The Bible: But These are Written that Y'all...

At a youth group meeting, I once asked some middle school students if they read the Bible very often. Most were honest and said no. I asked what was the primary reason they didn't read it, and the answer surprised me a little. It wasn't because it was boring, or they had trouble remembering to set aside time to read it, it's because they didn't read books. Manga and graphic novels sometimes, online comics, etc. but nothing with lots of pages full of small print, other than Cliffs Notes for required reading for school. (I sighed a little inside, wondering if it weren't true that the post-literate generation had finally arrived.)

The other primary complaint I heard on this topic from students was that the Bible was too long. "Ah," I usually reply, "Not so. The Bible is extremely short." I usually get stares after that response, so I explain: for the most part the Bible focuses pretty narrowly on God's dealings with humans through the nation of Israel. In doing so, it tells us many things about God we wouldn't be able to find out for ourselves. Special Revelation, it's called. Other than the narrative portions, those chunks we mostly remember as good stories for Sunday school (the ones that were Sunday school appropriate, at least), it doesn't have most of the information we're used to reading about. We don't know what Jesus did on an average day before He began His full-time ministry; we don't actually know what Moses did as a teenaged prince of Egypt (animated movies notwithstanding, I'm pretty sure it wasn't stunt chariot-racing across construction sites); we don't know who Luke's favorite Greek authors were; we know very little about the political intrigue going on in King Nebuchadnezzar's court; we have no clue what songs Noah's family sang before the Flood. The Bible could take up as much shelf space as an old Encyclopedia just with all the interesting biographical bits added in.

There are thousands of interesting bits of information that we'd like to know, even setting aside more thorough explanations of puzzling passages. ("So Paul, why did you say women need to cover their heads when praying because of the angels?" "And Peter, what did those angels do to be kept in chains of gloomy darkness until judgment?") So as far as I'm concerned, the Bible is quite brief. I often wish it was longer.

The fact is, the Bible isn't written to be a thorough treatment of any subject, except that which is necessary to know what God wants to tell you about Himself that you couldn't figure out from His creation, and to believe on Christ Jesus for salvation. As John says about the events recorded in his gospel:

(John 20:30-31) Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. [Why John, why leave them out?] But these are written that y'all may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, y'all may have life in his name. [Oh. Because the point is not to satisfy our curiosity, but testify to Christ for us.]

Notice a word you weren't expecting in that passage? That's because English at some point lost its 2nd person singular thee/thou (For an explanation of how that happened, go here) and it was replaced by the already existing 2nd person plural, "you." Now, people think of you as the singular, and have developed strategies or new words to indicate when they mean the plural.

The problem with this is that, at least in individualistic America culture, when we hear "you" we often automatically think "I" rather than "we." So I took the liberty of putting the plural back in, with the most widespread replacement second person plural that has emerged in America thus far. (I hear there's a 'Texas Bible' that puts y'all into the whole Bible whenever you is plural, but haven't checked it out)

I did this because although adults have realized that complaining the Bible is too long makes them sound uneducated, they have their own way of complaining, which is mostly to imply that God wasn't thinking things through very carefully when He had the Bible written, because it's not at all the sort of book they'd write if they were in charge of it. I've never heard anyone actually say this outside of possibly a science-ism worshipper or two, but it turns out a lot of people are making that unconscious statement. It's as if they think the Bible is written just for them, and should correspond precisely to what makes sense to them, ignoring all other readers through history.

Now I can sympathize with people who wish some theological statements were fleshed out a little more fully. Systematic theology could be much more systematic had some of the New Testament writers expounded at length on a few things they mention in passing.

But often the questions are more like, "Can I skip the genealogies?" "Can I skip Leviticus and Numbers?" "Can I skip the minor prophets except Jonah?" or "Why is this story in here? That's weird" etc.

The most basic answer is that of 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." In other words, no, it's all equally inspired and you shouldn't skip anything. (I don't demand younger students spend equal time on the portions with applications that are more difficult to unpack, but for mature Christians, we should be able to handle it.)

So it's important to keep in mind that the Bible was written for everyone who would have a chance to read it, not especially for 21st century Americans. In fact, in the light of history we are a bizarre demographic, coming at the Bible from a worldview and lifestyle unlike most people who have ever lived. To the average historical human, "barbaric" descriptions of animal sacrifice and warfare are simply descriptions of what life was like. The conditions were familiar, it was the claims that were breathtaking. And let us not make the mistake of forgetting that history is a progression through time. We live in an age when Scriptural revelation is taken for granted, even mocked and ignored, but only now that our culture has been profoundly affected by it for centuries. That slaves are mentioned more or less as a matter of course in the Bible would not have been strange to your average Roman reader at the time of the New Testament's writing, for example; not to mention them would have been more unusual. But to teach that in the sight of God they are equal to their masters, now that was provocative!

The same is true for those parts of the Bible we consider "boring" or seemingly pointless.
With regard to the genealogies, one of the most commonly skipped parts of the Bible, a translator who taught at my school in Dallas told us the story once of a tribe for whom they'd been translating the Gospel of Matthew, but who for the most part weren't really getting excited about these newly readable Scriptures. The translators had passed over the genealogies at first, to get to "the important parts," and were just getting back around to them. Their translation assistant was one of the tribal elders, and as he was checking over their newly translated material he got very excited. "Your holy book has a genealogy!" The translators were confused, but confirmed it. "In our tribe, recorded genealogies are the proof of the truth of something," he explained. For example, if a boundary stone showing where one person's land ended and another person's land began was moved, the family whose record for where the stone should be placed was verified by an older genealogy was considered to have the stronger claim. "This genealogy goes all the way back to the first man!" he continued, "this must truly be a book from God!" He immediately changed his attitude towards the translation work and became very enthusiastic, telling the other elders about it. Soon the translators had an audience for their completed portions of Matthew, because the elders made everyone come listen.
(For more cool Bible translation stories, go here!)

Every portion of the Bible, every verse (in the original manuscripts, and what we have now can be verified to a very high degree to be faithful to those) is from God, and was included for a reason. It might not jump out at you, but He wanted it in there, and if it's not obvious, all the more reason to do a little research. It probably jumped out to millions of other readers in the past, join them and discover why.