Clearing Up Some Things

I don't know how you reacted to my post about Biblical application, but I hope you didn't get the impression that I believe that the Bible says nothing at all to us today, because I believe it does. What I object to are the attempts made by people to turn the Bible into something that it's not. It's not a book of rules, and it isn't a "how to" manual. It's the account of redemptive history. It's the story of God claiming the Throne as Servant/King. It's a demonstration of what happens when people start messin' with God, especially trying to mold God into a caterer to our individual whims. If people are just going use God as a wishing well or a life coach or an advice columnist, it's better for them to just leave God alone, lest they become enslaved to themselves.

As the narrative goes, through Jesus, God set humanity free from this bondage to self. It frees us from having to present before God our meager attempts to be our own sources of righteousness or trying to score some brownie points with God.

So when I hear "preachers" say something like, "Look people in the eye when you talk to them," I cringe. It's good advice, but it's better left to the Dale Carnegie Seminars. It doesn't belong in preaching.

So, when I write something along the lines of "the Bible has little or no application today", I mean that it has none in a legalistic sense, insofar as it is used as a self-improvement manual.

As I see it, we don't have to read the Scriptures as God "telling us what to do". We can read it as God breaking our chains as God fully inaugurated a new covenant that is characterized by God being known by everyone, from the least to the great; forgiveness of sin by God having a sudden case of amnesia; and God living in and among us. We are privileged to live with this realization. And you realize more than you think.