October 10, 2014

From Jim McGuiggan... Interpreting the Story


Interpreting the Story
Saying that we should learn how to read the "Story" already implies things. Some don't see the Bible as "Story". Some see it as a "guide to living". Some see it as a "devotional guide to make us more spiritual". Some read it as a "repository of promises". Some read it as an "authoritative guide to God's will," which expresses itself in commands and "principles". It would be hard to deny that elements of truth adhere to these views; anyway, who'd want to deny it? But if the Bible is more the development of the Story of God and his relationship to the human family, if it is more an historical telling of what God has done, is doing and will do in and through the human family then we should read it that way.
There's no doubt that the initiative in the entire biblical witness is with God but there's no doubt either than much of the Bible is a narrative telling how God's people responded to his self-disclosure and creative engagement in the life of humanity.
Maybe we should read the Bible asking how we should live as God's people. I'm sure everybody would agree to that—and should. But it implies a prior question and the answer to that question determines how we should live as God's people. The prior question (in one form or another) has to be: What kind of God is the God whose people we are?
That question has implications of profound importance. For example, it implies that there is one God whose people we are and that that God is unchanging in his character and purposes. If it's true that God is one and that his character and purposes are unchanging then it would follow that any change in his dealings with us would mean that he changes in order to remain the same. That is, he might introduce covenants and later remove them, place people in places of authority and later remove them, act this way in a particular situation and act differently later in a very similar situation. I mean to say that whatever the changes in his behaviour they cannot mean that his character is changing with the circumstances. To maintain his character and his overarching purpose he may act in different ways depending on the circumstances.
Because they care for them, parents might have a lights out at 8 p.m. policy for their young children. For the very same reason those parents will change the "lights out rule" when their children are older. The rules change so that the parents can remain the same toward the children. Click here to see a lengthy development of this point.
God's commandments profile his character and nurture his purposes and I would think that we're not to focus on the commandments as though they were ends in themselves. Commandments are not given for us to ignore and much less to break—they're to be obeyed; but it would be possible to obey commandments (at the societal, home and religious levels) without a relationship of devotion existing between those that obey and the one(s) issuing the commands.
A child may obey a father out of prudence or fear and not because he/she cares for or even respects the parent. The same could be true of societal and religious laws. There's little point in thinking that simply obeying the commands is the ideal—it certainly isn't; and if God is our Heavenly Father then it certainly wouldn't be what he desires. He wouldn't think that we honour him by deliberately defying his commands. He would think we dishonour him if we were to do that but he would surely hold that heartless obedience is legalism or a disguise for something worse. The Heavenly Father seeks the response that comes from his child. This is demonstrated in Jesus Christ whose obedience took the form of a devoted Son. His obedience did not exist simply in the specific actions of his life; he came into the world as a Son, a child of the Holy Father, and offered the obedience of a son. The actions and speech and attitudes were in keeping with his relationship; his righteousness was relational fidelity and not simply the correct legal response to commandments.
What God seeks will show itself in commandment-keeping but it will not be confined to that. If our commandment-keeping is to be like Christ's it will rise out of the child/parent relationship. Let me say it again, it's no accident that Jesus came as a child of the Father rather than some legal representative or special envoy or some such thing, as distinct from a Son. He came as a Son (a child of the Father) to profile what was to be offered to the Holy Father.
So when we ask how we are to live as the people of God I would suppose we should not be talking simply about obedience but the obedience that accords with a child/parent relationship. The obedience of a citizen to society's laws is not of the same nature as the obedience of a devoted child to a devoted parent.
If the above has merit and we are to obey as devoted children who call upon a Holy Father then our way of reading scripture should be undertaken in that light.

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