How Jesus’ View of the Bible Differs From Ours

We boldly call it “The Word of God,” a book that allegedly contains the values, precepts, commandments and stories of God and his people. It is our holy writ, and everything we do and think revolves around it.

For argument’s sake, let’s momentarily agree: that God exists, and the Old and New Testaments actually came from he/she/it, through humans, and contain no appreciable error. Who would argue that we should form a worldview around them and grind whatever grist the mill requires to obey their commandments.

By definition, they would derive from a ken that outstrips ours by much, so we can’t expect them to always make sense, or consistently appear “just” to our much more limited grasp of reality.

But because the Bible appears in written form, we can interpret it just about any way we choose. Antebellum Southern Christians used it to justify slavery, as the Nazi’s did with their project, and the Crusaders with theirs. Prior to the sexual revolution, scripture was used to harass divorced folk. Today, we use it to villify the Gay community.

The many different flavors of Christianity don’t simply draw different conclusions about who might be God’s enemy, we draw different conclusions about what the Bible is all about – the main point of scripture – then use that to govern our interpretations. And so there will always be multiple expressions of Bible-believing Christianity, each seeing a different, overarching narrative in the scriptures that governs what each individual passage says.

A “governing hermeneutic” if you will.

For example, some Christians believe that the most important thing is to stop sinning, with the majority of scripture focusing on “sin management.” To these folks, gaining victory over human weakness defines the crux of the Bible, each passage interpreted with this in mind.

My tribe tends to see the crucifixion of Jesus as the main point, so we spend much of our time talking about how everything in the Bible points back to “the cross.” I call it “staurocentrism,” and it doesn’t work very well as a governing hermeneutic.

One tribe in particular sees a “Save America” message in the Bible: a clear, consistent calling in scripture to fight the Godless sinners who seek the destruction of our country. Say what you will about them; while we sit around talking, they went to Washington and actually stormed the Capitol, because that’s how, ultimately, they read their Bibles.

There are many more expressions of Christianity, each with a different view of scripture’s main point, a hermeneutic that governs their understanding of God’s mind.

Jesus had his own opinion about the thrust of scripture, but it had nothing to do with spirituality, politics, salvation, or any of the other things his followers believe are most important:

” In everything, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” ~ Matthew 7:12

“The Law and The Prophets” refers to the scriptures as they existed in Jesus’ day, what we call the Old Testament. Make no mistake that Jesus affirmed their veracity almost every time he mentioned them. It was just as much “The Word of God” to him as it is to us.

And if the New Testament is equal to the Old, it’s safe to say that Jesus summed up the entirety of scripture with this one simple thought.

If you’re looking for God’s governing hermeneutic, here it is.

This wasn’t a mere passing thought. Jesus was sitting atop the Mount of Olives, delivering his “Sermon on The Mount,” or better, his law; his way of seeing and doing things. This scene would have reminded any first-century Jewish person of an episode in the Old Testament where Moses sat atop Mt. Sinai to recieve the “10 Commandments,” the core of Jewish law.

God’s way of doing things.

So why are there no expressions of Christianity that see The Golden Rule as the main thrust of scripture, subjecting their theological precepts to its authority, plastering “Do Unto Others” on the walls of their sanctuary, singing songs about it, etc?

Honestly, if you asked me – just a month ago – how Jesus summed up the Bible, I wouldn’t have been able to answer. I’ve been a Christian for ~20 years now, with 122 hours of formal study under my belt. I’ve never heard this on Sunday morning and I certainly don’t remember filtering any of our theological ruminations through it during class.

On the rare occasion that we do talk about this, we don’t come close to saying that it sums up our Bible.

It might be that the Golden Rule is not spiritual, or theologically deep enough. It’s too simple, right? Too “humanitarian.” It makes no mention of the crucifixion of Jesus, salvation, sin avoidance, embracing the right eschatology, heaven, hell, or saving America from the homosexual liberals.

Don’t we have bigger fish to fry than treating people the way we want to be treated? Anybody can do that.

But if God’s mind is summed up by the Golden Rule, who has the better faith; someone who doesn’t believe in God but takes “Do Unto Others” seriously, or someone who believes all the right things but almost entirely ignores it?

Wouldn’t it be better to be a godless “Golden Rule” pagan (there are many) than a heterosexual Christian who studies his Bible, attends church every Sunday while regularly hurling condemnations at the non-Christian world via social media?

I’ll remind us (again – sorry for being so repetitive) of Jesus’ rendition of “Judgment Day,” i.e., that moment when God, according to our scriptures, gathers all of humanity to himself and decides who goes to hell.

Nobody will be judged based on religion, theology, adherence to mainstream Evangelical moral precepts, or whether or not we baked cakes for the right people.

According to Jesus, every human will be judged solely on how we treated each other.

Then [God] will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. ~ Matthew 25:41-43

I don’t know how to fit this into my Evangelical belief that all of my sins have been removed, that I no longer face the judgment of God (as St. Paul believed). Why didn’t Jesus throw us a bone here; something like, “If you believe the right things, this doesn’t apply to you”?

Regardless of how we might work this into our soteriology, us Bible-believers are forced to contend with the idea that God wants his followers – more than anything else, before everything else – to treat people as they want to be treated. It’s a law that we all understand, and one that we expect everyone around us to follow, believer or not.

It’s as if this law has been written on the heart of every human.

If I was in jail, or homeless, or without food, or a migrant who left his war-torn country to seek a new home, or a Gay person who grew up hearing that their orientation would land them in hell, et-al., I can tell you exactly how I’d want to be treated.

If the Bible is truly summed up by “Do Unto Others,” our ruminations about how to live as a Christian – from the purely theological to the purely practical and all points in between – should be mercilessly rammed through this filter before we make our conclusions, form our religions, and subject ourselves to whatever culture results.

That would do great violence to most Christian tribes, as it would to the way I do life, spend money, have fun, etc.

It would certainly change my social media game.

It’s much easier to live a life of prayer, Bible study, church attendance, a carefully cherry-picked moral code, and the occasional act of kindness.

But if the overarching, governing rule is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” we are all sinners of the highest order, damned, in need of a salvation that no human can procure.

Maybe that’s why we buried it.

I’m going to tell you what my religion is. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Period. Terminato. Finito. ~ Gene Wilder 

Photo by Piret Ilver on Unsplash