As I was growing up, I had a great-uncle named Bob Meador. Bob did a little farming and a little carpentry. He wore blue denim overalls six days a week, but on Sunday he wore clean white overalls. He had no vehicle, so I suppose someone always gave him a ride to the country church he attended a few miles down the road.
Bob lived alone in a small house he had built himself, a house without plumbing, without central heat and without a telephone. When we visited Bob, we’d go into his sitting room, which had a few cane-bottomed chairs and an old couch. The central feature of the room was a pot-bellied stove, and near it, against a wall was always a stack of firewood. Beginning near the center of the floor and rising into a corner was an astonishing pile of magazines, some of them dating back 20 years or more. There must have been hundreds of magazines in that pile, but if Bob wanted to show us something in a particular one, he never had trouble finding the one he wanted.
Bob was a simple man in some ways, yet a complex man in others. I heard him quote the Bible, Jefferson–even Einstein. As mentioned before, he attended a small, simple church, but he was also a Mason and a Rosicrucian. He thought deeply, and he lived deeply. He was likely the most honest man I’ve ever known.
During my college years, Bob and I were alone once when he said to me: “Brad, it’s good to have faith in something, but it’s better to know something. When you have faith in something, you hope it’s true–you might even believe it’s true–but until you see it for yourself, you don’t have any proof.”
Those are important words–unassailably true–and I needed to hear them at that point of my life. They strengthened my resolve to hunt out the truth and know it for myself.
“Oh, no, you mustn’t question the Bible,” another relative said to me.
It took me a while to realize that I don’t really question the Bible. A copy of the Bible is at the moment I write this within arm’s length on my desk. It is in itself a fact, an object, almost as solid as a rock. I have no issue with the Bible–what there is of it. What I do have is an issue with what many people say about the Bible, what many people think about the Bible and perhaps what some people have done with the Bible. I have an issue with anyone who tells me how I should read the Bible.
Let’s suppose that you were brought up in or at least exposed to some denomination of Christianity and you have issues with something about Christianity. Think about this carefully: Are your issues with the Bible itself or with what someone wants you to think about the Bible? Do you have issues with Jesus or with what someone wants you to think about Jesus?
Considering that it was written by human hands in ancient times, I think the Bible–again, what there is of it–is probably about as good as it can be. I do think that the four gospels included in the Bible–four chosen out quite a few that were written–probably give us an incomplete view of Jesus, but even so, the Bible is what it is, and I can live with what’s in it. The existence of Jesus of Nazareth is proven historically, just as the existence of Cleopatra is proven historically.
But does it seem strange to you that the Bible hasn’t grown at all in 2000 years? Have you ever thought about that? The Old Testament was being written during the 2000 years before Jesus. The New Testament was written shortly after Jesus. But if God was busy communicating with people and being written about for 2000 years before Jesus, did He just stop communicating with people and doing things worthy of being written about for 2000 years after Jesus?
Why hasn’t the Bible been updated in the past 2000 years? Do you really think God just–stopped? Why do many God-believing people consider someone like Joan of Arc to be a mental case instead of a prophet? When Mother Mary appears before a group of young children, why do many God-believing people consider those children to be suffering from some sort of group hallucination? Can there even be such a thing? Why have no new books been added to the Bible? Did God just–stop?
Since 1997–maybe even a little before then–I’ve led a life full of spiritual surprises, one that has made me think a lot about the Old Testament and the experiences of people recorded there. God and angels spoke to people in the Old Testament, and they have continued to do so. That is not something I have faith in. It is something that I know to be true. It has happened in the lives of thousands of people in the past 2000 years. It has happened in my life and in the lives of several people I know well. But why did the Bible just–stop?
If you read this and you think my questions make any sense at all, get someone else to read it. Discuss it among yourselves. See if you can explain why the Bible stopped growing. Is it because the New Testament answers every conceivable question and leaves us all intellectually and spiritually satisfied? Are you intellectually and spiritually satisfied, really? Talk it over with someone. Decide whether to visit me again. I’ll continue. (I’ll have another blog in a week, promise.) I’ll share my questions, my answers and my experiences with you.
Thanks for your time. Take care.
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