The Church vs. The Bible

I'm just gonna say it.

The Church needs to reevaluate how it perceived the Bible because how it does currently is not only hypocritical but harmful and, in my opinion, lessens the point and the importance of the Bible.

First thing to note......

The Bible is a book.

Read that again.

Before you jump down my throat, think about it. By definition of a book, the Bible is a book. Me saying it's a book doesn't lessen it's significance. It's just me putting an accurate definition to it. The Bible is a very important book and there is nothing wrong with calling it what it is.

When you go beyond the Bible is a book, you start to really get into the conversation of what the Bible is. Many Christians claim the Bible is the word of God, written by God through man. The question then stands if this is the case, why are there so many interpretations, translations and viewpoints of the Bible? I'm sure God wants the best for us and wants us to follow Him. Why would He make s book that is so........confusing, contradictory, inflammatory, and downright egregious in some places.

Maybe its because..... bear with me.......

God didn't write the Bible. If he did, I'm sure His image in it would be much more consistent.

Being perfectly real and factual, men wrote the Bible. Humans wrote the Bible. This is not an opinion. This is fact. Some of the books of the Bible are literally named after their writers.

Now before you get all up in arms, just take this into consideration.

I'm in no way saying the writers of the Bible weren't inspired by God or had some sort of divine revelation. What I am saying is that in the end, they are a product of their time, culture and experiences so they will perceive God through that lens. There are people today who are inspired by God, and they also are a product of their time, culture and experiences. Everyone experiences God differently based on their lives. There is nothing wrong with that at all. If Christians are going to claim that God is for everyone, then they should start acting like it and not judging, ridiculing and demonizing those who don't fall into the strict rules of the church.

In my opinion, the way the church views the Bible as the inerrant word of God, they belittle the stories of the Bible. The people in the Bible fought, died, suffered, killed, and more in pursuit of God. They wrote the stories to glorify, question, express admiration and give praise to God. To ignore all of that is ignoring a lot of what I believe God wants us to see.

The Bible is an uncomfortable book to read, but we shouldn't try and sugar coat it or try and make it say things that it doesn't say. Take the words of the writers, as they are, IN THEIR CONTEXT!!

The church is notorious for taking verses out of context to make a point. There is a reason the verse is where it is. Don't make try and make it fit your narrative. Accept the context it is in because there is a reason its there. We might not recognize it now, but there is.

We do not have the knowledge of those who wrote the books of the Bible. We can only make guesses from what they have written.

On another note, to everyone who teaches Bible stories......

STOP DRAGGING IT!

I just read the story of Moses (yes I know. I'm late.) for myself and I was shocked and underwhelmed. My entire life, I was given this really complicated, very long and dramatic story of Moses that took like 3 sessions of Sunday School or 5 weeks of Bible study to get through and I read the story of Moses from the Bible in 10 minutes. The whole part about the burning bush is less than 5 verses. They over exaggerate parts of the Bible and that just makes it that much more upsetting when people actually read it and see that it is just straightforward and extremely concise. Don't believe me, read it for yourself.

The Bible doesn't need to be over analyzed because, like other writings, when you over analyze it, you might miss something very important that was right there in front of you. The church should rethink their approach to the Bible before they put themselves into a corner they can't back out of.