Kicking Bricks & Flipping Tables

I’ve heard foundations cannot be changed. (I feel like this is said when people describe how America was started as a Christian nation and therefore it could never not be a Christian nation.) But sometimes houses are moved from their foundations and placed in other areas. You can also lift a house and pour a new foundation—it’s just very costly.

So before you need to relocate the whole structure, I think it’s a good policy to not assume that you have a totality of the gospel already inside of you. Sometimes I prefer to seek affirmation for things I already believe, but when I approach the Bible with curiosity rather than angrily seeking confirmation—I usually enjoy it more. (Although, looking for something you know can be healing when it refutes lies, and a little confirmation bias does give a jolt of dopamine.)

I’m not an architect or an engineer, but my simple understanding is that if there is a crack in your foundation, it doesn’t mean you should heap more weight on top. When you do that, and the earthquake comes, you’re more likely to lose your faith completely. Although they have built thousands of years on top of the stones where Jesus walked.

Be willing to walk around the house and kick the bricks, checking for cracks in your foundation. Because we repeat so many things that are not actually biblical.

Not a Lender Nor a Borrower Be

One thing I was told with such authority was, “the Bible says to never lend or borrow.” I keep digital notes when something comes up during my Bible reading. That way, I can see them wherever I go, and add to them whenever I have space to process. The words I jot down could be anything from beautiful, resonating, irritating, confusing… but especially things that contradict either my paradigm or something else I’ve read in the Bible. This is how I kick the bricks of my foundation.

The first time I read, “You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none” in Deuteronomy 28:12, I thought to myself, “this contradicts not a lender nor a borrow or be.” So I did a quick search: “What does the Bible have to say about lending?” (I love digital Bibles.)

It says to not be tight-fisted to the poor. And when (not if) you lend, do not charge interest. I should lend.

I can’t find it telling me not to borrow, either. It says “the borrower is a slave to the lender” in Proverbs. Therefore, I want to have prudence when I decide to borrow because I am giving over my freedom until the debt is paid.

Proverbs is a collection of truths perceived by a wise person, but I don’t ever want to take one verse from it and turn it into a non-negotiable mantra. Otherwise I would get whiplash when I read chapter 26 verses four and five.

As it turns out, the scripture “not a lender nor a borrower be” is from Hamlet. You can watch the Skipper sing it on Gilligan’s Island here.

My girlfriend calls that “the pizza bible.” You just say things you want or believe with authority and call it scripture. The bible says to bring me a pizza.

But you can also eat from the pizza bible it by taking things out of context.

Happy Good Friday

The Jesus who resonates most with me right now is the one who flips tables at the beginning of Holy Week. Sometimes I need to pull back and ask if I’m really called to flip everything I see over on its side. But to me, the God who comes down and passionately removes the gatekeepers restricting access to him is a God who sees and understands.

Black and white thinking from English translations only (or even worse, fixating on a single version) and taking it out of context means you could take a verse like 1 Timothy 1:10 and…

if you read ESV, you would come to the conclusion that it’s only immoral for men to practice homosexuality.

if you read the KJV, you would understand that only menstealers are immoral—it is fine to kidnap women.

We lose so much in English translations because we have humankind or mankind written as “men.” It lands in our mind as “not women” because it isn’t built into English to see humans/genders in the word “man.”

When I read the New Testament in Spanish, it reads differently. Yesterday, I got to sit with someone who reads/studies it in Greek. And his take was fascinatingly different from my ESV.

Personal Application

So, after checking if it’s actually in the Bible… see if it aligns with the context of the message, then in context with the heart of God. If it doesn’t work with your understanding of the heart of God… write it down rather than throw the baby Jesus out with the bathwater.

The next step is to ask, what does this mean for me in 21st century America versus the time and people it was written for?

Because you could write Paul’s advice to Timothy, “take a little wine for your stomach” on a 3X5 card and tape it to your bathroom mirror. And the morning you have a nervous belly because you need to drive a bus full of teenagers up a mountain road, you decide to take the inerrant scripture literally, regardless of the context of who it was written for, assume it is all directly for you, pour a mug of wine, and get behind the wheel.

There needs to be room for the Holy Spirit to tell you if it applies.

The friend I visited with yesterday mentioned that it is a little narcissistic to take every jot and tittle written for the New Testament church as directly applying to me, in America, today.

I have to take this to heart. Because there was such an emphasis on “where does the Bible say that” in my youth, I remember looking down on women who wore braids. I mean, it literally says don’t braid your hair in the ESV. And I have always wanted to correctly handle the Word of God. It just turns out there is more nuance than looking up a verse.

So much pain happens when you listen to what other people tell you God has said—instead of picking up the Bible and finding out for yourself. Then judging it according to the whole heart of God using the heart, mind and soul he gave you.