Red Letter Revolution

I was reading Walter Brueggemann’s Theology of the Old Testament and came across an interesting sentence on how we should read the Bible. “The Bible is to be understood ‘as Scripture’ in the community that gathers in response to the claim that here God is decisively disclosed. Thus the Bible is a revelation, and Scripture study is an attempt to recieve, understand, and explicate this revelation in all its oddity, without reductionism, domestication, or encumbrance.” This wonderful array of words was predicated by the discussion of where the study of Old Testament Theology began. Brueggemann, as well as most others, places this genesis of theological inquiry at the time of the Protestant Reformation, and posits the Reformers with its begetting. The Reformation was not just about doctrine, it was not merely a war of competing theologies, but rather it was about how we glean our beliefs from the Scripture itself. They sought an unencumbered reading of the text, and what they found was at odds with the Roman establishment. I found this sentence especially impacting because I myself struggle with approaching the text over analytically. Often times, I sit down to read the New Testament as canon law, a theological and doctrinal manual and nothing more. It is obvious that this is a most backward way of reading the text, a hand-me-down from Western rationalist thought nay an abortion of revelation in favor of a pseudo-scientific reading of the text. I cannot help but think myself foolish for all the times I have read Romans as if it were some sort of long overly complicated legal document. Romans 3….let’s see, that’s Theology.Pauline.Depravity.1a. What a ridiculous sight must I have made to the hosts above! Even more so, what reeking offal must I have been in the nostrils of the Breather, to so shamelessly arithmetize what he had inspired. Instead, brothers and sisters, we are to look upon Scripture as God’s gift to the gathered. He left us writings not only to instruct the church, but to be our revelation of God himself. Tonight, I read the Sermon on the Mount and I heard God’s revelation. I heard his words stretch my mind, make me shake my head in wonder. If we approach the scriptures we should do so without being so weighted down by our theologies that we cannot fairly read the text. If we start always with the presumption that a certain theological distinction is true, then we will read it into the text, but if we let it speak freely, let it have its own theology, then we can and will be surprised by what we find in a text we have read a thousand times. Do not get me wrong, I am not trying to throw the baby out with the bath water, but rather I wish to warn of a purely scientific reading of the text. We must always remember that the Bible is God whispering in the ear of the church through all time. Theology is an important study, but after all it is nothing so wonderful as Revelation.

The term Christian originates from a major trade city in first century Asia Minor called Antioch. It was a term of derision used to mock those followers of Jesus who decided to spread the good news. It literally means little Christ, like a miniature imitation of the greater original. It’s kind of ironic then that often when I call myself Christian I am in fact bringing shame on the name of my Lord. I am very often not worthy of calling myself by that name, yet it is so part of my identity that I cannot do otherwise. Where does that leave me? I have no inspiring words about grace, but only a warning. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but a Christian that does not live up to his name is a foul stench indeed. I realize where I have made the mistake, I see the artificial boundries I have created for myself and now I simply seek to eradicate those false securities. Glory to God Alone. Amen.