I should just end right there—hoping that the point will be clearer, only as it sinks in. So what? Why are you saying that? Who cares? Why does it matter?
I’m saying it because in certain traditions, the Bible end up getting used as if it were a manual. And, what doing that often leads to is a significant misunderstanding, not only of the Bible, but of the nature of what the Bible speaks to—the nature of life.
Perhaps a little framing of the concept would help. What is a manual? When do we use a manual? What is the motivation of a manual?
For most people, manuals are clearly some of the least interesting literature available. In that way, we don’t keep them for purposes like, say, entertainment. Often, in fact, we lose them because we put them somewhere out of the way; somewhere (if we remember where) where we think we can find them, when we need them. Many times, we end just throwing them away because of the answer to this question, “when is the last time I used this anyway?”. But, manuals do have a clear purpose. And, they do provide a valuable function. We use a manual when we want to know exactly how to do something. We may have relied on other kinds of knowledge and found that it is not solving something we are trying to do or need. Where is the manual?!
In other words, we use a manual mostly to fix something, when we can’t figure how to do so another way.
I’m afraid, we often treat the Bible like the manual I’m describing. And, when we do, we are largely missing the point, not to mention the value, of what it truly is.
To offset the manual imagery, I suppose one could get a little closer to the true nature of the Bible by describing it as a guide. If we use it only verbatim, we will eventually end up with some real problems—ones that we’ve created and ones that don’t seem to much represent the larger sweep of Scripture. It’s not that the Bible doesn’t contain specifics, it does. But, the larger narrative is pointing in a direction and providing us with deep insights into the nature of what God is interested in as He interacts with people throughout time. The Bible captures many things about this interaction—both ways, between God and mankind.
Perhaps another way to put it, the Bible is a description of how to get from one place to another—obviously, I'm not talking about literal geography here. It describes the way, the nature of it, where we are and where we could be, tendencies of the traveler, and the power (love) of the Guider to encourage us to continue on, even when it is hard to do so.
If nothing else, the Bible is something that should open us up to the domains of experience that a manual never seems to capture. It points us to that experience, an experience that actually transcends in terms of detail what even the Bible could ever fully capture. This is why the Bible itself says that we will be provided with something that will truly guide us in our experience of truth—a Spirit.
Once we can accept this premise, we are more free to notice the approach the Bible uses to provide its value. I tend to think that one of the more valuable images that describes the nature and function of the Bible is that it is primarily story. It is filled with stories. In fact, you would not be wrong to say that the whole thing is a story.
Here is where, in certain traditions, we might almost immediately notice an objection rising within us. And this is because we have come to believe that we need something more than a story to guide us. Why is that? Is that because we know that stories, though they are contain truths, are not often actually true? They are depictions of truth, but not truth itself—and, we need truth itself. Or, we think we do—especially the function of believing we know exactly what truth is.
But, actually, think about what makes almost all truth true—true in the sense that we remember it, that we use it, that we tell about it. Is it not story that enables this for us? Isn’t it stories that bring the truth to bear on us—when we need it, when we’re surprised by it. Jesus, in fact, talked in story form all the time. Why? To reveal truth. Why is the Old Testament full of stories? I’m thinking, for the same reason.
Stories give us access to things that manuals do not. They open us up to understanding that manuals aren’t, frankly, interested in. They peak our imagination to things that otherwise we would miss.
We miss a lot of this when we reduce that nature of what something is—like when we make or use the Bible like a manual. Our manualizing of Scripture, it seems to me, is largely defensive anyway. What has made us end up using the Bible this way? Even needing to? I’m guessing that it is when we feel attacked (in this case, by the culture) that we end up using things in ways they weren’t intended to be used—to protect ourselves, to defend ourselves.
But, the Bible is much more about something that can open us up to all the possibility of God, not something we should use to defend ourselves.
It is a mistake to look to the Bible to close a discussion; the Bible seeks to open one.
-- William Sloan CoffinRather than a book of answers, the Bible instead walks us toward life; it introduces us to the wisdom of the ages, it invites us to be open to all that we haven't yet recognized and that we don't yet know. It is part of the on-going, breathing, living word of God in us!
The Bible is just not a manual.
