Bible Challenges

August 13, 2019

I’ve read it dozens of times, preached on part of it regularly, but today when I read it once more, I saw some things I hadn’t noticed—words that challenge my opinions and biases in uncomfortable ways. The Bible is like that. It’s often used to bolster the prejudices and perceptions people bring to the text, but it’s purpose is to reveal to us those things we would rather stay hidden, and to challenge us to new ways of thinking and living. This can only happen if we let it speak for itself instead of trying to make it fit our fancies. 

There are plenty of people who try to twist the Scriptures into saying things that agree with what they’ve already decided they want to think, do, and believe, and they go to great lengths to reinterpret what is there and “discover” new truths that somehow have been hidden for generations, but have only come to light in recent times. Amazingly, those “new truths” have a way of lending support to opinions already formed. 

There are things in the Bible I wish weren’t there. It doesn’t pull punches, describes life as it really was and is, in all its ugliness as well as its beauty. It reveals the depths of human depravity, including my own. It makes me think, reconsider. I don’t like having to repent, but I do like mercy and redemption, and the freedom found in living by faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So I’ll keep reading and giving thanks that the God who questions and challenges me is also the God who brings me new life.