Why I (Still) Read the Bible

I have been reading the Bible for some 70 years. I know that because my faithful Christian parents gave me my first Bible when I had barely learned to read. Not surprisingly, that long ago, it was what is commonly known as the King James, or sometimes Authorized Version. It is only called this because it is the first English translation to be approved by a king, James II of Britain in 1611, when the king of England was considered the head of the Church of England.  I still have my copy. 

In the interim, I have bought and read through all or part of at least half a dozen other translations, ranging from the revised standard version, bought when I was in Bible College, through the New English Bible, the new international version, the new revised standard version, which I like because of it's more gender inclusive language, the message and the first nations version, which I appreciate for its fresh new simplicity.

Not trying to boast here, but by my count, I think I have read the Bible through at one time or another 15 times or more. I am sure there are many believers who have read it a lot more than that. Half a dozen years ago, one of our church members let it be known he had read through the Bible 40 times!

So why do I (still) read the Bible? I remember when I was about 12, I thought I could read through the Bible and discover all the rules for the right way to live. I think some people still look at the Bible that way. The Jews, of course, actually commonly call their Bible, more or less equivalent to our Christian Old Testament, the Law. Of course, they also have what they refer to as Wisdom Literature and the Prophets.

I freely admit that when I was younger, reading the Bible was sometimes part of an assignment. It was certainly something that one had to put effort into doing. It really wasn’t a joy. I often wondered at the familiar saying from the palms, even put to music, to the effect that "my heart pants for you or God "or for "your commandments." I really could not identify with those sentiments.

However, as I grew older and continued to learn more about the Bible and better ways to interpret and understand it, especially being enriched by learning more about the context within which it was written, I actually began to read it more. It reminded me of when I was in first year English in university. In high school and earlier years, at least in my experience, we basically read literature at more or less face value. However, in first year university, I began to read and learn about the authors, and the times in which they lived. That made their writing a whole lot more interesting. It's the same with the Bible.

Recently, I read something about false teachings, which made me wonder, do we as Christians in North America, at least in my Mennonite branch of the church, encounter much false teaching? After thinking about it for sometime, I can came to the conclusion that the main false teaching that the church has been dealing with for the last 150 years or so, is the conservative, fundamentalist, literal approach to reading and understanding the Bible. Too many young people, brought up on this diet, gave up the faith when they encountered other schools of thought and evolutionary teaching as they moved into high school, college and university. They just could not see how you could have the Bible and science, as many have dichotomized it falsely. Others stumble at stories, especially from the earliest parts of the Bible, and even the miracle stories which are sprinkled through the Old Testament but especially common in the New Testament, because they don't seem to fit with the rules of the modern gods of rationalism and science. I won't go further into this discussion except to say that, in my opinion, there are errors committed on both sides of this debate, which have not benefitted either side.

To a greater extent than many realize, the Bible is a collection of stories, right from chapter 1 of Genesis. These stories contain truths, but not in the way many today look for truth from a scientific perspective. You really have to look at the stories in the context of the world in which they appeared as well as how they fit into the whole larger story of the Bible. Beginning to review the Bible this way opens up whole new interesting realms of beginning to understand what it is all about.

Another way I have come to look at the Bible is that the whole thing can be seen as God's letter to us humans. If we believe what the Bible says about God being love and about what evidence is in our lives that we love God in return, one could even perhaps refer to it as a love letter. Have you ever received a love letter, perhaps if and when you were in a period of courtship? Or from a dearly beloved relative or mentor. Did you only read this letter once and then put it aside and forget it? I doubt it. There are some you may have read a number of times and can still remember portions of. And when you  received said letter, would you have picked and chosen and read just selections from it, and never looked at the rest of? No, you would probably have started at the beginning and read the whole thing.

I think it is the same with the Bible. If we believe it is God's story of his acts in the world, his dreams for the world, his love letter to us, we would read it and we would read the whole thing. I am amazed at how many people who called themselves Christians have actually never read through the whole Bible once, let alone more than once. How do you expect to learn, understand and appreciate all that can be found there if that is how you deal with it?

Interestingly, I have found in the last decade or two that the more I read the Bible, the more I wanted to read it. Those phrases from the psalms that I mentioned earlier actually began to be words I could somewhat resonate with.

There have been many intelligent people over the centuries who have worked hard at trying to disprove the Bible. None of their attempts have stood the test of time. In fact, many, in attempting to do what I just described, have come to the conclusion that they either have to accept the whole thing, or regarded all as trash. 

Given what I have just written, if it at all changes your interest in these ancient writings, I can encourage you to earnestly consider reading it through entirely, perhaps for the first time, perhaps again. It is really a key way to learn to know Jesus and Creator God better.

- Lorne Brandt 2023 10 9

The Joy of Reading The Bible –Yes!

So, how can reading The Bible be a joy? Think of it this way. What is The Bible? Do we not believe it is the Word of God? In other words, it is God ‘speaking’ to us. That is even why some advocate reading it aloud. They might even quote verses like Romans 10:17 “Consequently faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the preached word of Christ.”

You can’t listen to a person if they don’t make themselves audible. Now, most of us don’t ever seem to have the experience of really hearing what we think is God’s voice, even though we believe God is personal.

Those distinctions aside, what else do we believe about God? He is love; ergo, he loves us. What does someone who loves another want to do? Spend time with their loved one, right? I think there is enough in the Bible to support that idea. What about the other side? How much do we love God? This brings me to my first point about how to make reading The Bible more enjoyable:

1.     Spend more time reading it. Yes, in some ways, it’s as simple as that. I remember once reading a piece written as if it were God speaking. God was there all day in this person’s life. There were so many times God

thought, ‘Oh, now this person is going to talk to me or listen to me.’ Can’t you imagine the excitement a lover feels when s/he actually gets to be with and communicate with their lover? Unfortunately, God was mostly disappointed. Indeed, by the end of the day, not much had really happened between God and this supposed child of His.

You see, for too many of us, we initially do have a hard time understanding and therefore don’t enjoy the word because we simply don’t give it time. I am as guilty of that as anyone. When you were beginning to see your lover, did you have to make appointments or set dates? Indeed, to begin with we might also need to set dates with God, times when we will read his word and open ourselves up to hearing from Him/Her (I recognize that God is neither male nor female but it gets awkward to try to always use gender-neutral language about God, so I will remain mostly guilty (?) of using the masculine). This setting aside a part of the day for The Word, for God then really, is an old custom, often referred to as one’s daily devotional time. We might simply need to use a little (a lot of?) self-discipline and start there.

It’s a little like the experience of those of you who might have known for some time, and even had connections with, a person who was not your lover to begin with. Only when you realized that’s where you were at in your relationship did being with that person move from a less emotional ‘time’ to a state where you looked forward to and enjoyed being with that person. And some of that progression might simply have occurred because you spent more time with this person and got to know this person better and realized you wanted more of this!

Take it from me – you can experience this. Then you realize the truth of all those psalms that talk about delighting in God’s word, e.g. Psalm 119:174 “I long for your deliverance, O Lord; I find delight in your law.”

There are other things you can do too:

2.     Read it in a version you like and think you can understand

One of the first translations in my lifetime that fell into this category was called Good News for Modern Man.

I am not sure it is still available. Another that our church acquired when we were having ELL/ESL classes was the Contemporary English Version. Another one you might have or have heard of is The Message. For the longest time, I was under the false impression this was a paraphrase, not a translation, so I did not consider getting a copy. When I realized it was indeed a translation and how much work had been put into it, I did get a copy. I have had it for over a year and do enjoy reading it. All the same, it is only recently I have started to read it through, cover to cover. I do now recommend it.

Ultimately though, any version is probably better for today’s reader than the AV/KJV I referred to in my previous posting. Having said that, those of us who grew up with it still appreciate it. It is regarded as a classic work of English.

Current translations really started to proliferate around the middle of the last century. I will not go into all of them here but refer the reader to the 2^nd-4rth paragraphs of this Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_English_Bible_translations

These are all good and you will find copies of all of them in our home but one. Having been schooled more in Bible study than some, I never did get the paraphrased The Living Bible. For serious Bible study, one cannot rely on paraphrases.

3.     Read it all through

Her again, to make a point, let’s make a comparison we can all grasp. Have you ever thought you got the whole story of a novel just by reading certain sections? Of course not. How would you even know what sections to read? If you asked others who have read the novel, you could get a variety of answers as to what sections were most important. Yet we think we can get away with this with the Bible. Given how The Church came to understand how the Bible came to us, The Church in its wisdom long concluded that everything from Genesis to Revelation is there as one continuous text, even story. If you really want to get the point of it all, read it through. The more you do so, the more you will get to know it… and enjoy it. After all, you will be finding yourself more in the company of that Lover we talked about earlier, and who doesn’t like that?

In this context, I always remember hearing as a young boy the testimony of an older indigenous leader who was visiting us, Chief Cook of Bloodvein, MB. He said he only really began to grasp the full message on or after his third reading of The Word.

4.     Read it with others

This might not be a suggestion you anticipated. In our Western society, we just don’t realize how individualistic we are. We might not realize that when The Bible was written, it was written within a community. It was often a plural form that was meant when a pronoun refers to a speaker or writer. No one was presumptuous enough to claim individual expertise in any of these areas.

This was why the Jewish community developed synagogues. They read, listened to and discussed The Law and The Prophets as well as their Wisdom literature with one another. Even the rabbis and scribes listened to one another. Indeed, one of the marvels, and criticisms, levelled at Jesus was that he spoke of his own authority: Matthew 7:28-9 “When Jesus finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed by his teaching, 7:29 because he taught them like one who had authority, not like their experts [scribes and rabbis – my addition] in the law.”

Jesus did not preface of conclude remarks with something like, this is what so and so rabbi(s) have said, as his contemporary speakers would have when they talked of the bible they had at the time. Indeed, by Jesus’ time this collected wisdom of the Jewish experts had grown into a body of work, The Talmud, far larger than The Torah, or The Law, on which it was based.

The Early Church also met to hear and discuss the word in small groups; ‘house churches’ we have come to call them. Unfortunately, most of this died away when The Church became institutionalized as a religion when the Roman Empire co-opted it as its official religion early in the 4rth century. Soon, The Church had gone the same path the Jews had: only the experts, the authorities in The Church, clerics and officials from priests on up could read The Bible and tell you what it meant. Even the title ‘priest,’ not found in reference to a special class within The New Testament, smacks of the institutionalization of religion in The Old Testament.

We as heirs of the Anabaptist tradition from the period of the Reformation, can be happy our spiritual ancestors revived the earlier practices of studying The Word for themselves and in small groups. Sprinkled through their writings you will find the beliefs that The Bible alone is the authority, not The Church. It was regarded as the authoritative guide to salvation and for life. At the same time, they recognized that it is not The Bible, not its words, that save, it is whom they point to - Jesus. This viewpoint keeps us from idolizing The Bible itself.

These ideas are summarized in the last sentence of the first paragraph of article 4. Scripture of Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, which our denomination has adopted: “We seek to understand and interpret scripture in harmony with Jesus Christ as we are led by the Holy Spirit in the church (italics mine). The first italicized portion means we interpret all scripture through our understanding of Jesus, his life as an example, and what he is reported to have said. For example, a quote from the Old Testament does not have the same weight as something attributed to Jesus in the New Testament. The second italic is also key. Note that it does not say the Holy Spirit and the church. We do not believe you can interpret scripture by either the Holy Spirit or the church. We must do it corporately, within the church. This helps us prevent individuals form going astray in their understanding. Too often when this happens, such individuals, because they firmly believe contrary to the majority, end up leading a breakaway group which often becomes a cult that deviates from what scripture really says, as understood by most The Church. This is why Anabaptists, and indeed most Protestant groups, have long had the practice of group Bible Study of its members in small groups. It is why we often go to great lengths to consult within many in the church about the meaning of scripture rather than follow one person’s idea. Maybe it’s as simple as the more Spirit led individuals there are agreeing on something, the more likely it is to be acceptable that what one person says.

5.     Read it with help – study bible, commentaries etc.

Finally, when you are still having difficulty, or want to see what more you can learn from a passage besides what you have gleaned yourself, look for help from others. We alluded to that in the previous point when we talked about interpreting scripture in community. However, we are fortunate to have an abundance of resources to help us in our study of The Word. Nowadays these are both on-line, in electronic form or in hard copy. Indeed, sometimes we need to turn to one another for help in finding out what are the more reputable study bibles or commentaries and books written on the Bible and to help us understand it better. As Anabaptists, we are blessed to have those who have helped fashion the Believers Church Bible Commentary, which helps us interpret scripture along the lines of our own Anabaptist theology. Unfortunately, it I still 20 books short of covering the whole bible.

With that, I simply close by saying – keep on reading, more and more. The more you do, the more you will learn, the easier it will become, and the more enjoyable it will become. You will get to the point where you can say with the psalmist (or sing it if you know the song with the words) Psalm 42:1 “As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God!” For us finite creatures, that means through the modes of prayer and reading and meditating on His Word. Again, we give The Word the last sentiment: Psalm 119:97 “O how I love your law! All day long I meditate on it.” Would we could all really say that with the psalmist.

  

An Open Letter to the Jews

Given some of my recent involvement, including writing, with what some would refer to as the Israel-Palestine issue over the last three months, I believe it is timely that I write this letter in terms of my understanding of certain aspects of this topic and also clarify some things in terms of definition.

In the first place, let me define what I understand by the word Jew. Historically, I believe this refers to anyone who can trace their biological lineage to the ancient clan known as The Children of Israel. These individuals identify their progenitor as a certain “wandering Aramean" initially named Abram, although technically, according to Deuteronomy 26:5, that reference was initially made, at least in this passage, to Jacob. It is interesting that Jacob, after he, his grandfather Abraham and father Isaac , all having lived in this land, now divided between Israel and Palestine, for some time, is still referred to here as a wandering Aramaean and not somebody connected to this land.  Then, according to the record of this history, which I, as a Christian, would describe as the Old Testament portion of The Bible, the God who called him from "Ur of the Chaldees" (Genesis 11:27-12:3) to what we often now refer to as The Holy Land, changed his name to Abraham, as recorded in Genesis 17:5. Again, according to this passage, Abram actually already began this move with his father and siblings and when this call came, he was no longer living in Ur.

Jump to 2016 and we have some difficulty still with this definition of Jew. This has come about in particular since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Politically, it is appropriate to call all citizens of this state Israelis. Not all citizens of Israel are Jews though. However, there are a number of people of Jewish origin who would like to establish this state as one inhabited only by Jews. For some Jews, there is another element of identity that can be fractious. There are those who wish to identify themselves as Jews culturally and ethnically, because of their heritage, but no longer actually practice the faith that is historically identified with the name Jew. More Orthodox Jews, the purists, need to have Jews identified by their bloodline. Then, there are those who are Jewish by faith, proselytes to this religion, who are not Jewish biologically. I don't know whether these would be acceptable citizens of a Jewish state to the ultra-Orthodox.

However, my main purpose in writing this letter is not to discuss these issues further. I am writing as a Christian. This means I follow as Lord a religious leader who lived on this earth as a Jew some 2000 years ago, namely Jesus, the son of Joseph, who Christians also identify as Christ.

Furthermore, I am writing as part of that branch of Christianity known as Anabaptism. To narrow it down still further, I am a member of the Mennonite division of this group, in particular a member of Mennonite Church Canada and its British Columbia arm, Mennonite church British Columbia. Locally, I am a member of Peace Mennonite Church in Richmond, BC.

I am writing this letter to clarify where I and many of my co-religionists stand with respect to the Jews today. Christians have rightfully been accused of anti-Semitism, both in the past and present. There were times when Christians killed Jews who identified as such, during times of religious persecution in Europe in the Middle Ages. This was especially so during the times of the Crusades. Ironically, this was in spite of the fact that the Crusaders were ostensibly going to the land from which the Jews had been expelled to claim it back for Christianity, a religion that started with the Jews.

I and my fellow Mennonites do not agree with these past actions. Just the same, we are not entirely blameless in this area. There were Mennonites who supported the Nazis doing World War II, which is unfortunate. Mennonites have their share of jokes about Jews. Growing up, a familiar expression was "he Jewed me" when one referred to being taken advantage of financially.

However, we as Mennonites also have much in common with the Jews. We lived side-by-side in Eastern Europe and in Russia, in what is now mostly the Ukraine. We were both persecuted by the Bolsheviks and some of the other terrorists that roamed the countryside in the unstable days prior to the establishment of the communist regime. Sometimes we supported one another. We both also struggle with this identity issue of ethnic versus religious identity. When our ancestors settled in Southern Manitoba, Jewish businesses often got set up in our communities and we supported them. Some of the first professionals we had to deal with in terms of dentistry, optometry and medicine in our rural communities were Jewish. I saw a number of these individuals into my adulthood.

Over the last number of decades, Mennonites have gotten a bad rap from a certain quarter of the Christian community whom we would describe as Zionist. They generally exhibit unqualified support of the state of Israel. Israeli leaders, on the other hand, are very happy for their support, and therefore very unhappy with our lack of support. To be sure, there are many Mennonites who would subscribe to the Zionist understanding. However, and not to put this too negatively, these are more the rank-and-file members of our community, not the educated and leaders.

Having grown up among leaders of the Mennonite church, with my father being first missionary and then pastor and finally Bible school teacher, as well as myself having been educated in a Mennonite college and a lifelong adult member of the church, I believe what follows is what most real Mennonites who are more informed about the situation would understand and believe.

We do not have anything against Jews. Personally, my wife and I in particular, still often look at Jews with fondness and certainly respect. How can one not, given their success in so many areas of life from financial, to medical to media? To me, this is simply fulfillment of God's promises to their ancestors that those who did follow him would see their children blessed for 1000 generations, as recorded first in Exodus 20:6. I have been a fellow student, then professional colleague, and even teacher of many wonderful, intelligent and capable Jewish people who have contributed a lot to the world. Regardless of what one might think about them historically, ethnically and currently with respect to what goes on in the nation-state of Israel, we still cannot help but acknowledge that in some way they are still God's chosen people. I don't believe God is "done with" them.

I am not going to go into the theology and history of what has happened with the Jews over the millennia, what the Christian Church has thought of their place in God's plans, and how the Jews themselves have changed their own  self-understanding. Of course, there is divergence of opinion even amongst themselves on this. There are those, generally the more orthodox, who support the Israeli state. The more extreme ultra-Orthodox do not support a modern state structure, but would like to return to the theocracy of the Old Testament. Then there are the more liberal, according to the definition of some, who do not support the state of Israel because they do not see the need for it in terms of their understanding of where they are at in relation to their God at this point. This understanding is further supported by their antipathy to what they see happening in the state of Israel. Indeed, this is the area where we as Mennonites agree with Jews in this last group.

We are not against Jews having a homeland. I think it is something they can rightfully be thankful for, even though the way it came about is anything but peaceful. To be sure, there were political and international moves which resulted in The United Nations carving out this piece of land that has, since 1948, been referred to as the State of Israel. However, it is the cost to the people who were living in the land then that disturbs us. Some of them still live there, but many more are now living in what we would like to identify as the state of Palestine, in refugee camps both in Israel and Palestine, and in neighboring countries, or dispersed around the world.  The state if Israel has been founded at the expense of the Palestinians. Even before the state of Israel was established, militant Zionists were beginning to carry out their plans to establish a Jewish only state of Israel.

It is what has been involved in carrying out these plans that we as Christians and Mennonites cannot accept. From the beginning, Palestinians, as we shall name those who are resident in the land besides the Jews who were already moving in, were forced out of their homes and in many cases massacred. Harassment and legal moves against the Palestinians continue unabated. In fact, these actions have increased in the last 20 years in particular. This is especially so since the infamous Six-Day-War of 1967, in which Israel invaded the Jordan-administered Palestinian territories and has continued to occupy them and in effect rule them ever since. This is something that is illegal according to all international law, but the state of Israel has never been called to account for this or forced to reversed that action. This is in part because of continued support from Uncle Sam. Israel is probably the largest recipient of aid from the US, particularly when it comes to the military. Again, particularly since 1967 and seemingly increasingly, as Israelis and Jews opposed to this will both tell you, the government continues to propagate a narrative of the Arab world and all Palestinians being in favor of wiping Israel out. Therefore, all Palestinians are branded as terrorists. This is in spite of the fact that the Arab world and even the Palestinian community has largely abandoned that stance. Indeed, the Palestinian leadership, although they sometimes still appear to make unhelpful pronouncements and perhaps at times thus seem to support terrorism, has generally come to the conclusion, at least the people have, that nonviolent opposition to this treatment at the hands of Israel is the only way to go.

This also appears to be the stance of most of the Christians in the region. Unfortunately, far too many Christians in Western Europe and America, including Canada, in their support of Israel, have left these Christians feeling abandoned. They are puzzled at how their Christian brothers and sisters can treat them this way. It is this stance which has made us as Mennonites identify with the oppressed Palestinians, as part of our religious tradition is also a nonviolent lifestyle. We believe that as Christians, it is our duty to help liberate the oppressed. This is according to what Jesus said in Nazareth, his hometown, at the beginning of his ministry, as quoted in Luke chapter 4, quoting from Isaiah 61, in saying that he was fulfilling that prophecy in their midst. That is why we must support the Palestinians. It does not mean that we are against the Jews or the state of Israel. We are only against certain of their unjust actions which, in our understanding, also go against the commands God gave them through Moses and the prophets as recorded in their own Scriptures. I refer to those many passages where they are enjoined to look especially after the widows, the orphans and aliens in their midst, remembering that they were at one time oppressed aliens in Egypt. That is the Old Testament biblical narrative. That is not being practiced by many Jews, let alone the state of Israel today. We are simply asking that they re-examine their scriptures and act as we believe their God has commanded them in their own scruptures, as we believe he has commanded us.