Be the Gospel

We give the nickname “bibliolatry” to the odd mental habit of evangelicals who worship the Bible instead of the Living Word. They invest so much reverence into the physical artifact, or the body of content, that they lose track of what it’s about. To them, the book is the Savior, and it manifests in a bunch of ritual instincts about the physical artifact. For them, the book is the only way God can speak to the world. This is what happens when you embrace the obsession with “propositional truth”.

For example, we know the Bible cannot be simple, easily within reach of everyone who can read. The mere fact that it has to be translated into vernacular languages of our day is proof enough of that. We don’t have a single original, because that wasn’t important to God. He did not give Scripture to the world. He didn’t give it to the institutional church. He gave it to His covenant children; there’s a difference. It’s not the institutions, nor the individuals, but in the community of faith.

It’s not the book, but the gospel message should be simple, and that message is His children. That’s because the Word — His Son — is incarnated in His people. We are the message. The Bible is the background material we use to refine our understanding of the message, but Jesus the Person is the message.

This is right in line with the wild notion that the Holy Spirit will guide you to a proper understanding of the text of any Bible passage. It’s true that He will inspire you to obey, but He does not communicate data. He communicates moral truth. Moral truth is not a proposition. Just because you are comfortable with your analysis of what it says is no sign that God wants you to teach that particular set of notions to the whole world.

Many theologians, great men of God, have gone before us, asking the same Holy Spirit to guide them in deciding what to make of the text of Scriptures. They all disagreed and taught differently. The question is not binary; it’s not who is wrong versus who is right. That’s a human fixation that God will not endorse. They obeyed their convictions; you need to do the same.

If you absorb the message in the Bible, then you are the gospel.