How Do You See and Read the Bible?

The single greatest division that exists in Christianity today is arguably between two groups with fundamentally different ways of seeing and reading the Bible.

• Is the Bible the written "Word of God," or "a word about God?"
  
  

Traditional/Orthodox Christians: On one side, are traditional/orthodox Christians (often called "Bible-believing Christians") who see the Bible as the inerrant and infallible Word of God. They accept the Bible as divine revelation, as God's truth, timeless and universal in its application.

• Origin: The Bible is the Word of God, written by holy men inspired by the Holy Spirit.
  
  
• Authority: Because the Bible is God's Word, it is true, reliable and authoritative. As such, the Bible should be taken seriously as the final authority in matters of faith, doctrine, morals and practices. The Bible's truth is timeless and universal in its application.

Postmodern Christians: On the other side, are postmodern Christians who aren't so sure that the Bible is a divine product and who doubt whether it's trustworthy and reliable as God's Word. They tend to see the Bible as a collection of stories about an ancient people's understanding of and relationship with God expressed from the point of view of its fallible human writers.

• Origin: The Bible is a collection of stories written by men living in ancient times on a small strip of land along the Eastern Mediterranean Sea describing their relationship with God. It is human in origin and not the Word of God.
  
  
• Authority: We can't take the Bible seriously. Given it's human origin and being the product of an ancient civilization, much of what is written about God is time-bound and culture-bound and, therefore, no longer relevant, especially to the post-modern world.

What a difference our perspective on the Bible makes.

• When you read a passage from Romans or Ephesians, does that tell us what God says or how the Apostle Paul understood things?

Notice how I've framed this as an either-or proposition. In other words, you can see the Bible as being God's Word or man's word about God.

Some in the postmodernist camp don't see the question of the Bible's origin and authority as an either-or choice. They offer a third way of seeing the Bible, as both divine and human.

The Bible contains God's revealed truth and, at the same time, it includes the presuppositions, prejudices and opinions of fallible men.

That might sound good -- a plausible and reasonable middle way -- in that it affirms that the Bible was indeed written by men. Parts of the Bible, therefore, are God speaking to us, while other parts are ancient men speaking about God. Those parts that come from God carry authority with us, while those that express the time-bound and culturally-conditioned points of views of its human authors can be disregarded.

There's a huge downside with the latter approach of seeing and reading the Bible as both divine and human at the same time. How can we know which parts are God speaking to us and those that are the fallible opinions of its human writers?

How then have you come to see and read the Bible? What do believe about its origin and authority?

In the end, each of us has to decide what we believe about the origin and authority of the Bible. Is it the Word of God, or a word about God?