Santa Biblia
I kind of chuckled when Paul pushed the book across the desk towards me and said that it was pivotal in his understanding of perspective and his role as a teacher and pastor. I mean the book is called Santa Biblia, for crying out loud.
Well it’s been destroying me since I cracked open it’s short 118 pages. Not just destroying. Maybe that’s the wrong word. It’s been shaping me. Opening my eyes. I’m learning mostly about perspective and interpretation of scriptures. Sometimes I need to read these sentences 3 or 4 times to make sure that I understand what is being said.
Justo Gonzalez, who wrote the book, says;
“Therefore my preaching…became moral exhortations in which the biblical text was at best a pretext for what I would have said anyhow.”
Man, I was so convicted. Maybe convicted is too churchy of a word. I really just felt like an ass.
I immediately started thinking about different messages that I’ve preached over the past 7 years of my life, all of which were “messages from the Bible,” that might have just been me sharing my opinions, feelings, and moral exhortations with people. Have I used biblical text as support for my own personal thoughts and words?
I don’t think that every message I’ve given has been this way, but probably more than I would realize.
Then I started thinking about churches around the country that have pastors and leaders that do the same thing. And I started thinking about people that are fed-up, hurt, and disappointed by the church. How many books and articles have been published over the last 5 years about twenty-somethings leaving the church?
How is that possible if the church is supposed to be this living and life-giving community that exemplifies what Christ modeled as a Christian life?
I think the question is; is our church exemplifying love and community, or is our church telling people what we think they need to hear and using God’s written words as a bullet-proof shield for our flawed human thoughts?
They might not be bad thoughts, but are we preaching the message of Christ or are we giving “moral exhortations?”
[Note: I’m not saying that topical messages are wrong. I think there is a clear different between topical messages and moral exhortations that use the Bible as subtext to better make a point.]
Anyhoo, I really just wanted to share that quote from the book. I didn’t actually plan on saying too much more about it.
~chris
