Friends,

I am a big fan of the Bible. I did my undergraduate degree in biblical studies, and am now spending much of my time at seminary studying the good book. But Christians do not seem to agree on what exactly the Bible is. Divergent convictions about what exactly the Bible is and how to read it have been at the heart of especially peppery Christian theological and social debates. Most notably, our current temper around sexuality and gender are rightfully surrounded by debates over biblical texts and their meanings for contemporary life. Particularly important for this discussion is not only our understanding about which ways to interpret these texts have integrity and which do not, but exactly where these texts receive their authority. In other words, why do these texts have a say in what we believe?

The conversation is typically in terms of dichotomies, conservatives or liberals, evangelicals or mainlines. What would it look like for us to dispose of those terms when we come to the Bible? What would it look like for our approach to scripture to be neither radical nor conservative? not reading with a blind acceptance of and obedience to the words written by the apostles and prophets as ex voce Dei, nor with a snobbish skepticism, looking down to the ancient writers as infantile barbarians.

In reading the Bible, it is important to begin with honesty. The Bible is a library of books, written by different authors with different perspectives in different eras of human history. There are bound to be contradictions and difficulties. That is fine. To maintain honesty, or integrity, is to leave the dissonance where it is, not attempting to smooth over complications and conflict. If something is complicated, then we are right where we should be. Complication means honesty.

The Bible is best read, I think, as a poem. Take T. S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets, for example. In it, there are conflicts that reveal contradictions – interwoven movements and themes that say one thing early on that is subverted in another. The text develops the more we read it, and these developments and contradictions uncover deeper meanings.

This is what we might call a “literal” reading of the Bible. While the word “literal” has been caught up with fundamentalist categories, this is a misunderstanding of the literal sense. Part of the reason the literal approach makes sense is because it is the method least capable of smoothing over conflicts. Again, it is the recognition of the conflict that gives our reading integrity.

This contributes to a fundamental position for the theologian and the reader of the Bible: letting go of control. In our reading, listening, and studying of the Bible, we learn principally and abundantly that we are not the ones in control; the Word of God does not originate with us. The Bible is not about gaining and possessing a kind of truth or principle; the Bible is where we encounter the experiences of our fathers and mothers of the faith and their “meetings” with God, and, in that sense, it is where we meet with God. If the Bible is the “word of God,” then the Bible will be continually challenging those principles which we already take for granted.

This approach convinces the reader not of security or assurance, but of precisely the opposite: our inability to possess and control the word of God. Like the audience of a poem, the reader of the Bible is not able to set the agenda or control the narrative. The Bible imposes an agenda on us. It is the conviction of Christians that the Bible is the “word of God” that assures us of this all the more.

The obviously unsettling aspect of this formulation is that it offers us little security. Perhaps that is the point. But what hope does this give for our animated, sometimes inflamed, discussions around biblical interpretation and authority? It does not solve the problem, but it does give us a framework for reading with integrity. Reading poetry offers openness to the word of God to convict the ways that our desire for control gets in the way of Christian charity and discussion. Sometimes insecurity is good; it tells us that we are not the ones in control. That is a gift. And it is a gift that the Bible offers.

- Micah