Jeremy L. Berg

Nobody likes being told what to do and what not to do. To some degree or another, everybody is suspicious and wary of “authority” and those we call “authority figures.” We think of relentless bosses, overbearing parents, slave-driving teachers, stern-eyed judges and intimidating police officers. Yet, the Authority that stands above the rest is God.

Unfortunately, many of us immediately superimpose our negative experiences with these other authority figures onto God himself, and so God takes on the role of the impossible-to-please parent, the slave-driving boss who we serve to avoid getting canned, or the angry judge constantly weighing our lives upon his perfect scales of justice. Our faith often takes the form of a scared and faltering foot soldier desperately trying to please the overbearing commanding officer. Is this the primary relationship human beings are to have with their Creator?

And what of the Bible? All too often the Bible has been the whipping stick of the religious akin to the officer’s controlling command, the court judge’s constitution, or the teacher’s ruler all used to keep us into our place. “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it,” is how many Christians have viewed the Bible’s authority. If we could just obey the Bible’s teachings, and live under the authority of it’s commands, then we would be good, faithful Christians. Period.

While there is a large degree of truth to this role of Scripture (we should indeed obey it’s teachings and live under it’s authority), there is also a significant oversimplification present here and we miss completely another way by which the Scriptures exercise authority. And a religion of sin-management is not a program that many in our day are anxious to sign on to; nor do I think that was ever the real essence of faith in the first place.

I, along with many others, have come to recognize a different, more holistic way by which Scripture exercises it’s authority over the lives of its readers/hearers. Likewise, the way God is revealed through Scripture does not paint a picture of a stand-offish judge on a throne (though he does at times perform this very role, cf. Dan 7) or a ruthless, disciplinarian parent figure (though he does lovingly discipline his children as well, cf. Heb 12:7). Rather, God’s authority over his beloved children’s lives is seen in His desire to tell or write or enact a Great Story upon the pages of history in which He is the wise, all-knowing, all-loving, passionately involved Author.  Human beings are then created, called and commissioned to play real, meaningful roles within the unfolding plot. By virtue of being the Author of history, God exercises a unique, unparalleled authority and control over all created things. And, likewise, by virtue of our being mere characters created by the Author and lovingly invited into the plot, we human beings are under God’s authority.

With this fresh understanding of God’s relationship with his creatures (Author vs. Characters) then comes a different understanding of the Bible’s authoritative role. The Bible is not merely a deposit of commands to obey, or simply a record of what God did long ago in history (though it is these as well). The Bible becomes the still-unfolding controlling narrative of history; and all human creatures therefore—whether they are aware of it or not—are inevitably destined to live out their own personal narratives within this larger, overarching plot. 

Since Christians believe the Bible is the divinely inspired revelation of God’s dealings in history, with and through his free human creatures, we must submit to the absolute authority of God’s Story by virtue of the fact that this particular story is The Story—the only true window into the nature of reality itself.

How does this narrative approach then change the way Christians understand and relate to God and the Bible? I will mention a few next time.  Stay tuned.