I think a lot about how people interact with Jesus. And it recently gave me a thought.
Recently I was browsing some Facebook photos and came across a friends photo. It’s this big Bible with the massive word TRUTH across the front. But underneath the photo was the caption, “Deal with it.” I appreciate my friends feelings for the Bible. It has been for me the most life informing, maddening, frustrating, inspiring work I’ve ever read. I’ve chosen to order my entire life around presenting its message.
What caught my attention was the caption. For my friend, who I’ve known since sixth grade, the Bible is God’s literal, inspired Word of God. He holds it in a very sacred way, and has too committed his life to presenting his message. We’ve had some great exchanges over Facebook on different topics regarding the Bible. He tends to take a more reformed evangelical perspective, and I take a more a more emerging perspective. I know how my friend feels because I used to see the Bible much the same way he did. But over time, I began to realize I didn’t need it to be perfect in order for it to be true. The more I engage it, the more I realize that it holds profound meaning and insights that do transform. But in order for it to be true for me, I had to experience it.
But something still got me about the “Truth” followed by that caption. I know many friends who don’t share that thought. They see it as a document and even something people use to beat people over the head with. It inspires religious practices that do more to demean than restore. It fosters hatred as much as love. It inspires wars as much as peace. Truth for some of my friends is seen as a license to beat people over the head. They see Christians as people who aren’t inclusive until we believe a certain way.
And what I’ve come to wonder is if the world’s rejection of Christian thought is not because its untrue, but because people fail to see it transform people in a significant way. It’s not an ideology that we make people accept but a way of living that produces life. People need to see it as true in followers lives in order for it to be possible in theirs.
What do you think?
