When the Bible Isn’t Biblical
Reflections on the Wesleyan Quadrilateral - Reason
September 1, 2024
Romans 12:2, Acts 17:11
see examples of problematic scriptures such as:
1 Samuel 15:1-3, Exodus 21:20-21, Ephesians 6:5-6
This is what the Lord of heavenly forces says: I am going to punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel: how they attacked the Israelites as they came up from Egypt. So go! Attack the Amalekites; put everything that belongs to them under the ban. Spare no one. Kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
1 Samuel 15:2-3
Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature.
Romans 12:2
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When reading the passage above from 1 Samuel 15:3 about God commanding the slaughter of every man, woman, child and even infant among the Amalekites, one would think someone might pause to question whether this is actually what God desires. It doesn’t exactly sound like the loving God we see in Jesus, or even the God of the Old Testament who brought his people out of slavery and walked with them even through the valleys of the shadow of death.
Yet to my shock and horror, I actually sat in a church meeting where church leaders said that all Muslims should be killed before they kill us and mutilate our children, or at the very least be run out of our country. I’ve heard pastors say that gay people should be locked up behind electric fences and separated from society. And I’ve been personally told by a church member that he should beat me to a pulp until admitted that my stance against violence was foolish and that I must fight back if I wanted to live. In each instance, they used passages like the one above to justify their positions.
Like the text in 1 Samuel, these are extreme examples and fortunately do not represent the majority of Christians. Nevertheless, passages like this and other “God ordained” violence throughout scripture have been used time and time again to justify violence of every kind: “Holy Wars”, oppression, slavery, and even genocide.
Other texts have been misappropriated in different ways; to subjugate women both in the church and in the family and society, to elevate our nation to the status of “God’s chosen” or “The promised land” over and against every other nation, or to justify abuses of power and authority in the name of God’s will, among others.
The point is simply this. When we turn off the rational minds that God gave us and interpret scripture at face value with no consideration for context, history, trends and progressions, literary style, and any other number of factors, we can quickly assume that every verse is a prescriptive example or instruction for how to live in all times and all places. Certainly there are such passages, such as the greatest commandment, to love God and neighbor. But most reasonable people do not assume that passages about genocide, slavery or other forms of oppression are offering us universal principles for all times.
We need reason to understand how to appropriately interpret and apply scripture to our lives and in our world and we need the Spirit to renew our minds so that we may discern with humility and wisdom.