The Bible as a Weapon

I have had three different 20 somethings come to me with questions about how the church or individuals were using the Bible to put forward their own agenda.  Since this is the generation that is becoming so disillusioned with the church, I think that it needs to be addressed.  I have gotten permission from one of them to use his questions to spur this blog.  (His name is with held to protect his innocence ;-)

"I have been participating off and on in discussions with a Christians vs. Atheists group on Facebook. As I do, I see a significant number of Christians with little or no education on what is really in the Bible and what is not... I learned a great deal about these subjects and have learned to dig deeper for understanding. Why is it that so many people and their churches seem to avoid learning/teaching these things?"

One answer may be that they don't know any better, and no one has offered to teach them...

But more often, I think that people don't want to know how deep some of these verses are, and how dynamic God's Word can be.  If you really study the Bible, then you know that God's answer is never simple.  You also know that you must take things as a whole and not pull things out of context.  For example if you know that the Pharisees and Sadducee's are fighting over whether or not there is life after death, it makes their trick questions to Jesus much richer.  It helps if you can learn their agenda.

The danger in reading the Bible is that it spanned a great deal of time and covered almost every situation that God's people could face.  That is good, in that you can find help with almost any problem you are facing in your life.  The bad side is that you can prove almost any argument by taking scripture out of context.  The Bible has been used as a "weapon" ever since it was written down.  The Pharisees were using scripture to put people down and make them selves feel superior back in Jesus' day.  That is one of the reasons Jesus argued with them so much.

Throughout history people have used the Bible to justify slavery, war, genocide, racism, sexism, ageism, and practically any other "ism" you can think of.  Those who were anti war pointed to the verse about beating your swords into plowshares.  Those who wanted war, point to the opposite verse telling you to beat your plowshares into swords.  (Yes, that is in there, too.) That is not what the Bible is for.  The Bible tells the story of humanity's relationship with God.  It tells us about the loving, grace filled, God who won't give up on us no matter how far we stray.

As a Presbyterian, I believe that the Word is living and with prayerful study the Holy Spirit can give us God's word for us today.  But I do NOT believe that God means for us to use it to beat each other up.

I will give just one example, then I will stop (because people using the Bible in a way that is driving the next generation away really upsets me and I don't want to turn into one of the ranting lunatics that are driving people away, myself...)

One scripture that is often pulled out of context and used without studying the situation and the time is 1 Corinthians 14:33-34.  (The women be silent in church verses...)  Leaders of the church throughout the ages have used a shallow reading of that verse to say that women can't preach or even teach in the church.  Some churches are still using it today.  If you actually do in-depth Bible study, you will find that Paul was writing to a particular church that was having a particular problem.  You will note that it is ONLY the Corinthians that he tells this.  If you study Corinth in the first century, you will find that one of the most popular religions of the day was a form of goddess worship that involved wailing and cutting yourself with knives.  One problem with the early church (just like today) was that popular culture tried to sneak into the church.  If we had a group of women screaming and cutting themselves while the rest of us where trying to worship, I would tell them to be quiet, too.  So knowing the setting is important.

The other important thing is to look at Paul's writings and ministries as a whole.  Paul was always working with women in his ministry.  In Philippi, he left a clergy couple in charge of the only church he wasn't scolding.  Pracilla and Aquilla were two of his most faithful helpers. In the first century AD, (or CE if you prefer) a man would never address the wife first UNLESS she was the leader, or in this case the pastor of the church.  Also, he mentions them in Romans along side Phoebe who serves at Cenchreae.  In Philippians Paul asks Euodia and Syntyche, his faithful partners in ministry, to put aside their differences because conflict among the church leadership hurts the congregation.  So if you look at Paul's ministry as a whole, he often put women in places of leadership in the churches he founded.  So to take that one sentence of Paul's  and use it to "prove" that God doesn't call women to serve is totally misrepresenting Paul's ministry.

Unfortunately, good Christians do that every day.  They misuse God's word either by ignorance or knowingly so that they can prove their own point.  That is not nourishing to their own souls or to the church as a whole.

So, I will close with a quote from the 1st century poet, Petronius:
 "A little learning is a dang'rous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again."

Blessings on your Bible studies!