the bible is weird
“The bible is weird.”
“The bible is weird.”
Most of my life, I’ve never been at odds with the bible. I’ve had questions, sure. But when my Baptist Sunday school teachers would affirm that the scripture- or rather “the word of God” always took precedence over personal beliefs and feelings, somehow that was enough of an answer.
And so I stopped asking. Then I eventually made peace with the gender roles, the homophobia, the mentions of slavery. Because I had to. Because I was told that any discomfort towards the bible meant something was wrong with me, with my mentality, with my hardened-with-sin heart.
Somewhere along the way, I was taught that challenging God and loving God are mutually exclusive. So I feared my doubts. I pretended they didn’t exist in hopes of being a good Christian.
I’ll never forget when Justin McRoberts said, “since the bible is alive, our relationship with it, like with people, should be changing.” That the complications and suspicions and entangled mess that is our communing with scripture, are actually signs of spiritual maturity.
So yeah, the bible is weird. I don’t always get it. And certain parts make me really angry. And God is pretty weird too. I don’t always get Her. Occasionally, She makes me really angry.
But even in the disagreeing and the questioning, there is still faith. Because sometimes it’s not what we say to God, it’s that we’re saying anything at all. It’s that- despite the confusion or hurt or distrust, we keep showing up. We keep opening the pages of our bibles, looking for goodness. And when we come across the stories of fallen angels, virgin Mary, and talking donkeys, may we confidently say,
“The bible is weird.”