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Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Does Life Come With An Instruction Manual
By webmaster @ 4:06 PM :: 1292 Views :: 2 Comments

Does life come with an instruction manual?

A few months ago, I got an angry call from a woman who had seen our church ad on the subway that says, "Marble Church: Because life doesn't come with an instruction manual." The woman berated me: "the Bible is our instruction manual! What are you teaching over there!?"

I tried to appease her. She calmed down. But I hung up without clarifying what I believe: I agree with her general premise (the Bible is of fundamental importance for life), it's not a rule-by-rule, line-by-line guide for how to live. In the Protestant Christian tradition, we say that the Bible is sufficient revelation of God. It's not got everything for every circumstance... but what it does have is sufficient: for matters relating to God and salvation, it's enough.

We make the Bible too simplistic when we call it a playbook, or a how-to-manual, for life. Case in point: yesterday, I sat with a woman who is navigating a new relationship that has gotten wonderful--and serious--rather quickly. She's trying to figure out whether she can trust her emotions in the wake of past relationships.

As much as I love the Bible, this person is not going to find her solid ground by poring over Habbakuk or Nahum. Even Jesus didn't spend a lot of time giving dating advice. I counseled her out of my own relationship experience and out of my sense of what it means to be in a faithful relationship with another human being. I was fully grounded in scripture and life, but not quoting chapter and verse.

The Bible shares countless stories of how women and men have come to know God in the diverse circumstances of everyday life. It offers rules and frames to guide the living of our: the 10 commandments; the Beatitudes; an emphasis on love, mercy, compassion, justice; a sense of awe, wonder, and faith. But it doesn't have an exact word, applicable to every possible life situation.

The Bible requires people to make its wisdom live. It takes the wisdom, patience, and grace of a community of interpretation (a congregation, its elders, deacons, and pastors) to make the Bible's truth live in the present day. We need an instruction manual to help us understand life, but God made it so that we need the life experiences of a community of believers to help us read the instruction manual.

If it were up to me, they wouldn't sell Bibles unless there were a pastor, some elders, and a whole congregation who were packaged with it. I guess if that were true, Barnes and Noble would need a slightly larger religion section.

Comments

By mrendon @ Tuesday, March 17, 2009 6:22 PM

I found myself in the past being preached on by my Protestant Christian co-workers/friends in this area telling me that everything I need to know is in the Bible; but I questioned that, which often times it put me in an uneasy and tense situation where I was made to be seen as an "unbeliever". I believe the Bible is like a roadmap, to give us a overview of our spiritual origin, see ourselves in the prophets' lives when they found themselves overwhelmed, empowered and/or blessed and certainly a way of life through Jesus' compassionate living. However, when I found myself needing specific comfort during a breakup, I couldn't pinpoint a specific chapter without consulting the concordiance under various words such as "fear", "depression", "hopelessness", "lost", etc. I would have to read more than one verse to appease my sense of powerlessness but not without interpreting the message figuratively in terms applicable to my emotional state. Often times, this is discouraging requiring a lot of patience and reasoning abilities under such emotional duress. The message I walk away with from fundamentalist or legalistics is to dissociate from my emotions because "it is in God's hands". While I believe the latter but what I look for is the emotional connection I get from a person who has the capacity to empathize with what I'm going through to grow spiritually and believe that God's plan is much more expansive and dynamic than the simple answers people believe to be in the Bible. God's is multi-dimensional than what some paint it to be!

By SniffNY @ Wednesday, March 18, 2009 10:55 AM

Provocative blog and follow-up comment by mrendon. You have both caused me to ask myself, if the Bible is not an instruction manual, then what is it? Using a metaphor, I see the Bible like a musical composition. I can certainly read the composition and hum the tune to myself. This allows me to explore my own talents (or lack thereof) and enjoy the music within me. It is available to me anytime and anywhere. But it is so much richer to hear the orchestra!

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