I remember meeting with someone who had begun attending our church. They wanted to know how tolerant our church was. Before I answered their question, I asked them one of my own. “If you became convinced that the Bible didn’t meet your definition of tolerance, would you throw out the Bible or your definition of tolerance?” My point wasn’t that the Bible is intolerant, but before I began the conversation, I needed to understand whether I was trying to defend the Bible or explain the Bible. Was the Bible the authority that helped them evaluate all their other beliefs, or was a certain view of tolerance the standard by which they would evaluate the Bible? After a long pause, they decided that if the Bible didn’t agree with their definition of tolerance, they would abandon a commitment to their definition of tolerance and accept the Bible’s. Sooner or later, everyone who reads the Bible needs to make a similar decision. Will we treat the Bible as a nice book, even one of our favourites? Or will we put it on the top shelf, in a class all by itself, with ultimate authority in our lives?
I remember a woman in one of my Bible studies in Japan who approached me, puzzled, one day. She said, “I don’t know what to do with the Bible. It contains stories that are so remarkable that they can’t be true. But it’s not written like any of our legends or myths. It reads like a collection of eye-witness accounts and historical records. How am I supposed to read it?” She was actually asking a very profound question. Whether people read the Bible or reject it, they often do so without considering what the Bible says about what kind of book it is. The Bible makes the following five claims about itself.
Authority can be used selfishly, arbitrarily, or cruelly. It can also be used for good. The Bible makes a unique contribution to understanding how a leader’s authority should be used. It shows how to use authority by pointing to a shepherd’s two main tools, the rod and the staff.
Did you hear the news? Alec and Hilaria Baldwin’s 6-year-old son, Rafael, took a key and scratched his name into the side of their car. Don’t worry, though, according to mom he was “super tough” on himself after it happened, so I’m sure it won’t happen again. I don’t have a bone to pick with the Baldwins’ parenting decisions and certainly not little Rafael. If I were to broadcast some of my early parenting exploits to millions of followers in real-time, I would be embarrassed about plenty of the things that I had done and not done. I do think that Hilaria has powerfully articulated one of the prevailing North American approaches to parental authority, however, and I think that it’s worth comparing with the Bible’s approach.
Most children learn to ride a bicycle by starting with training wheels. If we’re honest, training wheels look a little goofy. Riding with them is clunky at first. And no child wants to be hanging out with their teenage friends with the training wheels still on. But figuring out everything about riding a bike all at once is often too difficult for a child. The training wheels focus the adjustment and help the child get used to the mechanics of steering and pushing the pedals. After they’ve mastered this, they can focus more on balance. With the training wheels off and the basics figured out, a child might even try out some tricks. Starting with the tricks and ignoring the training wheels is a recipe for disaster, though. I think the same is true of parenting. I’m grateful for the advice I was given about paying attention to the various stages of parenting and what to focus on when. Let me share what I feel are the two most important areas to try and get right.
