How the Bible Actually Works

by Peter Enns

  Shepherding us toward wisdom, kicking and screaming if need be: that is the Bible’s purpose.

  The Bible becomes a confusing mess when we expect it to fulfill some other purpose—like functioning as an owner’s manual for faith. But when we allow the Bible to determine our expectations, we see that intending to gain wisdom is our proper spiritual posture toward it.

  Wisdom isn’t about flipping to a topical index so we can see what we are to do or think—as if the Bible were a teacher’s edition textbook with the answers supplied in the back. Wisdom is about the lifelong process of being formed into mature disciples, who wander well along the unscripted pilgrimage of faith, in tune to the all-surrounding thick presence of the Spirit of God in us and in the creation around us.

  Rulebook answers deliver certitude and finality, but wisdom embraces mystery.

  Rulebook answers are distant and passive, but wisdom is intimate and learned through experience.

  Rulebook answers are immediate, but wisdom takes trial and error over time.

  Rulebook answers provide comfort and stability, but wisdom asks us to risk letting go of what is familiar for God’s surprises.

  Rulebook answers are designed to end the journey, but wisdom shapes us so we journey with courage and peace.

  Rulebook answers are limited to specific moments, but wisdom works in all times and places.

  Rulebook answers keep us small, but wisdom gives us the space we need to grow.

  Embracing rather than avoiding the Bible’s antiquity, ambiguity, and diversity is like shining a light in a dark room, showing us that the Bible is a book of wisdom rather than prescripted answers, and inviting us to accept the sacred responsibility of pursuing wisdom and thereby learning to live well in God’s creation.

  Wisdom is not the easy way, but neither is it a burden. Wisdom is freedom, freedom to pursue the Creator, who—as the book of Proverbs puts it—created all things by wisdom.

  Wisdom shows us something of the nature of God, so much so that, for some ancient Jews, to speak of one is to speak of the other. And early Christians fused wisdom together with Jesus—to look on one is to look on the other.

  And this wisdom is held out before us in the Bible as a gift of God, not a consolation prize, a Plan B we begrudgingly settle for when the Bible falls short of passing out an answer key, so we know beforehand which ovals to fill in on the standardized test.

  A life of pursuing wisdom is Plan A.

  God Is Not a Helicopter Parent

  Even though I promised not to focus on wrong ways of thinking about the Bible, I do need to bring one up here because it is so common, typically hidden just beneath the surface, and it undermines the Bible’s work as a book of wisdom.

  On orientation day, when my youngest of three children started junior high school, the principal told a captive audience of nervous, success-oriented parents that we help our children best when we resist the urge to become helicopter parents, parents who “hover over” and direct every aspect of their kids’ lives so they can “succeed.” Wise parents know that their job is to equip their children to be independent, to acquire skill sets for navigating on their own the ups and downs of life, to experience failure and triumph, pain and joy, and everything in between, and handle it all well—in other words, to be in training to become mature, well-functioning adults.

  Helicopter parents really care more about themselves than their children. They are also objectively the most annoying life-forms on the planet—“helping” their kids with their homework and science-fair projects, running interference with coaches and teachers so Cody and Ashton can make varsity and get into Harvard or Yale. I’m happy to say I did a great job avoiding at least this parenting disaster, mainly because my kids threatened to put me in an “elder care facility” in the North Pyongan Province if I tried anything funny. But I digress.

  Although we might not see it, many of us have been taught, in one way or another, that the Bible is our instructional manual and that God is helicoptering over us to make sure we stick to it. And we have been told that if we read this instructional manual carefully, it will inform us on any topic we need an answer to: climate change, parenting, finances, human sexuality, gun control, evolution, which candidate to vote for, whom to marry, whether to buy or rent, where to go to college, what career path to take, what church to go to, what books to read, whether to be vegan, whether to recycle, and so on.

  We have practically been conditioned to expect God to be our helicopter parent. And if for some reason we don’t run to God to solve every little problem, from finding our car keys to deciding on color schemes for the nursery, we are told there is something deeply wrong with us spiritually. Phooey.

  Judging by the fact that our ancient, ambiguous, and diverse Bible is nothing at all like a Christian owner’s manual and that, likewise, the life of faith, from the minute we get out of bed in the morning until we hit the pillow at night, is rarely clear and straightforward, I have come to the conclusion that (drumroll) God is not a helicopter parent—which is good because, as I said, helicopter parents are objectively annoying.

  If God were a helicopter parent, our sacred book would be full of clear, consistent, unambiguous information to take in. In other words, it wouldn’t look anything like it does. But if the Bible’s main purpose is to form us, to grow us to maturity, to teach us the sacred responsibility of communing with the Spirit by walking the path of wisdom, it would leave plenty of room for pondering, debating, thinking, and the freedom to fail. And that is what it does.

  Judging by how the Bible behaves, God is not a stressed-out helicopter parent, living through his or her children, nervously and fretfully hovering over us in the form of the Bible to make sure we stick to the script, so it all works out. God is a wise parent, prodding us toward spiritual maturity in a secure atmosphere of unconditional love and acceptance, so we can learn to navigate life well. That’s what good parents do.

  The Bible holds out for us an invitation to accept this timeless and sacred responsibility of working out for ourselves what faith in God looks like here and now, of owning the process, with no accompanying checklist of one-size-fits-all solutions, no safety net of prescripted responses, and no fear that God will bring down the hammer on us for accepting the challenge of faith.

  You Are Not Alone

  I can say, with the benefit of 20/15 hindsight over thirty years, that nothing has given fresh life to my faith more than letting go of the familiar expectation of security or certainty from the Bible (which is always momentary and eventually falls apart) and—ironically—simply paying careful attention to the Bible and accepting what I see there.

  When we are too committed to harboring and sheltering our familiar false expectations, the Bible itself has a wonderful knack of disrupting those expectations, challenging our categories, and, if need be, agitating our complacency. And the Bible does this simply by—I will say it again—being its ancient, ambiguous, and diverse self, oblivious to our expectations, so ill-suited as a field guide for faith, so reluctant to be co-opted by our questions and the agendas that drive them.

  This book is about carving out a truly biblical path, so we can take our faith seriously enough to own it, rather than succumbing to the elaborate and nervous structures of faith that others determine for us. The fact that we have a Bible does not free us from this sacred responsibility, but, as we shall see, demands that we accept that responsibility—and do so as an expression of faith, not a rejection of it.

  As I said, I have skin in the game. I have often wondered what shape my Christian life would have taken had I been encouraged from early on, especially during my high-school years, to look to the Bible not primarily as a source of timeless information ready to be downloaded without reservation or question, but as an invitation to a lifelong journey soaked in divine wisdom.

  What attitude toward the Bible do we bring to this life of Christian faith, and how do we see God in the process? That’s what this book is really about.r />
  Seeing the Bible as a source of godly wisdom to be explored, pondered, deliberated, and put into action will free us of a common burden so many Christians have unwittingly carried, namely, that watching over us is God, an unstable parent, who is right off the bat harsh, vindictive, at best begrudgingly merciful, and mainly interested in whether we’ve read and understood the fine print; if not, God has no recourse but to punish us.

  Seeing the Bible as a wisdom book allows us to see God as a good parent, full of grace, love, and patience—the very character traits we value in earthly parents and that the people of God are to exemplify.

  Wisdom heals us to see God as God is.

  Wisdom also frees us to hold our thoughts about God, life, and the universe with an open hand rather than clenched fist, to face our questions and fears with the focus of a seasoned explorer facing the unknown. We are human, after all, and will always have thoughts about God and the life of faith. And when the Bible is seen as a source of wisdom rather than an instruction manual of universally clear and consistent “teachings,” we will learn to be comfortable with the provisional nature of how we think about God and therefore not shy away from interrogating our own faith with gentle candor.

  Indeed, we will see that very process as a prompting of God, not an attempt to get out of doing what the Bible says. Adopting a wisdom mentality rather than a rulebook mentality gives us a Bible with fresh possibilities. It leads us to different ways of reading it and appropriating its message.

  I know I’m not the only one out there who has felt the need to find better ways of reading the Bible. I wrote this book because no one seems to be explaining the Bible in ways that would have helped me, my family, my friends, my students, and many others I have known over the last few decades.

  This book, therefore, is not for the hierarchy who guard the status quo at all costs and brand explorers as unfaithful.

  This book is for the frustratedly Christian—who have seen that the Bible doesn’t meet the expectations they have been taught to cling to and who are having trouble seeing a better way forward.

  This book is for the barely Christian—who are hanging on to some semblance of faith because they are worn out from having to defend a rulebook Bible.

  This book may even be for the formerly Christian—who have had the courage to leave their faith behind when it ceased having any explanatory power for their reality because of what they were taught the Bible had to be.

  Let me be clear that I don’t claim to have crossed over to the promised land, safe from being set upon by pressing questions. If I did claim such a thing, I would simply be peddling one form of certainty over another. The path of wisdom isn’t a bigger and better “answer,” another version of the same quest for certainty. It’s a shift in attitude, a new posture for a lifelong journey of letting go of the need for such things.

  Plus, if I claimed to have arrived, I would be lying. As a left-brained, analytical German male, an Enneagram Type Six with control issues,* and (Lord, have mercy) a PhD in biblical studies no less (what was I thinking?), I have no problem saying to anyone who will listen that I live daily with the very difficult tensions of being an unavoidably modern-day human while embracing an ancient faith, rooted in an ancient, ambiguous, and diverse book—which is to say, I continue to have to walk this path of wisdom. I’m not at the beach planted in an Adirondack chair cradling a Corona waiting for the rest of you to show up.

  But this book does point in a direction that is spiritually refreshing if also challenging. Better, it is spiritually refreshing because it is challenging. When we choose to walk the path of wisdom, those two will always be joined hand in hand. And that is also the Bible’s power—not to bend to our expectations, but to help set them. That’s also why, like so many who have taught me, I still find the Bible captivating. I keep seeing new angles to familiar things, or I am shown things I had never noticed before, but, as it turns out, many wise people have.

  This Bible just doesn’t get old—if we are tuned in to the melody of wisdom.

  * * *

  In what follows, we will look at how the Bible’s antiquity, ambiguity, and diversity, rather than taking something away from the Bible, actually demonstrate to us its true purpose as a book of wisdom rather than a book of rules engraved in stone—and what difference that makes for us. To be sure, we can’t cover everything, nor do we need to. By focusing on some portions of the Bible—the wisdom literature, laws, stories, letters, and more—we will see that the Bible’s invitation to wisdom is gently persistent and mercifully hounding.

  And here’s another important dimension of this book. When we accept that biblical invitation, we will see not only how the Bible challenges us to work out what it means to live the life of faith here and now. We will also see—if I may stress the point once again—how the biblical writers themselves were already challenged by the need to move past a rulebook mentality and respond to new circumstances with wisdom.

  Let me say that again. What I’m saying we need to do—walk the path of wisdom—the biblical writers were already doing. Biblical writers already accepted the sacred challenge of pursuing a life of wisdom rather than thinking of God as a helicopter parent. We’ll revisit this theme throughout the book.

  The Bible is designed for wisdom because it reflects the wisdom of God—not despite its antiquity, ambiguity, and diversity, but precisely by means of them. Its purpose is to invite us to explore, ponder, reflect, muse, discuss, debate, and in doing so work out a life of faith—not to keep that hard work from happening.

  The Bible is not the problem. The Bible is great—not because it is an answer book, but precisely because it isn’t; not because it protectively hovers over us, but because it most definitely doesn’t.

  The Bible will make that clear to us if we let it.

  Chapter 2

  The Bible Doesn’t Really Tell Us What to Do—and That’s a Good Thing

  Screwing Up Your Kids Biblically

  I have a morning routine, and if I don’t stick to it, the world will end.

  I get up, go downstairs to the kitchen, start the coffee, deal with our rescue cat, Marmalade, who insists on some immediate “me time” while the coffee brews, take my vitamins, and sit at my desk drinking my coffee while repeatedly shoving Marmalade off the keyboard, so I can get some work done. My goal then is to tick off as many boxes on my to-do list as quickly as I can to bring peace and harmony to the universe and so I can feel good about myself.

  I confess, most mornings (and the hours that follow) really are about me and reducing stress through task completion. But every now and then the spiritual part of me pushes to the surface, and I wonder what God thinks about how I greet the miracle of yet another new dawn—and I start feeling a bit guilty about being so spiritually dim-witted.

  What should I be doing in those little moments that I have chosen to take up with coffee and pushing a cat off my keyboard? What is God thinking about me and my German to-do list mentality right this second? Am I “good enough”? Am I getting it “right”? Is my life lined up with “God’s will for my life”? What does that even mean, and how would I know? It’s stressful just thinking about it.

  Maybe I’m just a fraud, playing a religion game, stuck in this self-centered mess I’ve made of my life, without a clue that I am plummeting toward destruction.

  So that’s my morning. How’s yours?

  And don’t even get me started on wondering about how I’m doing in God’s eyes with the really big things in life that actually matter, like having raised three children and the thousands of no-win, directionless, Hail Mary decisions I made in the process. Maybe you know the drill. Are they overscheduled? Underscheduled? Piano or cello? What type of school is best? What can they watch or listen to and at what age? Should they be let out of the house wearing that? When is the right time for a cell phone? With unlimited data? And if that’s not enough stress, there’s always the college search (and debt) to look forward to. No pressure there.
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br />   Speaking for myself, raising children seems to have been set up as a cosmic conspiracy aimed specifically at me to generate stress, second-guessing, and the ever-present sense of panic that I am absolutely screwing my kids up forever because I missed some clear bit of God’s plan for this all-important and sacred task of child rearing that everyone else seems to understand but I am too spiritually dull to see.

  I sure could have used a divine instruction manual of some sort.

  “But we do have God’s instruction manual for raising children!” some have told me. “It’s called the Bible, dummy.”

  Yes, I have to agree, the Bible does comment now and then on the topic, and I want to take seriously what the Bible has to say.

  But here’s the problem. The Bible doesn’t really help. It’s confusing. Parts are actually troubling. Some of it is illegal.

  Here is something from the book of Proverbs: Discipline your children while there is hope (19:18). That sounds like fear-based parenting. “Hurry up and discipline your kids—early and often—so they don’t grow up to be [fill in the blank with your worst nightmare—mine include such things as “professional academic,” “internet start-up,” and any other line of work in which you need a Kickstarter campaign to feed your family]. How your kids turn out is a reflection on you . . . on YOOOU!”

  Thank you, Bible! Please, tell me more about child rearing. I can’t wait to keep reading more encouraging gems like this.*

  Anyway, how would I know when I’ve reached the point where hope is lost? It would also help tremendously if I knew what “discipline” actually looked like. A time out? Make them memorize Bible verses? Ground them? Send them to boarding school? Labor camp? Make them give both cats a bath at the same time?

  Here’s another passage from the book of Proverbs, a go-to, slam-dunk favorite of Christian child-rearing experts everywhere: Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray (22:6).