Scripture, Love, and Authority

I recently read Scot McKnight's book, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible. I realize the title will set off alarm bells for all those who believe that "rethinking" anything about the Bible must certainly represent a low view of Scripture and be yet another indication of our trajectory toward heresy and chaos. Relax - it's okay. Rethinking is not necessarily a bad thing, and I actually came away from the book with an awareness that, at times, our well-intentioned defenses of the Bible actually lessen its power and place in our lives. McKnight calls us to approach the Bible relationally, as explained in these words:

A relational approach believes our relationship to the Bible is transformed into a relationship with the God who speaks to us in and through the Bible. . . If we distinguish God from the Bible, then we also learn that in listening to God's words in the Bible we are in search of more than a relationship with paper with words, namely, a relationship with the person who speaks on paper. Our relationship to the Bible is actually a relationship with the God of the Bible. We want to emphasize that we don't ask what the Bible says, we ask what God says to us in that Bible. (p. 90-91)

We must begin an entirely new conversation that gets us beyond the right view of the Bible to one that seeks to answer this question: "What is our relationship to the God of the Bible?" I suggest that the answer to that question, and one that comes to mind immediately for the one who reads the Bible attentively, is simple: Our relationship to the God of the Bible is to listen to God so we can love him more deeply and love others more completely. If God's ultimate design for us is to love God and to love others, we can only acquire that love by learning to listen to God. (p. 96)

It is easy, when defending a so-called high view of Scripture, to treat the Bible as a theological treatise to be debated, a rule book to be followed, or a history text to be proven. While these approaches might contain elements of truth, each one falls short in its understanding, severing the Bible from its true purpose and reducing its role in the lives of Jesus' followers. The Bible is an expression of relationship, a place of personal encounter where we hear God speak. Such an encounter will certainly and necessarily change us, drawing us deeper into the life of love for God and others.

It's interesting that some who are greatly concerned about defending the authority of Scripture end up doing so in ways that violate the spirit of love. Yet the words we defend make it clear that the greatest commands are to love God and others. Clearly, the role and purpose of the Bible in our lives cannot be separated from that call. So we must ask the question: "If our interaction with the Bible is not resulting in a greater love for God and others, do we really have a high view of Scripture?"