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Looking for more than our own reflection

Pierre Gilbert

Whenever we approach the Bible, we always come with our own questions and agenda. It is just like going on a trip – we always leave from someplace; we depart from some location, and we discover the way as we go.

“During [the American Revolution], the Bible was used as a reservoir of images, moral principles and types. Many sermons in America (and some in Britain) supported revolt, while a few in America and England argued against it. Serious exegesis, however, of what would seem to us like the relevant passages (such as Romans 13) was very rare. Rather, it was much more common for patriots to liken George III to Pharaoh and George Washington to Moses, or to depict the conflict as a struggle between the Woman and the Beast of Revelation 12. Patriots and Loyalists were both much more likely to add scriptural authority to political reasoning rooted in some other ideology than they were to attempt reasoning from the ground up on the basis of Scripture.” —Mark A. Noll, “Was the Revolutionary War justified?” Christianity Today, Feb. 8, 1999

Sadly, sometimes we simply get back to our starting point.

This is what James means in his analogy of the mirror: “Remember, it is a message to obey, not just to listen to. If you don’t obey, you are only fooling yourself. For if you listen and don’t obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like” (James 1:22-24, New Living Translation).

For the people James is describing, reading the Scriptures is compared to looking in the mirror simply to see one’s own reflection. They do not search for a new reflection, one which is transformed into the image of Christ. These people are pleased with their own reflection and turn away with no further thought given to what they have seen. For them, Scripture has no transforming power.

It can be easy to look in the biblical text for what we already know – and find it! I often wonder if the many books on the marketing of the church do not sometimes reflect more the state of research into marketing than true insights into the biblical text. In keeping with the pragmatic spirit of our times, do we sometimes inadvertently turn the Bible into a collection of prooftexts designed to demonstrate the validity of whatever social/leadership/economic theory may be popular today?

We are well aware of the dangers of combining the Bible and science when it comes to understanding the creation account in Genesis 1. Many biblical scholars have learned that it can sometimes be hazardous for the authority of the Bible to attempt to demonstrate its validity by showing how it agrees with some scientific theory. The problem with scientific theories is that they tend to lose their validity when new evidence is discovered. If we have closely linked the authority of Scripture to a specific scientific theory, then, when the theory is questioned, the validity of the biblical text will also be questioned.

I wonder if we have not been making a similar mistake when it is not really the text we seek but the familiar and pleasing reflection of our own social theories. The leader who wishes to think “Christianly” must make it his or her first priority to have a listening attitude when it comes to the text of the Bible, an openness to new and dynamic insights into both the person of God and human nature. Above all else, this is what Christians are called to do.

Pierre Gilbert is a professor at Concord College and Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary – Winnipeg.

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Last modified November 16, 2000.

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