Sex outside marriage: is it okay?

In my old church, sex outside marriage was seen as a sin. That doesn't mean that people didn't do it. But people were expected to wait until marriage before having sex and not have sex unless they were married. Anything else was wrong. They considered this the 'biblical' view and therefore God's view.

It's also been the traditional view. Throughout history, Christians have generally considered sex outside marriage as a sin. However, it was a sin that lots of people were prepared to commit. And generally, people didn't seem to worried about it. Popes have been known to not only have mistresses, but illegitimate children. Men were often actually encouraged to sow their wild oats and even after marriage a mistress on the side was perfectly acceptable - often even expected. So sex outside marriage wasn't considered that big of a deal.

Unless of course you were a woman. Then the rules were completely different. Women were expected to be a virgin on their wedding day and never to take a lover. Obviously some still did. But women's 'fornication' or 'adultery' was seen as a much graver matter than men's 'fornication' or 'adultery'.

Biblical interpretation doesn't exist in a cultural vacuum. And in every time and age people are most likely to interpret the bible in a way that fits well with their cultural ideas. It is quite possible that one reason why sex outside marriage has been seen as a sin for so long is because it kept women from having sex outside marriage. And it was in men's best interests for women to be virgins on their wedding day and remain monogamous. And it suited their culturally formed ideas about what women were meant to be like.

The bible does not exist in a cultural vacuum either. So to understand the bible's teachings on sex outside marriage, we need to understand the culture it was written in. Women had far less status in society than they do today. They had little rights on their own and were often considered to be man's possession. Therefore, to have sex with a woman outside of marriage was to despoil another man's property (either her father's, her future husband's or her husband's).

In 1 Corinthians 7:2, Paul says that men should have sex with their own wife and wives should have sex with their own husband. That seems very plain. However, this is also the chapter where Paul says it is better for the married to stay unmarried. If we had heeded this advice, we probably wouldn't have the population problem we have now. And admittedly, Paul does not say they cannot marry. Indeed, he says it is better to marry than to burn with passion. However, it doesn't seem like good long-term advice.

And we are given some reason for that advice later on in the chapter. Paul says it is 'because of the present crisis' that it is better for people to remain unmarried. And in 1 Corinthians 7:29, he says the time is short. This was a time when people were expecting the Lord's return any day. They were not making plans for 2000 years of Christianity.

This is not to say that sex outside marriage was only bad in Paul's time. However, it is worth noting that we now (with the exception of religious orders in the Catholic Church) have disregarded most of what Paul had to say about remaining unmarried. Can we really still hold fast to its advice about sex outside marriage?

I mentioned before that women's status has changed since biblical times. Indeed, women's inferior status was a constant throughout much of Christianity's history. So too were their lives. It has only been in relatively recent times that a woman's life has consisted of far more than marrying early and spending her life bearing children. In the past, women had little chance to earn money or support themselves. They were totally dependent on their husband. They also had far fewer ways of preventing pregnancy and were greatly disadvantaged if an unwanted pregnancy occurred. In such a context, refraining from having sex outside marriage was a very good idea.

But things have changed. Women now not only can earn money but often want to put children on hold for a while as they pursue a career. And with the invention of the pill, they're able to do that and still enjoy a healthy sex life. In the past, if a woman was not married by the age of 20, she might be seen as a spinster. Now, it's quite common for women to wait until they're 30 before getting married. It's also quite common for women to go travelling or pursue other interests in their 20s. Women are doing a lot more than they used to. And marriage and children are getting delayed.

And I personally think that can be a good thing. I had my first child while I was 24. And while that's not as young as some other people I know, it did mean I didn't get the chance to travel or pursue a career or even have the same kind of social life that other people in their 20s often get. Not that I regret it, of course. And there are lots of benefits to having children young. But I can also see the benefits of waiting until you're older. 

So should sex have to wait until someone's 30? Different people will have different answers to that. But whatever the answer is, we have to recognise that waiting until you're 30 to have sex is completely different to waiting until you're 15!

But this does not mean we should just dismiss any biblical teachings about sex as culturally irrelevant. If the bible says something, it's worth asking questions about why it says it. Is it just because those teachings met cultural expectations? Or is there a deeper reason?

I think one thing the bible constantly says about sex is that it is a special act. It binds you to another person - not just physically, but emotionally. While I do not think this necessarily means we have to wait until we're married to have sex, we do need to carefully consider who we have sex with. And we need to be aware that it a special act and that it does have emotional consequences.

Society's expectation nowadays is often the complete opposite to what the traditional and biblical view on sex before marriage was. Now, we're told we can have sex with whomever we want, whenever we want. It doesn't matter. It's not important. It's just two consenting adults having fun.

And yet this view of sex can damage people - particularly women, who are far more likely to make an emotional investment in the act of sex. Since the sexual revolution, how many women have had sex with a man thinking he likes her only to find out he just wanted sex? My guess is millions. How many women find themselves having sex when they're don't really want to, just because they feel it's expected of them? Just because society tells us it's okay to have sex now doesn't mean it won't cause us pain.

A few writers have made the comment that, while the sexual revolution was meant to bring women a whole more freedom in the area of sex, all it really ended up doing was make women more sexually available for men. Men often benefited just as much as women - maybe even more so.

And while women's status has improved, the sexual revolution might be said to have actually diminished women's status, rather than improved it. Women are now much more likely to be seen as sexual objects and expected to be sexually available. And sexual objectification is just another way of seeking to possess someone.

I'm not saying that people should never have one-night stands. Nor am I saying that women shouldn't want to be sexy. We are sexual beings. And that's okay. It seems to me that God made us like that. Maybe we should acknowledge that, rather than trying to ignore it. However, it's because we're sexual beings that sex is important, and I think we need to acknowledge that too.

We can't take the bible's teaching on sex and transplant them to our own culture as though nothing has changed. It has. But nor can we dismiss them as culturally irrelevant. They still have something to teach us. And in the end, what people do with those teachings is really a matter between them and God.

Book of Eli - Two Approaches to the Bible

The Book of Eli is set in a post-apocalyptic world. Eli is in possession of the last remaining bible on earth. (It’s interesting that many descriptions of this film say it’s a sacred book without mentioning that it’s a bible.)

Carnegie wants that bible for his own purposes, and will do anything to get it - even kill people. It’s hard to understand why a man like Carnegie would want the bible so badly, until we realise that he wants to use it to control people.

Most Christians, if not all, would find Carnegie’s approach to the bible abhorrent. Yet I’m sure some people have used the bible to try and control people, and probably still do. I think such people probably do not have genuine faith. But I could be wrong. Faith comes in many different forms. And often people who start out with a genuine faith may end up with a very warped faith.

And although we may not use the bible to try and control societies, I think people do often use the bible for their own purposes. Instead of really trying to discover what the bible has to say, they want to use it to show why they are right. The bible becomes just a tool for them, rather than the living word of God.

But this isn’t a movie about one person who has a bad approach to the bible and another who has a good approach. Because Eli also has a faulty approach to the bible. Eli is so focused on trying to protect the bible that he’s forgotten to live by it.

Near the beginning, there is a somewhat anti-Good Samaritan moment. Eli sees some travellers being attacked. Instead of helping them he says words along the lines of ‘Not my concern. Stay on the path.’

And I do think that many Christians, Christians of genuine faith, have the Eli approach to the bible. They’re too busy protecting it, they’ve forgotten to live by it. They concentrate on doctrine and forget about practice. They memorise bible verses but never do any of them.

The bible is not just meant to be used or protected, but lived. 

Scared Scripture

Each night, I have to read for 10 minutes with my son. As a joke, I said to him you could read my university textbook. It was a joke. Honestly. I’m not that mean. But he thought it was a brilliant idea, which is how my son came to be reading my textbook out loud.

My son tends not to look at the words too carefully. So he’ll say what he thinks the word says or should say, rather than what it actually says. So when he came to the words ‘sacred scripture’ he said ‘scared scripture’ instead.

It was cute and it was funny. But it also made me think. In what way could scripture be scared?

Now obviously scripture cannot be scared at all, either as simply a book or as the Word of God.

But people can – and have been – scared that the authority of scripture is under threat.

I don’t have the time to go into everything with too much detail here. But as I have been thinking about the authority of scripture, I would like to briefly look at some of the possible reasons why people may believe that the bible is no longer authoritative.

The first and most obvious one is that some people do not believe that God is real or that Jesus was God’s son. For those that do not have faith in God or Jesus Christ, then it’s hard to find any reason why they should consider it authoritative.

However, another statement that comes up sometime is that no-one should consider it authoritative because some people do not believe it is the word of God. So for instance, say someone asks another person why they believe a certain thing is wrong. The person answers because the bible says this. The first person says well that’s not a good reason because I don’t believe in the bible.

But many people do base their beliefs on what is right and wrong on the bible. And if they are asked why they have certain beliefs, the answer is the bible – whether other people believe in it or not. This could almost be a post in itself. But I better leave it or I will run out of room.

Another threat to biblical authority is that people believe it doesn’t match up with scientific fact. Whether this be the creation story or Jesus’ resurrection or miracles or the flood. And some people think they can no longer believe any of it because they see certain parts of it as unscientific.

The first point to make here is just because something seems to go against our idea of science doesn’t mean it did not happen. If God is intervening, one would expect that the natural laws of science would be suspended. That’s what makes Jesus’ resurrection a miracle. If people rose from the dead all the time (under properly conducted experiments in science laboratories) then it wouldn’t be that much of a big deal. In fact, then you’d probably get people saying well I don’t believe Jesus was the Son of God because he never did anything that special.

The second point is that the bible is not a science book. And if someone were to ask me whether the bible was an authoritative text for learning about science, I would have to say no. But then if someone were to ask me whether a science text book was an authoritative text for learning theology, I would also say no. And yet many people do reject the bible because it fails to match what the scientists say.

I would also say that the knowledge of science is limited. Science tells us about what we can see and can know. But it can’t tell us of Heaven or God or spiritual intervention in our lives. And considering that science is limited to what is here on earth, it seems foolish to use it to reject a book that is not limited to what is here on earth. The bible is more concerned with heavenly matters. Science is only concerned with earthly ones – and can only examine earthly ones.

Another threat to biblical authority that is related to this is that the bible seems to contain errors or that certain passages in the bible do not line up with other passages. So for example, the Gospel of John sometimes seems to contradict Matthew, Mark and Luke. The idea is that, if the bible really were the Word of God, then it would not contain any errors or contradictions.

Again, I go back to the fact that the bible speaks of theological truths. I believe it was divinely inspired. And that God ensured that there were no errors in theological matters. However, it was written by humans, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And humans have limited understanding. It is possible that God allowed them to make errors (due to their limited understanding), providing that they did not make errors that were of importance to any matters related to faith.

Here’s an example. One problem for the church is times gone past was the idea that the earth revolved around the sun. Because in Joshua, it says that the sun stood still. So that’s one error that people might point to and say that the bible is not divinely inspired, because if it did, it would not contain that type of error. However, we need to consider people’s limited understanding of astronomy at the time. If God was to ensure that this error was not in the bible, he would have had to sit the writers down and given them an astronomy lesson that they would not even have understood.

And if we go back to the Gospel of John. What was important for John was that he conveyed spiritual truths in an accurate way. Some of the contradictions may not really be contradictions at all. It is also possible that some of his gospel may not contain the type of strict, factual reporting that you may find in a court transcript, for example. And yet it may be truer because of that. A transcript may be accurate, but it does not always reflect the truth. The comparison has been made between a photograph and a portrait. The Gospel of John perhaps seeks to present a spiritual portrait of Jesus that may be a truer representation than a photograph would be.

The last threat I would like to discuss is one that often comes from Christians. And that is the belief that we don’t like what the bible says anymore, so we’ll change it to something we do like. In other words, they believe the bible is an authority, so long as it fits with their beliefs. But if it doesn’t fit with what they like, then it is no longer considered authoritative. And often this means changing the spiritual truths discussed in the bible to be more acceptable to today’s world.

It’s probably the scariest threat to scripture there is. This idea that the bible no longer fits with what we believe to be true. Therefore, it must be wrong. However, it might just be the case that what we believe not longer fits with the truth.

Anyway, I could probably go on for a few more pages at least, but this post is long enough.

Contextual Theology: Is the Bible speaking to us or are we speaking to the bible?

I once thought that the only way to get an unbiased opinion of the message in the bible was to get a bunch of people who had never heard of the bible or Christianity or Jesus to read it and then tell me what they thought it meant. Obviously this was a foolish notion. In today’s world, it would be practically impossible to find anyone who has not heard of these things.

But it was foolish for another reason. I presumed that, if they hadn’t heard of these things, then their opinion would be unbiased. But in reality, they would still be reading the bible with ideas about spirituality, meaning, life and death and morals. They would also be influenced by their culture and background. Their worldview would determine how they read the bible, just as surely as if they were reading it with a set of preconceived ideas about what it actually meant.

Much theology today tries to give a voice to certain groups that may have felt excluded from theological discussion in the past. So we have feminist theology and black theology, to name the two most well known ones. There is also the broad category of liberation theology, which can refer specifically to groups of oppressed people, for example those in Latin America. Yet it can also refer to any group of people that have felt marginalised or oppressed in any way. Contextual theology can also be more narrowly defined to groups within groups. My readings for university include papers on Aboriginal theology and Samoan Women theology.

This type of contextual theology does have its benefits. The bible is for all people at all times. And what it says to me, as a white Australian woman, may not be the same as what it says (at least in part) to a Samoan woman. Also, the bible uses a variety of metaphors to describe spiritual truths. How those metaphors are understood may be different from culture to culture and individual to individual. To look at these metaphors in the context of specific peoples should not involve changing the metaphor to fit their understanding, but of ensuring that their understanding fits with the biblical truth.

Yet there are also dangers. The first of these is that the message of the bible may become segmented. Instead of being one universal message, it becomes a series of different messages for different peoples. Related to this is the danger that what the bible ‘says to me’ becomes more important than what it says ‘to people everywhere’. We raise the individual or group message over the universal one. Yet it is the universal message to mankind that is the most important.

Another danger is that we tell the bible how it should be read. In Faith Seeking Understanding (2004), Migliore says that the bible should be read as a liberating message. Yes, liberation and freedom is one strong message of the bible. But it is not the only one. The bible also speaks to us of judgment, for example. To approach the bible with our own ideas about what it should be saying may be to miss what else it has to say. Taken to an extreme, it may also involve correcting the bible when it does not fit in with our ideas.

Theology should involve letting the bible speak to us, rather than speaking to the bible. If contextual theology means seeing what the bible has to say to a specific group of people, bearing in mind that its universal message to mankind is more important, then I am all for it. If, however, it means paying attention only to certain parts of the bible or changing the bible to suit our own ideas, then theology and the bible become simply tools to achieve our own ends. We are closing our ears to what it really has to say and we are placing ourselves above God.

Authority for Determining Christian Belief and Practice

Authority is not a word we like very much anymore. Unless it comes to questioning someone’s authority. The modern western world is very good at doing that. But when it comes to respecting the authority of others, or recognising someone’s authority to tell us what to do, forget it. Instead of respecting authority, we’re more likely to criticise or ridicule it. Instead of obeying authority, we tell them exactly where we they’ve got it wrong.

When it comes to Christianity, we need authority. Christians are called to believe the right things and do the right things. And although God may be in the world, he isn’t sending out media releases or doing interviews on The 7.30 Report. So how do we decide our right belief and right practice (orthodoxy and orthopraxy)? We need to recognise of the authority of other sources to speak on God’s behalf.

Not everybody would agree with this. In fact, one of the stumbling blocks for people coming to religion is that they do not want to recognise the authority of anything or anyone else, other than themselves. They want to make their own choices about what to do. They want to work it all out without any kind of guidance from anybody.

Related to this is the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Some people prefer to rely either solely or partially on what the Holy Spirit is saying to them. They recognise God’s authority, but not necessarily the authority of other sources. The problem with this approach is that what God is saying to me may be different from what God is saying to you. How do we decide who is right?

I heard a pastor once say that if everybody is being led by the Holy Spirit, then there will be no disagreements in church meetings. And if anyone does disagree, then they’re not truly being led by the Holy Spirit. (As a person who tended to disagree, I got a little annoyed at this.)

But even though I believe his attitude was wrong, I think he had a point. If the Holy Spirit is guiding all Christians, then why do they disagree? Now if I believe God is telling me one thing, but it seems to be telling everyone else another thing, what do I do? Do I decide that God says different things to different people? Do I take the view that what God is telling me is more important than what it is telling everyone else? And what if the Holy Spirit seems to be guiding me differently than the way it has guided millions of believers through the centuries? What if it’s different to what the bible says? Am I the only one who has it right?

So unless we want billions of Christians, all with very different ideas about what it means to be Christian, and all convinced that their idea is the right one, we need some other authority to appeal to.

The bible is easily the most widely accepted source of authority for Christian belief and practice. God did not just create us and leave us alone. He interacted with us. And the bible is a record of what He has said and what He has done in the past. It is God’s word and divinely inspired. For some, this means it should be the only authority. Yet as history – and the many Christian denominations that now exist – shows us, people may read the bible and get some very different ideas.

Another source of authority is tradition. We do not just read the bible for ourselves and make our own decisions. We consider how Christians through the ages have interpreted the bible. We look at the orthodoxy and orthopraxy of the past to help us decide on what we should believe and how we should act in the present.

I believe another source of authority should be the Church. Even with the bible and with tradition, there will still be many disagreements. The Church helps resolve those disagreements. And although I believe that the churches of different denominations can help guide the individuals within that denomination, I also believe that the Catholic Church is the only church that has the authority to speak to the body of believers as a whole. As with individuals, different denominations have different ideas about what it means to be Christian. The Catholic Church was the one church instituted by Jesus Christ and so would seem to be the church with the highest authority when it comes to determining matters of faith.

Authority is related to revelation. As we seek to determine what or who has the authority to speak for God today, we must look at how God has revealed himself in the past. The perfect revelation of God comes in Jesus Christ. Authority relates to power being invested in someone or something by another source. Jesus Christ was asked under what authority he performed his miracles. He did not answer, but we know that his authority came directly from God. In the context of Christianity, this investment of power should come from God or Jesus. Authoritative sources must not simply be made up out of thin air. We should consider where God or Jesus Christ have given authority to others.

Again, what immediately springs to mind is the bible. The bible is a written record of how God has revealed himself in the past. It is also a written record of Jesus Christ, what he said and did, what his purpose was and who He was. As most Christians agree that the bible is an authoritative source, I won’t spend too much time discussing this one. And yet the bible also helps us determine what else has authority.

It is worth noting that bible does not stop with the Gospel of John. It goes on. In the Acts of the Apostles, we see how the early church community developed and grew. And some of this involved working some things out. They could not simply turn to Jesus all the time and say well Jesus said this and so the way forward is plain. They needed to discuss things and come to certain decisions. And as we move past the Acts of the Apostles, we find many epistles, written to Christian communities. These epistles explain things and give advice. They talk about right beliefs and right practices. Those early churches often didn’t quite get it right. They needed to be pointed in the right direction.

When we use the letters in the New Testament as a guide for what to believe and how to act, we are essentially giving authority to the very beginning of Christian tradition. We recognise that people of the past have something valuable to say to people in the present. We learn from the theology of those that went before us. Now there is a difference between the epistles included in the bible and theology that was done afterwards. And I can see why some people would respect the first, but not the second. And yet it does seem to suggest that theology is an ongoing process.

This does not mean that theology needs to recreated for each new generation. Nor does it mean that we return solely to the bible to discover a theology for a new age. Instead, our theology must be built on the theology of others. Making decisions about right belief and right practice did not end after Jesus’ resurrection. Nor did it end after the last word Revelation was written. In fact, if it had, then we wouldn’t even have a bible to use an authoritative source. We also wouldn’t have the Church we have today. The first 500 years included a lot of differences and problems that needed to be worked through. And one of reasons why Christians believe the things they do today is because the people around then spent a lot of time resolving those issues.

I cannot finish this post on authority, without discussing where Jesus specifically gave authority to others. In Luke 9:1, Jesus called together the 12 apostles and gave them power and authority. It is very important that we think of this in deciding what or who has authority to act on God’s behalf today. Some people believe that the authority given here relates to all believers. Yet it seems important to me that he only gave authority to his apostles, not all his followers.

Before I go any further, I want to point out that I do not have a good understanding of this verse. And I tried looking for some kind of commentary on it, to get a better idea of what it actually meant. However, I couldn’t really find anything that was too helpful. But I am guessing that this relates to the authority given to the Church. Well in my opinion, it seems to. Maybe I might try and find out a bit more about that and do another one of my ‘I have no idea what I’m talking about posts’ a bit later.

But my ignorance here actually brings us to an interesting point. Because I have a verse in the bible and I’m not quite sure what it means. So what do I do now? Wait for the Holy Spirit to explain it to me? Search the rest of the bible in the hopes that I might find something that will shed light on it? Talk to people at my church – with the realisation that what the Catholic Church says about this verse is very different to what the Pentecostals would say about it? Check commentaries of other theologians to see what they have to say?

I can speak to other Christians, but in doing that, I may face differing opinions. What if one person says it means something, but another person says it means something else? How do I decide who is correct? I must then ask myself what basis they are using for their interpretation. If one person’s interpretation comes directly from the Holy Spirit, but another person’s interpretation comes from years of studying theology, do I treat both interpretations as equally valid?

So it seems that, although God speaks to us through the bible, we do need some form of further explanation to help us reach conclusions about what the bible is actually saying. And because there are many different explanations out there, we need to decide which explanations are correct. This can’t be simply a matter of choosing the one we like the best – tempting as this is to do. It must take into account the authority behind the explanations we receive? Do they link back to an authoritative source? Or are they simply one person’s opinions?


(Image details: Calling of the Apostles by Ghirlandaio Domenico (1481). Image is in the public domain.)

Allowing people to write themselves into the bible was never going to work

Recently, a bible was put on display at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art and people were invited to write themselves back into its pages. However, within a short period of time, there were so many obscene messages, that the artist, Jane Clarke, a Christian minister who has an outreach to gay, lesbian and transgendered people, was forced to place it under a glass case. People were still invited to write comments into it, but they had to do so on loose leaf pages, which were then inserted inside the bible.

At first glance, it sounds like a good idea. The kind of feel-good act, that leaves everybody feeling better. So why did it fail? Perhaps it was because there were too many flaws in the idea from the start.

The major problem in the whole set-up is that it presumed that people would respect the bible. They just want a chance to write themselves back into it. It’s easy for Christians to make assumptions about people’s attitudes towards the bible, that simply aren’t there in the wider community. In a church setting, most people either consider the bible as the sacred word of God or are at least willing to engage it. When we look beyond the church, however, that respect and willing to engage is not always there.

In fact, sometimes people can have very negative attitudes and even hostility towards the bible. I have had someone stand in front of me and swear at God for half an hour. And I don’t think the feelings expressed then were that uncommon.

In all fairness, inviting people to write in the bible may have been a way to address that hostility. If people could simply write what they wanted to in the bible, then they would no longer be angry.

And perhaps it might have worked if the only reason people feel anger or hostility towards God is because they feel excluded. But that’s simply not the case. Yes, there are many Christians who feel rejected by the church. But it should be noted that being rejected by the church is not the same as being excluded from the bible. Also, there are people who are angry with God for what Christians have done, or how they feel God has treated them, or because they think God’s angry with them or doesn’t accept them as they are or is trying to impose a whole lot of rules that they simply cannot keep.

Despite the fact that writing our own messages in the bible does not really address this at any deep level, it’s also not the full story. Some people are angry with God because they want to be. The problem is not so much that the church has rejected them, it’s that they have rejected God. They’re not looking for someone to welcome them back into God’s family. They want no part of it. If Jesus came down from Heaven himself and rolled out the red carpet, they would walk away. For such people, an open bible and a pen is not a chance to re-include themselves, but simply a chance for them to express their anger.

The other problem with the open bible approach is that it’s not really being excluded from the bible that is the problem. Many people feel rejected (or sadly are rejected) by Christians, not because the bible fails to mention them, but because it does. It mentions their sins. Now we are all sinners and there is not a single person alive who does not have at least one of their sins mentioned in the bible. But it’s often the sins that are mentioned in the bible that make people feel excluded. To feel accepted again would not be a matter of writing themselves back in, but of writing their sins out.

And another problem with this whole episode is that it panders to the desire that most (if not all of us) have to simply write our own bibles. I don’t like this, so let’s cross it out. That needs to be changed, let’s edit it. Perhaps we don’t take a pen and physically do this. But whenever we read a bible, we have a tendency to read ourselves into it. We don’t need an invitation. It’s human nature. I heard one (rich) pastor say that Jesus must have been rich, because God would not have wanted his son to be poor. That’s writing himself into the bible. Just add a few words and feel good about all the money you have.

Yes, there are people out there who feel rejected by God and rejected by the church. And I do commend Jane Clarke for trying to do something to make people feel accepted. But the type of exclusion that many people face is not going to be solved by writing a few words next to Leviticus 18:22.

Perhaps instead of writing ourselves into the bible, we should start writing the bible into our hearts.

The bible is not just a set of isolated verses

Christians love bible verses. We like to memorise them, quote them, engrave them on knick-knacks, recite them in churches, stick them on fridges, use them in arguments and sometimes even paint them on placards.

There’s nothing wrong with this. The bible is the word of God. The more we memorise, recite and see bible verses, the better able we are to remember what God has to say about any situation. But it’s important that we remember that the bible is not just a set of isolated verses.

The other day I heard someone say that Christians often spend more time discussing bible verses than they do discussing bible stories. And that’s interesting, because the bible itself is one incredible story. And the bible verses that we quote or memorise really only make sense in the context of that story.

Obviously, it’s a bit harder to memorise bible stories or engrave them on vases. One of the reasons why bible verses are so popular is because they’re short.

But I also wonder whether one of the reasons we like bible verses so much is because they feed our ego. Look at the face of someone who gives you an exact quote from the bible, along with chapter and verse. There’s usually at least a little bit of smugness there. Now compare it with the face of someone who says, ‘Well I don’t know where it is, and I’m not sure of the exact words, but doesn’t the bible say something about this?’ It’s completely different. The latter person is also embarrassed that they don’t have it all memorised.

In reality, though, the person who does not know chapter and verse may have a better understanding of what the bible says. Because they’re not just looking for an isolated verse that they can use with pride in a discussion. They actually may be looking at the whole thing. It’s not their aim to search for a bible verse to tuck away for future use. It’s their aim to actually read the bible.

And often I think, when we focus so much on verses, we forget where they were used and in what context. They’re isolated from the rest of the bible. And then because we know these verses better than we know the story, we use them in different ways, ways that perhaps don’t even make sense when we consider the story in which they were placed.

I’ve got a confession to make. I have read the bible, searching for verses to highlight. And I’ve gotten very annoyed when there’s a really great passage in the bible, but no single verse that stands out as a good one to highlight. I am looking for one verse. And I can’t find one verse. The whole passage is brilliant. But no single verse by itself carries the same impact.

Do we ever just look for the single, highlight-able verses, and miss the meaning of the passages and stories that we have also read? Do we maybe even skim through them, looking for those verses that can be taken in isolation?

I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure that when the Holy Spirit inspired the bible, he wasn’t making sure that all Christians had a handful of bible verses that they could write on greeting cards and stick on fridges. The bible’s purpose is not just to provide short, quick sayings that are easy to highlight, easy to memorise and easy to use. It’s a story. And it’s the whole story that’s important.

Have you ever had a discussion with people about a novel? I have to admit, I’m not much of a fiction reader. But my mum studied literature at university and so I’ve heard a few of those types of conversations. When people who love literature discuss a book, they very rarely take out one or two sentences to quote at people. They discuss the characters, they discuss the story, they discuss the style, they discuss the themes, they discuss the meaning. Because all of those things are more important that what the fifth chapter, fourth paragraph, third sentence says word for word.

And yes, it is quite possible to go to a book club and point out one or two sentences that particularly stood out. But no good book discussion is going to revolve solely around those isolated quotes. It’s the story that is important. It is the story that they love.

And understanding the story of the bible is more important than knowing a whole heap of bible verses by heart.

(The image is The recto of Rylands Library Papyrus P52 from the Gospel of John, courtesy of Wikipedia.)