I love the Bible.
But the reasons I love my Bible may surprise you.
I don’t love the Bible because it’s perfect and without any error, because it isn’t.
I don’t love the Bible because God Himself dictated its contents, because he didn’t.
I don’t love the Bible because it is a flawless rules book that provides clear black and white answers to every difficult question, because it doesn’t.
No, I love the Bible because of its flaws, its messiness, and most of all its brutal honesty.
The Bible is the most honest book you will ever read. Believe me. It doesn’t sweep the unpleasant parts of its history under the rug. It reveals the undiluted facts. It simply tells its story without any editorial makeover. It is unashamed of the whole truth.
For example, one of the Bible’s most honored heroes is King David. To this day observant Jews still honor him, as do most Christians. But David was a deeply flawed and devious human being and the Bible seems to go out of its way to point this out about him.
Great nations and great people are unafraid of the raw truth about themselves.
Neither attempt to camouflage the hard facts with pristine optics or a revisionist version of history.
What follows are the remarks of a recent American President in his second inaugural speech. You make your own judgment call as to the historical validity of his comments:
"From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation’s security, and the calling of our time."
These brief remarks reflect how our Nation’s history is too often remembered.
Such a fallacious understanding of history helps create a false narrative that is far removed from actual reality.
This is not healthy.
Fortunately the Bible is much more forthright and honest and healthier in its historical memory. The authors, compilers, and editors of our sacred texts were not afraid of the raw truth, the whole truth, and neither should we.
They were unconcerned with optics or with sanitizing the real story as it were. When we read the Bible we are indeed getting the whole truth, even in the ways it remembers its heroes.
We humans are not perfect. We live in an imperfect nation. Our lives are often impacted by our own messiness. Each one of us carries around deep secrets that dwell in the dark recesses of our individual souls.
Our own Nation harbors shameful secrets. The inaugural remarks previously cited were simply not true. They represented a revisionist narrative of our Nation’s history.
This kind of revisionism is unhealthy and unfruitful.
As bad as King David was, he faced his own darkness and was reconciled to the light of God’s grace. The same may be said for Peter whose own denial of Jesus could have lured him into creating his own false narrative. Peter befriended his own darkness and was liberated from his own shame and guilt.
I don’t need a perfect Bible to be a Christian.
I don't need a perfect America to love my country!
I just want the whole truth such as it is.
All of us are on a journey towards our ultimate renewal. Until such time it would be wise for us to learn to befriend the darkness in our lives and confront the things that are preventing us from thriving as human beings.
As the Psalmist so declares:
“Darkness is my best friend” (Psalm 88:18 NLT).
Until we befriend the darkness within us and around us we will never be free.
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