Questioning the Questions [pt. 1]

You were trained how to read the Bible whether you know it or not. The approach you take, your interpretations, and even the questions you ask come from your environment.

In Literature class, you were told to ask certain questions of the poem or story you were reading. These questions were something like “who, what, when, where, and why?”

In Math class, you were told to follow a process called PEMDAS. Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. Or Parentheses, Exponent, Multiply, Divide, Add, and Subtract. There were even steps within the steps like the FOIL method. Of course, most people don’t remember PEMDAS based on all the Facebook posts with math problems (like 6 + 2 * 3; the answer is 12, not 24). Regardless, you were taught some sort of procedure.

In Bible class, you were taught how to read the Bible, whether you realize it or not. And it is usually disagreements about how to read the Bible that divides churches and Christians. Both sides are typically convinced that their interpretations are correct while the other side have departed from the truth in some “damnable” or “fatal” way.

The question “why is there so much division” can be rephrased “why can’t Christians agree on how to read the Bible?” The answer in many cases is because the questions people ask when approaching the Bible are different. If you change the question, the answer will change.

So, in this series we will be questioning the questions. We will be tackling the problem of Christian division from the perspective of the questions Christians ask of the Bible. Since my heritage is the Churches of Christ, many of these questions will be based on my upbringing. 

We’ll talk about everything from biblical authority, worship, and the church.