THE REAL REASON WHY WE DON'T TRUST THE BIBLE ANYMORE

One day, my father sent me to town to pick up a load of lumber and other supplies for a shed we were building.  Everything Pops wanted was on a written list that he gave me.

 I drove into the lumber yard, handed the list to the warehouse manager, and said, “Buford sent me to get this stuff for the shed we’re building.”  

The manager read the list silently and barked instructions to his crew.  All loaded up, the manager read Pops’s list back to me, pointing to the items on the truck.  It was all there, just like he read it. 

When I got home, Pops met me outside. He looked into the bed of the truck and went off!  I don’t remember which part of the order was wrong, but something was not what he’d asked for. 

I quickly----very quickly---- explained how this fiasco could not possibly be my fault since I had handed his list to the warehouse manager who confirmed every item on the list before I left the lumberyard.

Pops led me into the house.  I stood sweating in the center of the living room while he called the lumberyard, got the manager and interrogated him.  Through the pounding of my pulse in my ears, all I made out clearly was, “I don’t care how YOU would build a shed.  It’s not your shed I’m building.  I know what I want for my own shed.  Next time just send what I put on the damn paper!”

Pops hung up the phone, and then he went off on me.

After a long, long, long profanity-laden lecture/tirade/verbal whooping, Pops

looked at me and growled, “This time.  When you get out there, you read my list for yourself.  Don’t let them change my instructions and don’t you bring back anything less, anything more, or anything other than what I.  WROTE.  DOWN.”

God sent us written instructions  by the prophets and apostles.   But we the Church, the earthly managers of His kingdom, have gotten into the habit of looking at God’s written instructions and saying, “That’s not how I would build a world.  That’s not what I’d prohibit in a democratic society.  That’s not what I would require of people if I were the head of the body.”

So, even though we can plainly see what’s written on the paper, we change the directions. 

We reform and revise Biblical truth because deep down we don’t think that God really knows what He’s doing.

God says, “Keep these 10 commandments.” 

We say, “You only need 3 or 4 of those.”

God say, “Jesus is the only way to salvation.”

We say, “There are many paths to Heaven.”

God says, “Be holy.”

We say, “Sin responsibly.”

We change up the truth because we think that our plans make more sense than His.

And that’s the real problem.  The reason why so many Christians (including an increasing number of Christian clergy and theologians) reject the inerrancy or reliability of the Bible is that deep down, in a place they don’t talk about or admit exists, a lot of Christians are afraid that the canonized Bible actually IS the Word of God.   We’re afraid that Scripture accurately relates the words that God breathed into the ears of His chosen prophets and apostles because the instructions God sent are not the way WE would build a world.

We’re afraid that the Bible is accurate and God is wrong.

We’re idiots. 

It really doesn’t matter how you or I would construct a plan of salvation.  The Bible does not describe OUR plan. 

It really doesn’t matter if you or I think charity, forgiveness, humility, hospitality, service, self-sacrifice, and personal holiness are all necessary for being part of a church.  It’s not OUR church.  It’s God’s church and God put those items on His list.

Matthew 25: 44     “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45     Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’

Mark 11: 25      “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. 26     But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

James 1: 27     Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Our job as Christians is not to load up the church with the stuff we think ought to be on God’s list. Our job is to thoughtfully read the instructions for ourselves and make sure that we do what’s on the paper!

The manager in the lumberyard had intentionally misread the instructions.  That was his fault.  But, I was at fault, too.

I had access to the same written words as the manager, but I didn’t read them for myself.   Even though the manager had the training and the title, I was supposed to check behind him based on my father’s list.

I was supposed to say, “Pastor, that was a wonderful sermon, but you said something that didn’t sound quite right.  Would you sit down with me and explain from the Bible why you said ________?”

I was supposed to say, “Reverend, I read something in the Bible that I don’t agree with.  I know that it’s true because it’s in God’s Word, but I’m still conflicted about it.  Will you show me the other scriptures that talk about this and help me study and pray to a place of understanding?”

The leader of the house and I were supposed to have dialogue the way the Apostle Philip had dialogue with an Ethiopian visitor in Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8: 30     So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

31     And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.

At the lumberyard, it was easier and faster for me to just let the manager do all the work and then take his word for what my father’s words were.   

It’s always easier and simpler to just believe whatever the nearest or most comforting preacher tells you.  But if he/she loads you up with the wrong stuff, YOU are still the one who has to bring your wrong life back to your Father.

And yes, some of our Father’s instructions are hard sayings.  Sometimes we wonder Who can understand it? (John 6: 60)

Doesn’t change your responsibility one bit.    We are each responsible for our individual handling, mishandling, or neglect of God’s Word. 

The Apostle Peter said that his beloved brother Paul had written some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.  (2 Peter 3: 16)

Didn’t change the church’s responsibility to engage those difficult passages and ask the difficult questions.

The first questions we have to ask is not whether or not we trust the Bible.   The question is:  Do we trust God?

When the Word of God says what we would not have said, do we conclude that God made a mistake?

Or, do we accept that God knows what the crap He’s doing, and we ought to just do what’s on the paper?

If we answer that question correctly, then we can engage every other question about Scripture with a sense of hope. 

The Bible is valid and reliable, because God is valid and reliable.  We trust that Scripture has come down to us with integrity because God has watched over the transmission of Scripture through the ages and delivered it to us the way He wants it to be delivered. 

How is that possible when human beings are so fallible and prone to mistranslation? 

Because we trust that God is smarter than we are.  

And if you don’t believe that, then that’s why you can’t believe the Bible.

Isaiah 55: 8     “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

9     “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO) and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

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