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I love the Bible. I love the God of the Bible even more. But the more I study it, and this makes the 38th year since I announced my intent to follow a sacred calling and enter the ministry, the more I realize I still don’t understand about the Bible and the God of the Bible. 

I never will, I have begun to suspect. I love the Bible and I take it quite seriously. When someone decides they’re going to pick some cute little tussle with me over semantics or tradition, interpretation or doctrine, understand that I will take it seriously. 

I have given eight years of my life beyond college to graduate level studies of the Bible, the Church and ministry. You know, I can remember being given a little New Testament when I was a tiny child. I’m not sure I still have it. But I leafed through its pages and enjoyed the miniature colorful pictures in it until it began to come apart. 

My parents gave me a red zippered Bible in 1971. My church gave me a black, serious looking hardback Bible in 1973. I carried and used each of these weekly. They sit on a shelf in my study. This sacred book is also a beloved one, for me. 

I want to share with you what some have said about this sacred and central book, in addition to what the Bible said about itself in the scripture you heard just earlier. 

In 1893, Pope Leo XIII said this about our holy Bible: The study of the Bible is the soul of theology. He has to be right about that. It’s flimsy to say you have knowledge and convictions about something you haven’t studied. 

I get dizzied by people who swear by the Bible but won’t read it. Folks who argue about things supposedly in the Bible and who profess a love FOR the Bible. But who won’t come to Bible study. Who have opinions on what’s in the Bible, but who in reality would rather do just about anything other than study their Bible. I think Pope Leo was right. 

Peter Gomes, the former Dean of the Harvard Chapel says, “Many people want to do something about their biblical illiteracy. There is something there that they feel they ought to know about, and yet they are frustrated in their attempts to read the bible and to make sense of it for themselves. Because it is unlike any other book, reading the bible is an intimidating enterprise for the average person.”

We Baptists have been guided internally by some views of the Bible that I believe are historically healthy. We believe that the Bible was inspired by God but was written by human beings. That means some important things when we are realistic. 

We also believe that the life, teachings and ministry of Jesus Christ is the criteria through which all scripture should be interpreted and understood. Because you can pluck phrases or verses out of context and grossly misuse them. 

Many of Christianity’s largest conflicts and divisions are fueled by differing verses, texts, and interpretations of the Bible wielded sometimes by people who are ignorant but have good intentions or also often by people who know full well what they are doing– and have bad intentions.

Even the most anti-Christian messages can be buttressed by scripture, and it’s not surprising that slavery, Nazism, the Holocaust, the KKK, and some of our world’s most horrible atrocities were committed under the guise of ‘being biblical.’

Along the way, we’ll hopefully find new and better understandings. For instance, we should also admit that the limitations of our own words may have done us a disservice where the Bible is concerned. That is, us calling this a library with sixty-six books collected inside might be technically accurate. 

However, the Old, Old Story is best understood as one story. Each book effectively being a new chapter told about a different time or from someone else’s viewpoint. But all carry one larger story arc, from cover to cover, as God’s relationship with Creation continues to unfold still today. 

If we get all that, then I believe that what the Bible says about itself has the best chance to be so beautifully true. Our sacred written revelation of God is eternally beneficial.

I love this book. I love this one story that is told from the pages of Genesis and which stops in Revelation but certainly doesn’t end there.

DR. CHARLES QUALLS is senior pastor at Franklin Baptist Church. Contact him at 757-562-5135.