Study of Bible opens hearts to God's will

Reflections on the Church:
Reading the Bible with new eyes

 Some time ago, I began to read the Bible differently. That may sound surprising. After all, I have been a member of the church since my baptism 62 years ago. I am a United Methodist minister, ordained to preach from the Bible.
Through the years I have worked my way through all the New Testament and most of the Old Testament. When I was in college and seminary, I learned to analyze the Bible. That required reading it carefully, along with many other books, which taught me to decipher the historical, cultural and religious setting of the material found in scripture. All of that is what one would expect of a Methodist pastor.
But I have begun to read the Bible from a different perspective. This time, I am reading it with a “second naivete” (a phrase, I believe, from the philosopher Paul Ricoeur).
My first, youthful reading of the Bible, before I had learned how to analyze it, was fruitful but often frustrating. I had many questions about the nature of the various kinds of literature and the abrupt starts and stops in the narratives. I had many doubts about the plausibility of some stories. I was lost in all the names of people and places.
Still, I remember finding solace and guidance in the Bible, especially from the stories about Jesus and the passages that I committed to memory with the encouragement of pastors and teachers in the small churches of my childhood. I developed a deep reverence for the Bible before I learned to understand it. God ministered to me through its pages.
I went through a change in college and seminary. But somehow I escaped the disenchantment that sometimes goes with holding something precious at arm’s length and examining it. I still love to ask the literary, scientific and historical questions. I am, by nature, curious about such matters.
But now, with all of this information in my head, I am also reading as if God is seeking me, the church and the world through what I am reading. I still analyze passages, and I think through the background of a text. But I then attempt to approach the text artlessly, as a child might, not as an expert. I ask, “OK, now what does God want to say to me through this passage? Is there any wisdom for my life here and for the life and work of the church in the world?” 
Sometimes God reveals wisdom I would never have discovered when using my rational, analytical faculties alone. I have come to believe that God is our contemporary guide through the Bible. Now, I am perfectly capable of off-base interpretations. And I can never know for sure if I am “hearing” God at all. Many times I discern nothing at all—and that’s OK, too. God is not my personal concierge!
In this different frame of mind I also approach the texts with a greater degree of modesty regarding my knowledge of what God can and cannot do, or has and has not done. I do not leave the scientific or historical questions behind, but I am not as prone as I once was to explain away all the miracles and reduce the stories to my preconceived notions of what is possible. I am willing to place some stories into my “not sure” slot and go ahead with questions of meaning instead of dwelling on questions of fact that are irresolvable, given the nature of the sources.
I know that many people seem to be content with an unsophisticated approach to reading the Bible. I have known many saintly people who never learned to analyze scripture, but they walked with God and were nourished and guided by God through their daily readings and prayers.
(I have known others, sophisticated or not, who have hardened into anxious, hate-filled people by reading scripture.)
Increasingly, especially in the UMC, many members want and need to learn tools for analyzing scriptures. Fortunately, there are many resources available and classes in which to gain these tools. I believe that is holy work, too. Those with curiosity regarding the origins and contexts of biblical writings can be much blessed with greater understanding by these efforts.
But I would encourage those who learn to analyze the Bible to move along to braver questions, to take the awesome step of inviting God to open their minds and hearts to what God wants us to be and do in our lives.
By analogy, it is wonderful to learn critically to study a great work of art, to learn about the artist and where the painting stands in art history, etc. But then, with this knowledge, it is something else again to encounter a work of art itself—to simply allow the work or the artist to touch your life.
Scripture can be approached this way, too, even by those of us who consider ourselves informed of the finer points of biblical criticism. The Bible is the church’s book, written and passed along to us for our edification and inspiration, not simply as information. I like the way this idea is expressed in the Vatican II document The Constitution on Divine Revelation:
“In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets his children with great love and speaks with them; and the force and power in the word of God is so great that it remains the support and energy of the church, the strength of faith for her sons and daughters, the food of the soul, the pure and perennial source of spiritual life.”