Bible Study in the 21st Century

Every generation understands the Christian Bible from its place in history.  At the beginning of the third millennium we see the Bible differently than Christians in the fifth century when the Latin Vulgate was written, or in the sixteenth century when Protestant reformers broke with the Catholic Church and prepared translations of the Bible based on the Hebrew canon rather than the Septuagint.

Moreover, since the Reformation we have the benefit of biblical scholarship, insights gleaned from archeological digs, and ancient Jewish and Christian manuscripts discovered in Egypt and Israel. This knowledge has been used to prepare new translations of the Christian scriptures and to create new materials for Bible study in the church.

But our world has obviously changed in other ways as well, and these changes also affect how we read the Christian Bible. In the nineteenth century Christians and humanists joined to abolish slavery, which had been justified both by Christian scripture and classical literature. The church had to learn to interpret the Bible in order to conclude that, despite the acceptance of slavery in the Bible, it violates God's will. Clearly, Christians must consider not only the plain sense of scripture but also the biblical commandment to love God and our neighbors.

This rule of love must be applied even to teachings attributed to Jesus by New Testament writers. Although the Old Testament allowed divorce (Deuteronomy 24:1-4), in the New Testament Jesus categorically forbids it. (Mark 10:1-12, Matthew 19:9) The literal meaning of these texts was the doctrine of the church for centuries, but in the twentieth century churches and individual Christians have come to see marriage differently. Wives and children are no longer property, sex within marriage is understood as intimate sharing and not merely as justified by procreation, spouse and child abuse are reasons for legal intervention in the family, and ending a marriage that lacks love is not seen as wrong.

In the middle of the twentieth century a culture nurtured for centuries by Catholic and Protestant traditions of Christian faith read the Bible to justify the extermination of the Jews. In reading the Christian Bible we must not forget the Holocaust, and we must resist any reading of scripture that blames Jews for the death of Jesus or proclaims God's judgment of the Jews for their sin. Jesus, his disciples, and Paul were all Jews, their faith was Jewish, and they read the Hebrew scriptures as their Bible.  Christian faith builds on Jewish faith in the God known to us through the scriptures shared by the two traditions.

Bt the end of the last century many Christians were living in pluralistic societies with Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims as well as Jews and also members of new religious traditions. We can no longer read the Christian Bible as though these various religious communities of faith do not exist or are outside the love of God. The call in scripture to witness to the love of God in Jesus does not mean that we much condemn members of other faith communities. We are challenged to affirm religious freedom for all and to witness to our faith in ways that respect the rights of others to believe and live as they choose. 

Finally, our study of the Christian Bible must help us face the compelling ethical issues of our time. We must discern from our scripture ways to sustain the ecology of the earth, put an end to war, protect the human rights of all men, women and children, teach that sex without love is demeaning, and achieve a more just distribution of the world's wealth. We cannot simply look in the Bible for texts that will answer these questions, but must discover by living the biblical life of faith how God is guiding us.

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1 in Faith: A Christian Bible Study † Copyright © 2000 by Robert Traer