody can be faithful to Jesus as their Lord without questioning their character, behavior, and speech as they express their understanding of living by what Jesus taught.
Nobody is seen in the New Testament as being faithful to Jesus by lip service alone, but must also “be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves”. (James 1:22) It is in the doing, which makes it possible for us to manifest the fruit of God’s Spirit. This difference, the difference between knowing and doing, manifests in everything that seeks to accomplish anything. The carpenter who knows everything about carpentry but has never made anything out of wood cannot claim to be a carpenter. One must produce the fruit of the art of carpentry to be a real carpenter. The electrician who never installed, upgraded, or repaired any electrical systems cannot claim to be an electrician. There are no real physicians who have never treated a patient. In order to claim the identity of any art or trade, one must practice said art or trade. One must produce the fruit that the art or trade is designed to produce.
In other words, to accomplish anything, one must actually do, not just know. This is just the plain nature of what it means to get things done. One cannot claim the identity of a doer without doing. In Christianity, all doing in Jesus’ name must be in harmony with his teachings. Christian doing that is not in harmony with Jesus’ teachings, and is not Christian. Be doers of the Word.
The Christian purpose of good biblical studies is to prepare us to question ourselves, our character, behavior, attitudes, and our speech. Quoting the Bible is one thing. Living by Jesus’ teachings is quite something else. Where is the true Christianity? In lip service or in obedience to Jesus? In order to interpret Jesus, we must regularly seek to understand if we are living well as Christ taught us to live. Interpreting ourselves is a prerequisite for our expression of His teachings. It is in the whole of our living that we complete our interpretation of Jesus Christ and His teachings. To refuse to engage in the doing of His Word by living His teachings is to refuse to interpret Christ.
No violinist, as a violinist, interprets a piece of music without actually playing it. A music theorist can just use lots of words, but as a violinist, theory must become practice. The musicians’ interpretation of a piece is not in speaking about music, but in actually playing the music. This is true of all performing arts, as George Steiner said in Real Presences, “An actor interprets Agamemnon or Ophelia. A dancer interprets Balanchine’s choreography. A violinist a Bach partita. In each of these instances, interpretation is understanding in action”. (R.P., p. 8, Kindle Edition.) This understanding in action applies to trades as well. The work of a carpenter, a farmer, or a doctor has the same relationship between knowing and doing. A carpenter makes a miter cut, and that is understanding in action. A doctor saves a life, understanding in action.
A Bible reader can use lots of words, but as Christians, we must make sure that theory becomes practice. Understanding in action causes us to grow as Christians, offering a powerful witness to the transforming nature of the Gospel, as we explore our capacities to express (play) the divine music of Jesus’ teachings. For Christians, understanding in action is actually commanded by Jesus, who expected his disciples to live by his teachings. Our living the teachings is our interpretation of Jesus, just as playing the violin is the violinist’s interpretation of the music. Expressing God’s love, mercy, humility, and service to humanity in our daily lives is, in our own personal style, the supreme act of interpreting Jesus Christ as a faithful disciple. Understanding in action means doing. Be doers of the Word.
We are to interpret ourselves daily and measure ourselves against Jesus’ teaching. Are we obedient to the Lord with more than our lips? The obedient Christian seeks to replace their worldly nature with the fruit of God’s Spirit that flows from living by Jesus’ teaching. Generosity grows while the hold that greed has on us weakens. Love grows while hatred diminishes. We see differently when we live by Jesus’ teaching, making His command our behaviors, making God’s love our service, and forging our hearts in the fire of living by His teachings. However, interpreting ourselves as Christians and fully interpreting Jesus as Lord cannot happen to the extent that we are reducing most or all of our Christian faith to mere words.
In an optimal relationship between biblical studies and Christian faith, Christians should know that the Bible is not subordinate to scientific epistemology or the standards of modern historiography. We do not have to defend what is not actually attacked. The Bible is not that kind of literature, nor does it need to be. We would do well to worry less about conforming the Bible to our modern standards for vetting knowledge and think more about conforming our living to make visible the love of God as we live by the teachings of Jesus. We interpret Jesus with Jesus: living by his teachings.
When a Single Voice Ruins the Chorus
I have enjoyed watching Bible scholar, Dr. Dan McClellan, expose misinterpretations of the Bible and respond to videos about his work, which is devoted to sharing biblical scholarship with the public. Videos criticizing his work and/or making ad hominem attacks on McClellan regularly reveal much more about how many Christians are in error with regard to biblical interpretation and Christianity than they reveal the deficiencies in McClellan’s quality of scholarship.
I have seen enough of his videos to notice that there is a dominant theme regarding a common cause of errors in biblical interpretation: univocality. Univocality is when Christians feel the need to impose their own tradition’s understanding upon biblical texts in a way that transforms the biblical texts into a single voice that speaks an interpretation of the reader’s own experienced Christian tradition rather than interpreting the bible itself. The truth is that the New Testament contains a rich chorus of voices that bear witness to Jesus. Those biblical voices do not always say the exact same thing, nor always agree with every post-biblical Christian tradition embraced by readers of the Bible.
When a singleness of perspective that comes from outside of the Bible is imposed onto the text using a reader’s traditional conceptions as a framework for ignoring or reinterpreting the data of the text, we fail to read. In essence, these Christian Bible readers, even if they believe in the divinely inspired nature of the Bible, refuse to allow the Bible to speak for itself. However, telling the Bible what it is allowed to mean is a strange companion with believing in the divine nature of a text.
When Christians attempt to correct their interpretations of the Bible with their own preferences instead of taking biblical data seriously, they wind up ‘correcting’ the Bible itself instead of correcting their own interpretation. When what many Christians think is ‘biblical’ comes from later traditions that rose after the Bible was written, we have non-biblical sources of authority telling us what the Bible means. Mistaking an interpretive tradition for the meaning of the Bible itself is a basic mistake that plagues biblical interpretation for a great many Christians. Forcing the Bible to agree with an interpretive tradition that was not even around when the Bible was written does violence to the biblical texts.
This kind of mistake comes at the expense of actually learning what the books of the Bible have to say for themselves. By artificially harmonizing the Bible to one voice that is formed outside of the BIble, we find ourselves ignoring the data of the Bible, as we gloss over the Biblical chorus in favor of imposing our preferred interpretive conclusions onto the biblical text.
Christians love to impose the perspective of their denomination or other tradition to harmonize the full diversity of biblical texts, so that the Bible's meanings always and exactly match what our grandmother, our local pastor, our denomination, or what some anonymous internet influencer tells us the Bible means. This kind of forcing of meaning is less a Bible reading and more a reading of contemporary culture and the history of traditions about the Bible.
When a recklessly harmonizing and scripture-overwriting voice is imposed upon our interpretation of the Bible, we are the ones telling the Bible that our words are better than its words. When a Christian is more loyally committed to their social and political identity than to honoring the data in the Bible, the grand chorus of biblical witnesses to the divine is effectively violated in a battle of words and concepts. When Christians are more committed to telling the Bible what it is allowed to say rather than letting the Bible have a say about how they must live, we clip the wings of the Word through our lack of living practice.
As Christians, we have an obligation to interpret Jesus through living by His command rather than merely parroting our traditions about Jesus in the absence of obedience to the Lord. Words have to join with a broader spectrum of human attentiveness and participatory behaviors to function fully. The Word of God is not just spoken. The Word of God is not just words expressed in voices and on pages. The Word of God is lived. In the proliferation of Christian words without practice, we lose most of the actual meaning of the Word. The Word of God is a living reality when there is a living practice in which ‘doers of the Word’ manifest and reveal the presence of God’s love through their expression of Jesus’ teachings. It is our living obedience to the Lord through our living His teachings that speaks to souls.
My favorite book that touches on the idea of the relationship between words and action is Real Presences. A major concern of George Steiner’s Real Presences is that the academic study of the arts (literature, painting, music, etc.) can become increasingly focused in secondary discourse about art without grounding that work in a more robust multi-cognitive participation in and hospitable attentiveness to the arts themselves. The focus of his book is on what makes meaning possible in language and the arts. In an abstracted study of art theory or journalistic review, what Steiner calls ‘secondary discourse’, words do almost all the work. Here, words talk to words.
But if the art in question is music, then words alone cannot engage or reveal its real presence. While I was a research & development project manager for a company that invents new ways of teaching, I started learning the violin, the piano, and music composition while I was working on creating a four-hour music theory course on video. (It was part of my job to learn whatever the company did not know.) But I was also vividly aware of making it part of my response to Steiner’s Real Presences. I wanted to participate in art to be more aware of the depth and beauty of its meaning, to be attentive to its real presence.
Later, I was conducting Steiner-influenced experiments on getting in touch with the real presence of art. During this time, I conducted four years of music experiments on the piano. These music experiments are another example of my habit of responding to texts with more than words. While learning to play Rachmaninoff’s Variation 18 of Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 from his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, I heard that Rachmaninoff, after a fan congratulated him on composing beautiful 20th-century music, said, “It is not 20th-century music. It is my criticism of 20th-century music. (paraphrased)”. Here, music speaks to music.
For Steiner, words that multiply in the absence of a hospitable attentiveness to and participation in the arts, where endless secondary academic commentary and journalistic review feed off art and even more off each other, secondary talk winds up obscuring the art itself. What can be lost in academic study is the real presence of art, which hides the full depth of the beauty and meaning that art has to offer. In a richer attentiveness to art: deeply and hospitably attending to the art itself, creating it, or in the performance of it, there is a real presence in art that words and theories alone do not automatically engage or reveal when isolated by the limiting focus of secondary discourse. The same is true of biblical studies if words alone are the ground upon which faith walks.
I see a similar relationship between our words and our expression of a richer and more participatory attentiveness in Christianity. When our words and ideas are isolated from the living of the teachings, the real presence of the art of our Christian living is hidden from the world in a way that should never be. Revealing the Love of God, making it visible to all by expressing God’s Love through living the teachings of Jesus, is vastly more meaningful. For when the teachings of Jesus have been abandoned to reduce Christianity to nothing but words about the Word: Here, words speak to words.
When Christians get lost in a faith populated by words and theories that fail to transform our character, behavior, and attentiveness to life, the visible presence of what Jesus actually meant for us to be in the art of our living is diminished or lost. There is no meaning in a Christianity that has no room for the living art of being an obedient disciple of Jesus. The revelation of meaning becomes most present when it is embodied across the fullness of our living, not when words alone carry all the weight.
As performance does not create real presence in the arts, but reveals it through living interpretation, so the nature of God is not created by our obedience but is revealed to all as we interpret Jesus by loving enemies, turning the other cheek, showing mercy, loving our neighbor as ourselves, feeding the poor, doing good to those who hate us, and devoting our lives to revealing Jesus through our living of His teachings. Here, soul speaks to soul.
Living by the teachings of Jesus is the city built on a hill that cannot be hidden. Living in obedience to Christ is the lamp on the stand that all can see. Revealing God in our behaviors, attitudes, and speech is the art of living as a Christian. Without any attempt to live by the teachings, what depth of revelation can there be? What Christian life is there without our obedience to Jesus? Making the presence of Jesus visible to the world is our participation in the art of being Christian. If we refuse to interpret Jesus this way, are we not refusing to be Christian in our living? If we save only our words to honor Christ as we ignore his teachings and commandments, are we not defiling what it means to be Christian?
Harmonizing a contradiction in the Biblical texts is not the worst effect of univocality. The worst effect of a univocal reading of the Bible is that it often waters down the teachings of Jesus, allowing Christians to use their own chosen perspective to make void much of what is shown of Jesus in the Gospels. Univocality is not just about imposing an explanation on a text for all to see. Imposing our own understanding on the Bible can also be about ignoring what is important as we fake our way through the spirituality of our Christianity.
Many American Christians are very well adapted to mostly ignoring the teachings and just doing what they want to live safe, prosperous lives, according to our natural and secular understanding of well-being. To the extent that the teachings are abandoned, all we have left are Christian words isolated from their living truth.
The Difficulty of Bible Study & Being Christian
While discerning the relationship between Bible studies and personal faith, it is important to remember that the ideas of ‘salvation’ and ‘Christianity’ are not absolutely the same thing. Salvation is what God does for us, but that is not our practiced Christianity. The Bible is clear across its multiplicity of books that human salvation, whether it is in the Mosaic covenant style or under Jesus, is conceived of and maintained by God, who is the final judge.
The claims that define Christianity are metaphysical. The metaphysical claims about the nature of humanity, sin, hell, divine judgement, and salvation are invisible, immeasurable, and beyond human competence to assess. But the proof of the transforming and saving power of Jesus flows out of our living practice of shaping our hearts and minds in obedience to Jesus’ teachings. Living the teachings is visible to all. Nobody can choose on our behalf to live by Jesus’ teachings; we choose to obey, to love, to forgive, to serve, to believe with a force of living will. This is a choice we make ourselves with the fullness of our own single voice that represents ‘my choice’.
Our practiced Christianity is what we do before God and neighbor. Either we do or do not try to live by Jesus’ teachings. And if everything one does in the name of Jesus is the opposite of everything Jesus taught, where is the Christianity? Can a Christian do the opposite of all Jesus taught and commanded without losing a very basic sense of Jesus being their Lord? Your salvation as a function of God’s grace is beyond my studied competence. However, everyone can see who lives as Jesus taught, or at least tries, and who does not care to obey at all. At this point, there is a way of saying that one is not Christian, even if they claim it. This is not done on the basis of the defining metaphysical claims. Nobody has the authority to make such a judgment about another person. It is on the basis of the practice. If there is no practice, then what we do before God and neighbor will bear little to no resemblance to Jesus.
This is not to question salvation. Living the teachings is the key. I do not question the identity of belonging to Christianity. I question the functioning of the practice. We can say in this qualified manner, “You are not a practicing Christian.” There is a massive difference between Christians who sincerely try to live by the teachings and Christians who break the commandments of Jesus in the name of Jesus as a tactic to grab worldly power, physical safety, the satiation of revenge, and personal wealth in the name of Jesus Christ. When there is no Christ in our Christianity, there is no Christianity in our living practice.
With regards to the difficulty of Bible studies, I have experienced this. As one who has two degrees in biblical studies and contemplated pursuing a PhD in biblical studies (the desire for a PhD was killed off by my chance reading of George Steiner’s ‘Real Presences’ in 1994), I recognize that I am a complete amateur dilettante compared to Bible scholars like Dan McClellan. It is disappointingly easy to misinterpret a Bible passage. When I question my reading and dig deeper, I often find that my off-the-top-of-my-head reading is not up to snuff. Although I can participate in the types of activities a Bible scholar does on a regular basis, my Bible focus is much more occasional. My digging deeper takes excruciatingly longer than any Bible scholar would ever take, and my results are, depending on the issue in question, less useful than full-fledged biblical scholarship. I am even worse off regarding my ability to manifest behavior and speech that fully live the deepest truths of Jesus’ teachings.
Regarding my own spiritual obedience to Jesus’ teachings,
“I have been trying to discipline my attitudes, character, and behavior according to Jesus’ teachings since 1982. I experience even more hurtful disappointments in my failures to live up to the severely demanding nature of Jesus’ teachings. Believing that Jesus’ teachings are true is one thing, but living them in obedience to the Lord is much more difficult. Questioning my understanding of the Bible, my character, my behaviors, and my faithfulness to the demanding and transforming nature of Jesus’ teachings often left me feeling as if I was not a good Christian. Even today, I do not call myself a good Christian, because the standards that Jesus and the New Testament’s witness to Jesus set for us are so very high. The level of spiritual ineptitude with which I try to live falls very short of the highest standards. But I try, sincere but flawed, to live up to the standards worthy of the Son of God. I do not give up. The main pathway of my not giving up is my persistence in asking questions of the Bible and my lived character.” (From: Leading Politically Passionate Christians Back to Jesus)
My perspective on the relationship between the Bible and our behavior comes from my Pennsylvania Dutch background. I have family that came out of the Amish generations ago, and I attended an Anabaptist church in my youth. My perspective on living the teachings is closer to the Amish than to either Evangelical or Mainline American Christianity. I used to work near the location of an Amish girls’ school where there was a mass murder. If you want to see Jesus through Christians living the teachings, prepare yourselves.
On October 2nd, 2006, ten school girls were shot, and six died, including the shooter. The Amish believe in living by Jesus’ teachings, so forgiveness for them is not just important. For the Amish, forgiveness, as understood through their reading of the teachings of Jesus, is woven into the fabric of their being and living. Within hours of the mass murder, members of the Amish community were on the doorstep of the family of the shooter. They did not want revenge. They did not want to yell or punish. They told her they knew that she and her family were also suffering. They wanted to help. “Forgiveness is woven into the fabric of Amish faith. And that is why words of forgiveness were sent to the killer’s family before the blood had dried on the schoolhouse floor. It was just the natural thing to do, the Amish way of doing things.” (emu.edu)
They forgave the murderer of their children and gave the shooter’s widow food, friendship, and financial assistance to help her in her time of suffering. More Amish attended the shooter’s funeral than there were family and friends of the shooter. The shooter’s mother met the Amish at the funeral and said later,
“For the mother and father who had lost not just one but two daughters at the hand of our son, to come up and be the first ones to greet us -- wow. Is there anything in this life that we should not forgive?” (CBS News)
The Amish believe that witnessing to Jesus can be done through behavior. They are not opposed to words, but do not want a Christian life without obedience to His teachings. They abhor the aggressive verbal seeking of converts. Their insistence on manifesting robust forgiveness, humility, and simplicity as they devote themselves to living the teachings is not just words.
On the day of the shooting, one of the Amish girls wanted to protect the other children, her friends, and her sisters. At 13 years old, she faced the soon-to-be mass murderer with controlled calm and temperance of character. In her love for her friends, she faced a killer, who had a Springfield Armory XD 9mm semiautomatic handgun and said, “Shoot me first”. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)
Christianity is more than words. It is the power to face hell on earth with a depth of human dignity and love that is beautiful. A life of practicing living by the teachings of Jesus gives us the power to offer extraordinarily beautiful deeds in the face of hideous wrongs without the domination of fear. If you want to learn more about the Christ-like Amish response to severe tragedy, read Amish Grace. (The book is MUCH better than the movie.) When the Amish or any Christian can live the teachings with such grace, it makes the meaning of the Gospel visible in ways that words alone can never do.
I have given more effort to understanding the Bible and being a Christian in just one year than many Christians give for their entire lives. Yet, I am vividly aware of my serious imperfections. Relative to the full demands of Jesus’ teachings, it takes everything I have just to be less than mediocre. One of my difficulties is that I am neurodivergent. For most of my life, I was completely unaware of stupendously obvious things regarding normal human sensibilities. What does that mean?
For example, some years ago, I was getting ready to leave on a trip to visit some people. My best friend, and sometimes coauthor, of over 40 years, walked up to me and gently held my face in her hands. She paused and waited, holding my face. When she needed me to listen to her with my full attention, she would sometimes have to grab my face or hands and wait for me to be fully present with her. Then she said to me in a quiet and loving voice, “What are you going to do when you get there?” I did not know what she meant. She said it again. I was still lost. Then she said, “Pay attention to people.”
Is this not exactly what the teachings of Jesus do for us? The teachings of Jesus show us how to “pay attention to people” in a powerful and spiritually alive manner through our living by His teachings. The way of Jesus makes it possible for us to pay attention to people with superior grace. When we follow Him in that way, we are putting our lamp on the stand for all to see. As I consider the nature of His teachings, which demand that we change our focus in how we pay attention to people, I suspect that most Christians have their own style of sharing in my dilemma of having problems paying attention to people. The standard of attentiveness that Jesus’ teachings lead us to embrace is not trivial nor well practiced by most Christians, including myself.
As humanly daft as I have been for my whole adult life, I was also the kind of student that professors would spend time trying to encourage to get a PhD in their field of study. I could wait until the night before a 30-page paper worth one college credit was due, pick my topic that night, turn in only nine pages, and still get an A. But I could not effectively interpret people’s facial expressions. When I speak of the absolute necessity for Christians to live according to the teachings of Jesus Christ, I am not talking out of a sense of mastery. I am speaking out of a sense of knowing I need all the help I can get. Knowing, even knowing tremedously well, is not enough. A person can be intellectually gifted and still miss what matters the most. Even a perfect knowledge of biblical texts is not enough for well-being in the faith of a Christian, but the living of His teachings is a depth of meaning and beauty worthy of the divine.
Some Christians may feel worried about failure when they think of the incredibly high standards of the Gospel of Jesus. When I wonder about my own ability to be faithful, I remember the story of a woman who fell during a race. She broke her leg and could not get up. But she did not give up. She crawled, dragging her broken body across the finish line, and finished the race dead last. When the woman crossed the finish line, the whole crowd rose to their feet and cheered, not for the winner, but for the one who was last. There is more honor in trying, failing, but not giving up, than there is for all those to whom it came easily.
The kind of competence it takes to be a good Christian is not just about knowing intellectually. If it were, my neurodivergent mind would have absolutely mastered being Christian decades ago. One can perfectly know the meanings of the whole of the New Testament, but from a Christian faith perspective, without any will to be obedient to Jesus’ commands, without any will to allow the teachings of Jesus to shape our hearts, character, and lives, it is good for nothing. If the Bible is not just an object of study, but also a book of faith, the living of Jesus’ teaching is necessary. It is here, where my neurodivergency is a liability. Regardless of how many intellectual accomplishments I could have achieved in my life, trying to live by His teachings forced me to work on the weaknesses that my mind imposes upon me.
I am mystified by the extraordinary confidence of many Christians who have no problem talking as if they are the only righteous on earth, the only true Christians, who always talk as if anyone disagreeing with them is a bad person. I wish I were this good. Wouldn’t it be lovely to be so perfected in my Biblical understanding and Jesus-obedient behaviors that anyone disagreeing with me is automatically wrong?
The greatest difficulty in Biblical studies is not the results of objective scholarship, but something that lives closer to home in our faith, the desire to ignore, explain away, or otherwise marginalize the demanding nature of the teachings of Jesus from our idea of being Christian. Biblical studies can be difficult, but being a Christian is the greater challenge and the only pathway for expressing faith in Jesus as Lord. When we choose to let the teachings reshape us, there is no biblical scholarship we need to fear.
Biblical Scholarship Cannot Stop You
Enough preparatory work has been done in this essay to look at the issue of biblical scholarship and negative Christian responses to that scholarship. Regarding Christians facing the results of biblical scholarship, those results cannot at all affect how we choose to live by Jesus’ teachings unless they actually change our understanding of what Jesus taught or what those teachings mean. The first step in benefiting from biblical scholarship is to realize that 99 percent of biblical scholarship in no way affects what it means to live by Jesus teachings, so that we bear the fruit of the Spirit as a light in the world. Here are some illustrations:
Does a textual-critical study of Bible manuscript transmission that produces results you do not like, even though you have no expertise in that area, actually stop you from loving your neighbor as yourself? No.
If it turns out that Paul really did not write Titus, do we stop believing that we are supposed to “live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly”? (Titus 2:12) No, why should we?
Did a Bible scholar tell you the dates when some of the books of the New Testament were likely written, but it is not to your liking, does this prevent you from forgiving? Why would it?
If a Bible scholar has the idea that analyzing the Documentary hypothesis and Pentateuch sources is useful for understanding the five books of Moses, producing results you do not like, does this stop you from giving a cup of water to one who needs it? Why would it ever???
If Bible scholars talk about the synoptic problem of literary dependence in the Gospels, and the idea of the Q source bothers you for some reason. Does it inhibit your will to feed the hungry? It cannot unless you want it to.
Does the idea of some scholars that high Christology developed over time bother you so much that you are no longer merciful? There is no reason for that to ever be necessary!
When Bible scholars speak of myth, symbolism, and metaphor in Scripture, does the irritation of your love of a more literalist reading of the Bible make it more likely that you will cast the first stone? If so, your most serious problem in Christianity is definitely not biblical scholarship.
The Bible, and the awesomely beautiful, transforming power of Jesus’ teachings, are neither subordinate to scientific epistemology nor the modern standards of historiography. Why do Christians act as if we have to ask permission from scientists and historians if the Bible is allowed to speak to us? Deferring to modern epistemological authority seems to be underlying a lot of apologetic activity. But this is understandable. When Christianity is reduced to words alone, Christians have put their lamp under a bushel where nobody sees it. The real proof of Christianity’s value, being the fruits of God’s spirit, is then hidden. Overreacting to biblical scholarship often reveals how separate we already are from living by Jesus' teachings. A key to a better lived faith is to stop trying to humble biblical scholars with apologetic words; rather, we must humble our own hearts as we accept our responsibility to live by the teachings of Jesus Christ. If we do, we will be set free of lesser concerns.
It is not the role of Christians to prove the Bible; we live as Jesus taught us to live. The transforming power of the Gospel is not an invisible metaphysical claim. The power of the Gospel to change and benefit us becomes visible, fully revealed, when Christians express His teachings and manifest the fruit of God’s Spirit.
It is neither possible nor needed to scientifically prove Christianity. We do not need historians to prove Jesus. Our proof is compassion. Our evidence is service. Our testimony is sacrifice. Our witness is love. Christians living by the teachings of Jesus are all the proof of Jesus that humanity needs. Our proof of the Gospel will never come from biblical scholarship, historiography, or science, and neither will the fruit of God’s Spirit. Only obedient Christians who live the teachings of Jesus Christ can do that. Concerning biblical studies, the only Christian purpose of good biblical studies is to make ourselves ready to live by the teachings of Jesus Christ. To stand up for Jesus, we must lay down our lives to live His teachings in service to humanity.
One can treat the Bible as an object of study without even being Christian. One can even choose to live by Jesus’ most central ethical commands without being Christian. But for the Christian, the only witness to the transforming and saving power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is our character and behaviors that are visible when we commit to living by His teachings. Studying the Bible and living the teachings is at the very center of Christian life. We should stop worrying about biblical scholarship just because the biblical texts are not a paragon of science and history. Jesus’ teachings do not function to teach and command science and history, but our hearts. It is our practiced ability to manifest love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22-23) that proclaims Jesus Christ as the King of Kings, and announces that something different from the world-as-usual is alive here. Something beautiful and good is powerful here.
What kind of power? It is the power of hearts to connect in ways the world cannot overturn. It is the power to heal our division and unite as one body. It is the power to bear effective witness to the healing and saving power of the Gospel. The world does not need Christians to show them scientific or historical miracles. They need Christians to show them the miracle of the Love of God through their living as the Gospels teach it.
Below is a list of some of the teachings of Jesus. Imagine the fruit of the Spirit that comes from regularly obeying Jesus’ command. Think of some of his teachings and imagine the Christian who can make this visible in real life. Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” What are the instructions that Jesus gives to those who love Him? Here is a sample list of teachings:
“love your enemies, love your neighbor as yourself, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, forgive seventy times seven, turn the other cheek, bless those who persecute you, do good to those who hate you, whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted, the greatest among you shall be your servant, you are not to be called masters, if anyone takes your shirt give your coat as well, if anyone forces you to go one mile go also the second mile, give to the one who asks of you and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you, give without expecting anything back, whatever you have done for the least of these you did for me,
from everyone who has been given much; much will be required, welcome the stranger, feed the poor, care for the sick, visit those in prison, be merciful just as your Father is merciful, do not judge, let the one without sin cast the first stone, the first shall be last and the last shall be first, woe to you who are rich, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul, you cannot serve both God and money, put away your sword, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the meek, go and make disciples of all nations...teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you”
Actually living as Jesus taught us to live has more power to bless others with the fruit of God’s spirit, proving the transforming and saving nature of the Gospel, more than all the biblical studies, science experiments, and historiographic analysis that the world will ever manifest. But for this to be real, our knowing of Jesus has to be more than words. The issue with Christian’s facing biblical scholarship is that good biblical studies are best when they are objective and unafraid to face the data of the Bible. Whereas many Christians are unpracticed in facing the data of the Bible, and better practiced at facing the Christian traditions they were exposed to. When done well, the relationship between biblical studies and Christian faith is that good biblical studies help us prepare to choose how we live by the teachings of Jesus. In such choosing, we engage in our own interpretation of Jesus.
An important principle of Christian faith-related biblical studies is that if you are completely confident and comfortable in all of your Bible reading and study, such that you expect to be always right and always confirmed in your preexisting understanding, so much so that the Bible has lost its ability to disturb you at all, your Bible reading is very, very sickly and harmful to your Christianity. If the teachings of Jesus never disturb you, there is a significant chance that you have never tried to live them consistently. Now is the time to light a godly fire in our hearts, a fire that disturbs our worldly contentments, that burns away our fleshly nature, a fire that empowers us to face hell on earth with depth, beauty, and godly power, by living by His teachings and giving the world what it hungers for the most: the fruit of God’s Spirit.
Here is a method of pure empowerment for the Christian wanting to be faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember the list of the teachings of Jesus you read above? Use that list. Memorize it. Burn it into your heart and mind. Become unable to think of ethical issues or responses to disturbing circumstances in the world without that list blazing in your heart. Become able to recite it fluently, forwards and backwards. Soon, the teachings of Jesus Christ will be fluent within your awareness. This is a big first step. Nobody obeys what they do not remember. Nobody gets good at that which is not focused on intently. This method is the most concise, focused, and powerful way to immediately burn the teachings of Jesus Christ into your mind. Add other teachings after you master the list. This does not replace your Bible reading.
When a Single Voice Writes New Scripture
I know the subtitle is shocking, but I am not talking about putting new words onto new pages and calling it ‘Bible’. We have enough words on the pages. The world does not need more pages of text that they can ignore. I am talking about new acts of loving-kindness they cannot ignore, new acts of service and giving that heal and uplift, and new renderings of the love of God revealed through living the teachings of Jesus. The world needs new acts of Christian obedience more than it needs more words talking to words that are talking to other words in debates about metaphysical claims or disagreements about biblical data. New acts of Christian compassion, forgiveness, humility, sacrifice, generosity, and a peace born of spiritual obedience must be entered into the record of the history of stories retold, and of blessings remembered. Such acts are a living witness to Jesus that reveals vastly more than words alone can reveal.
The Amish did not show up at the shooter’s home to ask his wife, “Do you know Jesus?”. The Amish forgave the murderer of their children, fed his suffering family, provided friendship to the killer’s wife in the hour of darkest despair, and gave financial assistance to a widow whose husband had hurt the Amish community deeply. Acts of Christian obedience represent a living interpretation of Jesus that reveals the living Word as seen through the fruit of God’s Spirit. This can only come from the lives of Christians living according to the teachings of Jesus.
What would it be like to have Christian communities that focused enough on actually living Jesus’ teachings that it lights up the Gospel for all to see? What would it be like to have Christian communities as the norm, pouring out the fruit of God’s Spirit as they live to fully interpret Jesus Christ in obedience to His teachings? A community of Christians living by the teachings of Jesus would continually create new stories of living acts of obedience to Jesus’ teachings. If most Christians lived the teaching and obeyed the commandments, the historical record would be filled with a living scripture, beautiful stories of Christian acts that reveal the love of God in a way that is vastly more impactful, convincing, and beautiful than mere words about Jesus could ever be.
This is how we demonstrate the truth of Jesus Christ in a way that is unafraid of the data in the Bible. Writing new living scripture, written in the language of obedience to the teachings of Jesus, is the most powerful contribution we can make to this world as Christians. If we humble ourselves in obedience to the teachings of Jesus, Christ will be lifted high for all to see.
As George Steiner said in Real Presences, “The best readings of art are art.” In the art of Christian living, the best reading of Jesus is Jesus. We are able to live the teachings of Jesus Christ and become Christ-like to others. Willing to serve, to love, and to suffer for them as Christ commanded is our testimony and our proof of the Gospel. We must not merely speak of Jesus; we must love others as Christ loved us. As Christians, we must learn how to speak to other human beings, soul to soul, in a way that is wonderfully more powerful than all the words in the history of Christianity could ever do by themselves. In such a state of obedience, there is no biblical scholarship we need to fear.