059 – Better Ways to Read the Bible, by Zach Lambert

In this episode, I unpack the lessons from “Better Ways to Read the Bible” by Zach Lambert.

You can watch the episode here:

Full Transcript:

You don’t have a biblical worldview. You have a worldview shaped by your subculture’s interpretation of Christianity. Admit influences, purge bad ones, change systems.

I’m Mickey Mellen. This is Stacking Knowledge. And that was a quote from Samuel Perry from Zach Lambert’s book, Better Ways to Read the Bible. I figure if the Bible is the most popular book on the planet, it’s worth learning how to read it correctly. And I really love Zach’s approach to things. So he starts by talking about how the Bible beat him up.

He had a kind of a rough rough upbringing through the church and kind of left for a while and came back as he learned to interpret the Bible differently We’ll kind of talk about that. He talks a lot about lenses. We’ll get into some of those in a bit He starts with a quote from David dark from his book the sacredness of questioning everything dark says quote when religion won’t tolerate questions objections or differences of opinion and All it can do is threaten excommunication violence and hellfire It has an unfortunate habit of producing some of the most hateful people to ever walk the earth. So he kind of leads with that It’s a tough way to start the book

then he gets into lenses and he shared, heard in a podcast, that’s what got me interested in this, he talked about how if you go into a Christian bookstore, you’ll see sections for like black theology and a section for female theology and a section for gay theology, not a section for like white man theology, but we all have different lenses. All of us do, you know, and so it’s understanding those different lenses, how we see things and again, back to that quote at the beginning, know, admit you have a worldview shaped by your subcultures interpretation of Christianity. So we have to, we all do, we all have a worldview shaped by that. how do you,

unpack a little bit and really get down to the core of things. he talks about different lenses. He has four lenses he shares that he kind of settled into for a while that lead to harm and then four that he thinks are more healthy. here’s what he says to kind of frame that up. He says, quote, that’s when I began to see that I had learned to read the Bible through four distinct lenses that often lead to harm. The first one is the literalism lens. The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it. Two is the apocalypse lens. We’re all going to burn anyway. Three is the moralism lens. Well, that’s not biblical.

And the fourth is a hierarchy lens, submit to authorities you submit to God. So he says, their common assumptions form the basis of what I began to call healthy lenses. So his four healthy lenses are the Jesus lens, the scriptures point to me, the context lens, the ones who seeks will find, the flourishing lens, I’ve come that you may have life abundantly, and the fruitfulness lens, by the fruit you’ll recognize them. So he starts, chapter one is called You’re Reading It Wrong. He’s gonna dig into that a little bit. He shows a quote from Rachel Held Evans, her book, Year of Biblical Womanhood.

that just says, quote, I have come to regard with some suspicion those who claim that the Bible never troubles them. can only assume this means they haven’t actually read it. So the Bible should push you and trouble you and yeah, cause you to think differently. Chapter two talks about some lenses are better than others. And it starts with that quote from Samuel Perry I read at the beginning. I’ll kind of read it back here now. says, quote, you don’t have a biblical worldview. You have a worldview shaped by your subcultures interpretation of Christianity. Admit influences, purge bad ones, change systems. And then he talks about how

There’s a problem he calls Disney princess theology where every story in the Bible we see ourselves as the hero. We’re never the bad person there. And again, it should trouble you because sometimes you should see yourself as others. So we share a quote from Erna Kim Hackett, ⁓ yeah, who she called it. I think she’s one calling the Disney princess theology. But she writes, quote, as each individual reads scripture, they see themselves as the princess in every story. They’re Esther, never Xerxes or Haman. They’re Peter, but never Judas. They’re the woman anointing Jesus, never the Pharisees.

There’s the Jews escaping slavery, never Egypt. For citizens of the most powerful country in the world, who enslaved both native and black people, to see itself as Israel and not Egypt when studying scripture is a perfect example of Disney princess theology. And it means that as people in power, they have no lens for locating themselves rightly in scripture or society. And it’s made them blind and utterly ill-equipped to engage issues of power and injustice. It is some very weak Bible work. And then another quote he shares from the book, How to Think Theologically, says, the biblical text does not speak for everyone.

everyone reading is someone’s interpretation of it. And so that’s kind of the biggest quote I think in the book. It’s kind of how he frames everything. The biblical text does not speak for itself. We think like, what does the Bible say directly? But everyone reading is someone’s interpretation of it. So how does your interpretation handle things? So we’ll start with those lenses that inflict harm. There’s the literalism lens. His quote there, he says, the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it. He shares a quote from David Simmons that says quote,

Biblical literalism has never been about being faithful to the Bible, but about weaponizing selective parts of the Bible to give a personally preferred interpretive outcome to the weight of God’s full authority. so it’s, reading the scripture in a way that best suits you, whether you mean to or not. Most of us do that to some degree. The second bad lens is the apocalypse lens, apocalypse lens, where he says, quote, it’s all going to burn anyway. He shares a quote from Brian Zan from Postcards from Babylon. says, quote, if God’s solution for evil is to kill people who are evil,

God didn’t need to send his son, could have just sent in the tanks. And so, I mean, that’s pretty true there. I mean, that’s kind of how that goes. The third one’s the moralism lens, where you just kind of say, that’s not biblical. It shows a quote here from James Baldwin’s book, The Fire Next Time. He says, quote, when we were told to love everybody, I thought it meant everybody. But no, it applied only to those who believed as we did. Then there’s a hierarchy lens, submit to authorities, you submit to God. ⁓ This is a quote from Mitch Raab, faith in the face of empire.

She says, quote, empires create their own theologies to justify their occupation. This is why biblical interpretation is critical. The one who interprets assumes power. And so yeah, again, as you interpret the Bible different ways, the one who interprets it assumes power, because they’re going to make that kind of work to them. And then going on to the better part of the book here, the lenses that promote healing. So the first one there is the Jesus lens. The scriptures point to me. He quotes Jeremy Duncan here from Upside Down Apocalypse saying, quote,

Even scripture can be anti-Christ if we allow it to move us away from the way of Jesus. And then you have a longer quote here from, ⁓ what is she, actor and comedian Rhett McLaughlin. She puts it very bluntly. She says, quote, your kids are not leaving the church because you didn’t train them enough. Your kids are leaving the church because you trained them well enough to develop a sense for truth and justice. You let them read the words of Jesus and they got it and they’ve recognized that the church doesn’t seem to be interested in those words. They’re not leaving because they don’t know the truth. They’re leaving because they do.

And that one’s pretty harsh, it’s just saying, your kids, they’re grow up in the church, they will see, will understand how things are supposed to be. And then they’ll see Christians behaving poorly and they’ll make decisions based on that. ⁓ Next, he talks about reconstructing a Jesus centered faith, know, kind of putting it back together. He says, quote, this means that if something in scripture seemingly contradicts the person, work or teachings of Jesus, we have misunderstood, misinterpreted or misapplied it. So he kind of applies that to the whole Bible. He says, if anything in there contradicts something Jesus would have said or done, then we’ve probably looked at it poorly because that’s not how it should be.

He has EX in there. He says, does Jesus care about? And he quotes Beth Moore saying, quote, love God, love one another, love your neighbor, love your enemy. That about covers it. In Christ’s meticulous census, the community exempt from the love of Christians has a population of exactly zero. I love that. The community exempt from the love of Christians has a population of exactly zero. And so is that true in your world, in the world around you? I mean, that’s a tough one to look at there too. Next he talks about the context lens. The one who seeks will find.

Cough cough

He shares a quote from Hustl-Gonzalez from the story of Christianity that says, quote, the notion that we read the New Testament exactly as early Christians did without any weight of tradition coloring our interpretation is an illusion. It is also a dangerous illusion for it tends to absolutize our interpretation, confusing it with the word of God. So he’s saying, yeah, we’re confusing our interpretation of things with directly the word of God. And it’s difficult to say which is which. And you really have to have like context around things. He shares a lot of examples in here of scripture you’ll see posted on Facebook and so forth. It’s just a verse.

that’s seemingly meant to help, if you read it in context, it’s quite different than what it seems to be. And he gives an example of that here, not a direct example, but he says, this is what it means to take the Lord’s name in vain. It’s not about saying, my God, when you’re frustrated, although I still get on to my kids about that. Taking the Lord’s name in vain is about using God to justify subjugation and marginalization. It’s about validating violence with Bible. And then he got into a bit more about the context piece. He said, quote,

I had a seminary professor who used to repeat the quip, a text without context is a pretext for a proof text. A text without context is a pretext for a proof text. So it’s basically saying you can have this proof text just to prop up whatever argument if you don’t give any context around it. You can say, ha, this just one little line of scripture proves my point. But if you look at the context, it does it. And so he says here, says, proof texting is using a verse or passage to prop up an ideology that Jesus and the whole scripture don’t actually support. This is how bigotry gets baptized.

And then gets into examples you can read more. talks about the lines like, I do not permit a woman to teach, or wives submit to your husbands. He talks about, those are lines people pull that out. And it says it in the Bible, I do not permit a woman to teach. But that’s out of context. And same with wives submit to your husbands. It’s not the way you read it in scripture. You actually read the context around it versus just pulling out that one verse. It’s quite different. And he breaks those down quite a bit in that section of the book in chapter eight there. Chapter nine is the flourishing lens. I have come that they may have life abundantly.

Quotes bell hooks saying simply there can be no love without justice Talks about flourishing and liberation theology. He says quote although God certainly loves all of humanity equally scripture shows us time and again that God pays unique attention to the poor and oppressed and He talks about the God of justice He says quote if someone receives money power or political gain from injustice then demonizing justice is the most effective way to ensure the perpetration of those benefits. So yeah

If someone’s gaining money from injustice, if you can demonize the justice side of things and use scripture to kind of make that sort of work, that’s going to just keep your benefits coming in. And that’s obviously not the way you want to go. I talked in chapter 10 here, the fruitfulness lens. By the fruit, you’ll recognize them. He quotes Eugene Peterson from This Hallelujah Banquet, where Eugene said, quote, for love is not what we do after we get the other things right. If we have any energy left over, love is what we do, period. It is not how we work. It is our work. So he’s kind of saying, if you’re a Christian,

Love is not how you do your work. don’t do your work through love. Love is your work. Love, is our work, he says. And then lastly, he of closes things up with a quote from Barbara Brown Taylor from her book, Holy Envy. think it’s kind of a great way to wrap this up here too. Fantastic little quote here. says, the only clear line I draw these days is this. When my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor. Jesus never commanded me to love my religion. So I encourage you to check that out. Better Ways to Read the Bible from Zach Lambert’s fantastic book.

Really kind of, yeah, showed me some different ways I was misinterpreting things and again, shows me that I probably still am misinterpreting things, but at least understanding that going in can help me make better decisions going forward. encourage you to check it out.