Why be Careful with Scripture?

If you are reading this Blog, I imagine, although I do not know for certain, that you spend some time reading the Bible. Or that you are in church, and you hear sermons preached, based on scripture. I hope that you will agree with me that it is important to do either of those tasks carefully. I taught Sunday school at Annual Conference this year. As part of the lesson, I talked about this subject.  Since I so much believe that this is an important topic for all of us to consider, I'm going to use this week on the blog to expand on that part of the lesson. 

Why do we need to be careful with how we interpret scripture and apply it to our lives? We are not here to use the Bible to support what we believe, but instead to hear the living word of God as spoken to us through scirpture, and to allow that grace of us God to shape the way we believe. So many people in history have used the Bible to support un-God-like and unholy beliefs and have used the Bible to hurt people, to bring harm, and un-gracefilled judgment. Think of slave-holders who used the Bible to oppress the people they believed they owned. Think of those who used the Bible to prevent women from reaching their God-given potential or who used the Bible to force women to stay in physically or mentally harmful homes (and who still do). Think of those who use the Bible to say that those among us who are hungry or homeless deserve what they get and who should not be helped. 

How do we NOT do that? How do we read the gift that has been given to us as a way for God to speak to us? We'll explore that as we go.

 

Feel free to share you thoughts in the comments.