{"id":982,"date":"2012-05-06T16:58:22","date_gmt":"2012-05-06T21:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/?p=982"},"modified":"2012-05-06T16:58:22","modified_gmt":"2012-05-06T21:58:22","slug":"why-christians-love-the-bible-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/why-christians-love-the-bible-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Christians Love the Bible (part 4)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"LTR\"><strong>This post concludes the series on why we love the Bible, even when we also struggle with it. Thank you for reading and thinking along with me.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why, then, do Christians love the Bible?\u00a0 In prior posts in this series, we considered some reasons for not loving it, perhaps even for rejecting it.\u00a0 Some of those reasons are more interesting or challenging than others.\u00a0 How one answers them does not change the fact that many reasonable, thoughtful, even kind and gracious people love the Bible and are willing to sacrifice comfort, success, and even their own lives to carry out their understandings of its basic message.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The answers probably vary with the lover.\u00a0 For some, the sheer literary artistry of the book dazzles and fascinates.\u00a0 Stories and poems, proverbs and songs, laments and thanksgivings all grace the pages of the Good Book.\u00a0 Who can easily forget David and Bathsheba or Daniel in the lion\u2019s den or Mary Magdalene at the tomb?\u00a0 The Bible\u2019s ability to surface the voices of the powerless, even when the authors themselves bore some bit of power as they sometimes did, compels admiration.\u00a0 Anybody with any literary sensibility at all can see that.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But there is something more to the love than just artistic appreciation, though that is real and noteworthy.\u00a0 The larger point is that we love the Bible because it talks about the human love for God, our deep longing not to be alone, and our profound awareness that we are not and cannot be.\u00a0 It is a book of hope, which one must carefully distinguish from wishful thinking.\u00a0 Far too gritty and realistic a book to offer false hopes or easy solutions to complex problems \u2013 unlike some of its defenders and alleged fans \u2013 the Bible nevertheless assumes the highest possible things about the nature and destiny of the human race. \u00a0Made in God\u2019s image, accountable, redeemable, resurrect-able, capable of great good as well as great evil, human beings appear in Scripture in ways that are both honest and hope-filled. \u00a0Not an easy trick to pull off, for authors of books or any of the rest of us.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The greatest interpreters of the Bible, whether technical scholars or preachers or artists, have understood the coherence of its ideas about human beings. \u00a0Thus Handel ends his great oratorio \u201cMessiah,\u201d the libretto of which consists entirely of biblical passages, with the great hymn of the angels in Revelation: \u201cWorthy is the lamb who was slain\u2026.\u201d \u00a0And then the Amen. \u00a0Death and pain do not get the last word; there is a resurrection in every graveyard. \u00a0Or think of the joyous opening of Haydn\u2019s \u201cCreation\u201d with the word \u201cLight\u201d sung again and again in joy. \u00a0Darkness has its place \u2013 we need it in some ways \u2013 but it does not win in the end. \u00a0Or more recently Bernstein\u2019s \u201cChichester Psalms\u201d with the glorious resolution of all the storm and stress in <em>Hinneh mah tov umana\u2019im shevet achim gam yachad<\/em> (\u201cHow good and how pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity\u201d). \u00a0Humans can live together and that still unrealized possibility is worth aspiring toward. \u00a0There is something in the Bible, then, that speaks to the full resolution and restoration of all things. \u00a0Peace. \u00a0Wholeness. \u00a0Shalom. \u00a0And that is why we love the Bible. \u00a0We are not na\u00efve about its challenges. \u00a0Not at all. \u00a0But we know that inside its riddles, past its dark paths and hidden traps lie a deeper truth. \u00a0That truth is that God is making all things new. \u00a0Who couldn\u2019t love that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post concludes the series on why we love the Bible, even when we also struggle with it. Thank you for reading and thinking along with me. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why, then, do Christians love the Bible?\u00a0 In prior posts in this series, we considered some reasons for not loving it, perhaps even for rejecting it.\u00a0 Some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3538,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Christians Love the Bible (part 4) - ACU Graduate School of Theology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/why-christians-love-the-bible-part-4\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Christians Love the Bible (part 4) - ACU Graduate School of Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This post concludes the series on why we love the Bible, even when we also struggle with it. Thank you for reading and thinking along with me. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why, then, do Christians love the Bible?\u00a0 In prior posts in this series, we considered some reasons for not loving it, perhaps even for rejecting it.\u00a0 Some [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/why-christians-love-the-bible-part-4\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ACU Graduate School of Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-05-06T21:58:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Hamilton\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Hamilton\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/why-christians-love-the-bible-part-4\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/why-christians-love-the-bible-part-4\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Mark Hamilton\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/#\/schema\/person\/d2dc7d7077423050634fd2d6052bdb6b\"},\"headline\":\"Why Christians Love the Bible (part 4)\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-05-06T21:58:22+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/why-christians-love-the-bible-part-4\/\"},\"wordCount\":603,\"commentCount\":3,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/why-christians-love-the-bible-part-4\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/why-christians-love-the-bible-part-4\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/why-christians-love-the-bible-part-4\/\",\"name\":\"Why Christians Love the Bible (part 4) - 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