Pastor in the Hat Podcast
Fearlessly tackling tough questions about faith from a progressive Christian perspective. This production of First Presbyterian Church Concord, CA We dive deep into the doubts and uncertainties that many listeners face, offering thoughtful insights to help navigate the complexities of each one’s own spiritual journey. Hosted by Darryl McCollum Commissioned Pastor, PCUSA and author of “In All Things Grace”.
Pastor in the Hat Podcast
Rethinking How We Read the Bible: A Journey with Pastor in the Hat
Are you ready to rethink how you read the Bible? Join me, Darryl McCollum, on today's Pastor in the Hat podcast episode as we explore a transformative way to engage with Scripture. Discover how shifting your focus from viewing the Bible as a personal mirror to seeing it as God's grand narrative can deepen your understanding and appreciation of His character, actions, and purpose. By examining stories like Joseph's journey and the Israelites' Exodus, we'll uncover how God's faithfulness, justice, mercy, and love guide us through uncertain times. We'll also discuss how different generations, including the Civil Rights Movement, found timeless truths in the Bible to address their contemporary issues.
In our deeper dive, we emphasize approaching the Bible with humility, recognizing it as a window into God's unfolding work rather than solely seeking personal relevance. This change in perspective can bring new life to ancient texts, revealing who God is and what He has been doing throughout history. We'll also suggest exploring different Bible versions to gain diverse insights from scholars and Christians across the ages. As we conclude, I'll encourage you to stay blessed, safe, and prayerful while seeking to understand and connect with God's purpose for us in this world. Don't miss this opportunity to enrich your spiritual journey by viewing the Bible through a fresh, transformative lens.
The Pastor in the Hat Podcast is a production of First Presbyterian Church Concord, CA
Welcome to today's episode of the Pastor in the Hat podcast, brought to you by First Presbyterian Church of Concord, california, where we believe that in Christ, we are one family imperfect, messy and beautiful and we invite you to find your place here. I'm your host, darrell McCullum. We invite you to find your place here. I'm your host, Darrell McCullum. Today, we're diving into a topic that can shape how we engage with the Bible, how we should approach this sacred text in a way that reflects its full depth, and how it can make a difference by reading these stories and having them relate to our lives. Today, and for many of us, reading the Bible is a deeply personal practice. We often turn to it for guidance and comfort or answers to specific questions, and while that's valuable, I want to explore a broader perspective today. I want to explore a broader perspective. Today. Let's talk about approaching the Bible as God's story, one in which we don't always have to find ourselves on every page. And, in fact, a friend of mine, pastor Jim, told a sermon one time where he said the Bible is God's story. And if the God story was a movie and God was the central character, imagine a scene in a diner where God's sitting at a table and a waitress comes up and takes his order and there's somebody sitting right behind him with a child and they're talking and they're doing things really active in the background. Well, guess what? In God's story we are not even the waitress or the person in the back booth behind the main character. Imagine, if you will, a booth that's way in the back of the restaurant and it's so far back and backlit from the street that you can't even see who's sitting there. Well, folks, that's us. That's how important we are to the story of God, even though we are very important to God himself. In the overall arching story of God and creation, we are background noise, right. So putting that into the perspective of how do we approach these scriptures, it gives us a different understanding, a different wonderment of the complexity of the whole of scripture. So that's one of the shifts we can make.
Speaker 1:We can remember that reading the Bible. While doing so, we need to understand that it's not primarily about us, it's about God. The Bible tells of God's grand creation. Tells of God's grand creation, god's redemption and God's restoration narrative it spans centuries and it touches on all kinds of human experiences, but its central focus is always on God's actions, god's character and God's purpose. Approaching scripture this way can relieve the pressure of finding personal relevance in every single story, because it's really tempting to read each passage with the question that says how does this apply to my life?
Speaker 1:But the Bible, folks, is not a mirror meant to reflect us on every page. It's more like a window into God's unfolding work. Take the story of Joseph, for example. While we may not relate to being sold into slavery or interpreting dreams for the Pharaoh while we're in prison, we can still learn about God's faithfulness. Through Joseph's story, we see that God brings restoration and redemption in unexpected ways, even when things seem hopeless. And reading the Bible this way gives us a bigger view of God's actions, rather than just searching for parallels with our personal experience and circumstance.
Speaker 1:So how, you may ask, do we engage with these ancient stories in a way that speaks to us today? I have one word for you Humility. Yes, we have to approach them humbly, recognizing that they are a part of a much, much larger narrative than our individual lives. And this doesn't mean that the Bible doesn't have any personal relevance. Of course it does, but that relevance often comes from an understanding of who God is, rather than looking for direct answers to our problems. Instead of asking what does this text mean for me? We should flip that around and say what does this text reveal about God's character, god's justice, god's mercy or love? For instance, when we read about the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, it's less about how that matches our current experience and more about how God provides and guides us even in uncertain times. I have heard pastors in this world tell a congregant well, you must be in a season of wilderness or a wilderness season of your life. And rather than pointing to this story in Exodus as a picture of God's mercy and love and provision, they just kind of leave it flat like that and say just trust God, god will work it out, you know. But we can turn to Scripture in times in our lives when things don't seem to be going well or we're in a specific situation and we can say hmm, what does this say about God's character that's going to influence my outcome? Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:It's also important for us to acknowledge that the Bible has been reinterpreted over time to meet the challenges of new contexts. This doesn't mean altering the Bible's message, but recognizing how different generations have applied truths to their current situations. For example, during the Civil Rights Movement, leaders like Martin Luther King leaned on the biblical story of Exodus. The Israelites' liberation from slavery became a powerful metaphor for the struggle against racial injustice. For King and other people in that movement, the ancient story wasn't just historical. It was a living testament to God's opposition to oppression. The Bible and that story of Exodus spoke powerfully to that contemporary movement, offering hope and a vision for justice. Similarly, various movements like the feminist and liberation theologies have drawn from Scripture to amplify the voices of the marginalized. These interpretations do not and read my lips they do not twist the Bible to fit a modern agenda, but they engage it honestly with the challenges of today's world. The Bible is timeless because it can speak to different historical moments while remaining rooted in some eternal truths.
Speaker 1:Now, this renegotiating of text is not new. It happened with the Israelites when the Assyrians and the Babylonians came and invaded Israel and took people away, and the Babylonians then destroyed the temple because 30% of the laws were, you know, related to temple stuff. And then you've got the New Testament authors renegotiating with the Old Testament texts, because these guys are good traditional Jews who have been waiting for a Messiah and now they've got a realized Messiah in Jesus and they have to figure out what does this mean and how do our sacred texts apply to this? So they didn't twist or change them. They used them, they renegotiated with them to pull the truths out of them, to point us to Jesus. So this is not something that's new in the history of the world Now, something that is really often overlooked because we seem to think of the Bible as some kind of rule book or, you know, a blueprint for life.
Speaker 1:The Bible is literature. It's not just a list of rules and theological statements. It's a collection of stories, poetry, letters and prophecy. The power of storytelling is that it shapes how we see the world. The stories we tell ourselves, or the stories that people tell about us, shape how we see the world. I grew up as one of the most privileged classes of people on the planet. I'm a straight, white cis male that goes to church and I have a decent socioeconomic status. So I'm highly privileged and I often say to people that privilege is not about what I have, it's about what I haven't had to endure. I was in a conversation last night with a lovely African-American woman who has suffered horrible oppression and abuse because of not things she did, but who she is. So when we read scripture and we hear these stories and people tell these stories, we're going to view them with different lenses and we're going to put pieces together differently, and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I need her perspective to make my understanding of God more complete, just as she needs my perspective to help her understanding of who God is more complete. It's this community engagement with Scripture and storytelling that will help us understand who God is.
Speaker 1:The literature of the Bible is rich. One of my favorite parts is the parables of Jesus. When he wanted to communicate the truths of God's kingdom, he didn't give people a checklist. He told them stories, stories like the prodigal son or the good Samaritan. He invited us into reflection and allowed room for interpretation, divided us into reflection and allowed room for interpretation. These parables engage us emotionally and intellectually, leaving us with a deeper truth about forgiveness, grace and mercy than we might have got with a checklist. Now see, when we read the Bible as literature, we can appreciate its richness.
Speaker 1:Stories like the Exodus or the Gospels. They don't just provide theological information. They convey truths about God in ways that resonate with the human experience across all time. The beauty of these stories is that they remain relevant, whether they were first told centuries ago or or today, because they're basically stories of humans like us interacting in the world, which is ruled by the divine. It creates a symmetry of us and God, and God and us that runs the course of time, because human nature hasn't changed that drastically. So you might ask how do we make these stories relevant to our lives today?
Speaker 1:I can't think of an easier way than saying by seeing them as part of a larger narrative that reveals God's purpose for the world, and remembering that we don't have to fit ourselves into every story. Instead, we can step back and view the bigger picture of what God is doing. Even if I don't face the exact struggles of the early Christians or the Israelites, I can still draw strength from God's faithfulness and His ongoing work in the world. The Bible isn't locked in the past, and shame on us if that's what we do to it. It is a living story that continues to speak and continues to challenge and continues to guide us in new ways today.
Speaker 1:To wrap up, remember that when we approach the Bible, it's not just about us, it is all about God. It's God's story, full of depth, beauty and complexity. And, yes, we are lucky to be part of God's story. And while the Bible certainly speaks into our lives, it does so by revealing who God is and what God's been doing throughout history and what God's been doing throughout history. Keep that in perspective when you read and the Bible can really come to life. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep asking good questions and exploring the texts that shape our world and don't be afraid to put down your faithful King James or your loving NIV and pick up a different version of Scripture to see how other scholars and how other Christians throughout history have viewed God and God's purpose for us in this world. So remember, be blessed, stay safe and be blessed. Are you listening, are you watching? Are you praying? Children of God?
