NT Reflecting Pool - Jan 5

In our opening day of class, after all of the logistics & roll-call, Prof. Drane offered an orientation to looking at the New Testament. Several statements he made stood out to me in thinking about the issue of biblical relevance as a teacher of the Bible. For example, he said,

"If we live in a culture where nothing more than 10 years old has any meaning, then how do we expect people to anticipate any meaning from a book that is 2,000 years old?... Christians are weirdos for thinking anything so old - the Bible - can speak anything relevant to everything so new in today."

The question was raised in skepticism, but almost in challenge, the backdrop being 'this is the world we live in, how do we present the Bible to non-Christians.' I love this question. Even in my dull or down moments, this question makes me sit-up and get excited. I get excited for two reasons.

First, in the post-modern world to which Drane is refering, experience - both real and absent - are standards for truth. As a teacher of the Bible, my experience with the Bible, as well as the experiences of those I teach with the Bible, takes on even greater significance. If the students that I teach don't assume the credibility of the Bible - whether because it is ancient and seemingly irrelevant, or because it has been presented to them as overly trite, overly quoted and therefore irrelevant - then my responsibility as a teacher is not primarily to inform students about the Bible, but to help students to engage with and interact with the Bible. And while tangible and practical application of any study of the Word should be a given reality, even more so in this post-modern age where the Bible's truth is discovered through its power put into practice.

Secondly, I get excited by this challenge because I've experienced the truth of the Bible in its power in my own life. Like NBA ballers who look for 'street cred', the Bible has proven credible through use (not just through reading.) I'm not just talking about 'God's little instruction book', 'I did what it said' practice. I'm talking about the points where I've been challenged to live in the complexity of the Bible's story, in the conflict of academic biblical literacy, where I've seen the Bible hold its own & more. On one level, the Bible's credibility rests the its integrity to academic scrutiny and in its experience in daily life proving true. In this way, "the Word became flesh" again and again for me, which gives me confidence to invite students to both scrutinize the Bible, and to test its merits in their personal lives in daily & relevent challenges.

Prof. Drane made another statement that stirred my thoughts about the power of Jesus as the Word made flesh, the Incarnate God-with-us:

"I thought Jesus was like me. Everybody thinks Jesus is like them."

He shared this in the midst of talking about his own conversion story. He was challenged the first time he read the Gospels about how relevant Jesus was to his life, how different than he had percieved Jesus was because of the lives of Christians that he knew.

It challenged me on three level that I'll mention briefly.

• One, it reinforced the reality about how irrelevant the popular view of Jesus is - and how that view is not based on any personal reading of the Bible, but rather on a personal view of the lives of Christians that they know.
• Second, how many Christians, including myself at times, confuse the truth that "Jesus was like me" with the self-discerned, reality disproving thought that "I am like Jesus". If only we could be more humble to hope that we are being made to be like Jesus.
• And lastly, how much the current practice of Christianity that I see so much pursues Jesus when "Jesus is like me," but struggles to live in the practice & reality that "Jesus is like others. That is, that the good news isn't just that Jesus is like me individually & personally, but that Jesus' "like me" nature is a universal reality that forms the heart and basis for Christian mission (and I'm not just talking professional missions.)