bib·li·ol·a·try
biblēˈälətrē noun 1. an excessive adherence to the literal interpretation of the Bible.
“I am deeply distressed by what I can only call in our Christian culture the idolatry of the Scriptures. For many Christians, the Bible is not a pointer to God but God himself. In a word – bibliolatry.
God cannot be confined to a leather-bound book. I develop a nasty rash around people who speak as if mere scrutiny of its pages will reveal precisely how God thinks and precisely what God wants.
The four Gospels are the key to knowing Jesus. But conversely, Jesus is the key to knowing the meaning of the gospel – and of the Bible as a whole. Instead of remaining content with the bare letter, we should pass on to the more profound mysteries that are available only through intimate and heartfelt knowledge of Jesus.” – Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus
Do we recognize Bibliolatry? The reason it’s SO DIFFICULT is that it masks as Great Respect.
The Bible as we know it isn’t available to nearly 57% of the entire world in their own languages (6901 total). Is God fully ABLE to draw people who… can’t read, don’t have access to, or are not able to comprehend adequately… into meaningful awareness/relationship?!
YES, absolutely. The Bible is NOT the only way, or perhaps even the primary way, that God uses to reveal Himself to humanity across the globe.
Yet, most believers seem to cling to a very Western, exclusive understanding of the Gospel that essentially gives the Bible more authority than Christ ever intended (nearly identical to the Catholic church that assigned inerrancy and ultimate authority to a pope, Protestants have created an inerrant paper pope and don’t even realize it).
God is not exclusive, relying only on a selectively-available book to communicate His Truth about Christ and His Love.
Though I love the scriptures and read/study/meditate frequently, we honor them MOST by allowing them to lead us to the Person and Work of the Universal Christ, Who reveals Himself to ALL who are seeking Truth.
Our huge issue is that we haven’t learned to read the scriptures like Christ does. The ones who received Jesus’s fiercest criticism were those who knew their scriptures best, who believed that scripture was the primary way to know and honor God, and who kept all their disciplines diligently.
Jesus, speaking to the religious leaders about their wrong mindset when reading scripture in John 5 (NASB) 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; 40 and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.
This is a firm warning to us, if we would only listen and respond to His Spirit. To be clear, we are called to honor the sacred library of texts we know as the scriptures today, both for the sake of study and to read devotionally. It’s a Gateway to discovering Christ.
BUT, we must be careful to truly honor the texts by learning to read them as Jesus taught in Luke 24 – with a “Christ” lens that adds significant depth and richness over what otherwise will surely be a dead-letter, flat, textbook reading that does NOT require the Spirit to reveal Christ in EVERY part of the Story. Jesus loved His scriptures, but He railed against reading them through a “weaponized” lens that led towards exclusion, violence, and self-righteous judgment. Often, we hear Him say “you’ve heard it said… but I say unto you” as a way of reframing the OT scriptures that the religious folks of his day thought they knew so very well.
When fingers are pointing to the moon, we shouldn’t be focused on the fingers, but on the greater reality they’re pointing us towards. The Bible is one of many fingers pointing us to the Greater Reality of Christ. Let’s remember that it is a pointer, and not the Reality itself.
Luke 24 (NASB) 27 Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures… 44 Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
Listen. . .
There is a Voice
Behind ALL other voices,
INCLUDING the voices in scripture, and
Spirit gives us access to this omni-present Reality of Christ.
In Christ,
Mo Thomas