The Bible Tells Me So

A great preacher of another era was Halford Luccock. He used to tell the story about his father who was a Minister in Saint Louis. One day the preacher looked out his study window and saw a little boy with a drill trying to bore a hole in a telephone post. Next he nailed a nail on the post and hung a little bucket on the nail. The preacher was so intrigued he left his office and asked the boy what he was doing. The fellow explained that he had been on vacation in maple syrup country and he decided to get sap out of the telephone pole. The preacher told him that telephone poles were not put up to give sap but to carry messages.

I remembered that story as I read last week about the then Secretary of Defense sending top secret daily briefings on the war to the President. The cover pages included a photograph of war scenes and Scripture verses. One picture showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square. And then the caption from the Book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”In another briefing a US tank roared through the desert. Beneath the photograph were words from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground…” On another day Saddam Hussein was pictured in a dictatorial pose. Underneath were words from I Peter: “It is God’s will that by going good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.” (To see these and more Bush-administration intelligence cover sheets, visit GQ.com’s exclusive slideshow (http://men.style.com/gq/features/topsecret).

The purpose of the Bible is not to proof-text whatever we are doing—but rather to remember that this is a book of good news for all. All the way through history, people have mis-used the Bible for their own purposes. When Christopher Columbus was trying to get funding for his ships to a new world, the clerics declared that the Bible said the earth had four corners—hence his trip was in vain. Slavery was punctuated by Scripture. Women’s rights were trampled because of obscure Scriptures. And the Evolution debate that will not go away tries to use the first chapters of Genesis to prove their point. The list is endless.

There are some scary passages in the Bible. But they must all be set in context. Proving a war as a righteous cause by Holy Scripture is simply heresy. Not WWJD. Let’s change it to: WWJS. What would Jesus say?

Abraham Lincoln used to say: It is not as matter if God is on our side but if we are on God’s side. That ought to settle the matter once and for all.