My manifest destiny
First impressions stick with us--even when they are mistakes. This is even true with our view of Scripture.
Believe it or not, Adventures in Odyssey publicly humiliated me.
More or less.
Okay, fine, it was my fault.
I had a phase in my childhood when I listened to Focus on the Family’s audio production, Adventures in Odyssey, consuming hours and hours of various stories. I suppose it’s just a part of the stereotype of growing up evangelical, and it was even more likely to happen because my dad owned a Christian bookstore that sold that kind of thing. Through the bookstore, I procured quite an impressive collection of Odyssey discs and even got an Odyssey computer game.
During my listening, I remember there was a scene with a kid in class. The teacher asked for the meaning of “manifest destiny,” and the kid answered with his suspicion that it was the name of a ship. That bit of information lodged in my brain at the time, right next to factoids learned on the back of cereal boxes, stored and ready for use.
And in 4th grade, it finally came time for that info to come into play. During our unit on the Oregon Trail, Mrs. Gomez asked the class if we knew the meaning of the term “manifest destiny.” My hand shot up, confident that my advanced training in conservative audio dramas had prepared me for such a time as this. I told Mrs. Gomez with gusto that Manifest Destiny was the name of a ship.
Um, uh, only problem: that wasn’t the right answer.
My reputation for being super smart, mostly because I wore glasses and that kind of thing was expected, was challenged (for like 30 seconds) all because I remembered a character saying that “manifest destiny” was a ship and not the doctrine that Americans used to justify their settlement and conquest of western North America even though there were already people living on that land.
Only later did it occur to me that the episode didn’t trick me—it's just that the character was supposed to get the answer wrong. I missed the point and took with me a first impression of confidence in manifest destiny’s meaning.
Our first impressions matter. They stick with us. Despite their power to influence what we believe about someone or something, it isn’t automatically correct just because our initial introduction made us think or feel a particular way.
Around the age when I was listening to Adventures in Odyssey and ruining my understanding of 19th-century American expansion, I was also consuming lots of information about the Bible. My views were being shaped by conference speakers, church Bible classes, and books conveniently gifted from my dad’s Christian bookstore. All that knowledge filtered into my young brain and gave me a certain first impression of the Bible.
I believed that every word in the Bible was chosen specifically by God, using human agents almost like puppets to make sure every letter and punctuation mark were in the right place. Yet, at the same time, every author was an eyewitness, simply recording history as it actually happened. My impression was that everything in Scripture was authoritative to modern lives (except, of course, the stuff that my tradition said was contextual and not authoritative today, such as head coverings or greeting everyone with a holy kiss). If it said it plainly in English, then clearly we had to accept it at face value.
But nothing ruins a first impression like getting a whole education in new perspectives on an idea. Nothing challenges a first impression of Scripture quite like, in my case, getting a degree in Biblical Studies from a Christian university.
In college, I was introduced to other perspectives on how the Bible functioned—perspectives from professors and thinkers who were God-loving and God-fearing. It took me a while, but eventually, I moved on from my first impression to what I believe is a fuller picture of what the Bible is.
As I explained in an old blog post on my website titled “4 Reasons Why the Church Needs Bible Scholars,” the advantage of educated Biblical scholars is that they have studied a lot, know what is the accepted view among other scholars who have studied a lot, read the original languages of the Bible, and overall they just see the “bigger picture” of how Scripture works. Through my exposure to these advantages of scholars through new reading and from brilliant professors during both a Bachelor in Biblical Studies and a Master of Theological Studies, I have amended my original impression of the Bible.
Now I see the Bible as literature—divinely inspired literature, but literature nonetheless, with themes, tropes, imagery, comedy, hyperbole, and all those other elements of literature. And it’s very timely—it’s first and foremost going to use story and language accessible to people in that time with little concern for how people 2,000 years later will understand the metaphor. Similar to how Jesus is both human and divine at the same time, I think Scripture is also a weird mixture of both of those. I believe that God is not mocked and that even given the limited perception of humans as they write the words we later declared authoritative, God shows that truth can still be revealed, just as Scripture shows us that God works constantly through flawed people.
And my new impression of the Bible focuses less on what Genesis says and more on what the Gospels say—because ultimately, we must never deify Scripture. The Bible is NOT the Word of God, as the Bible’s itself admits that Jesus isthe Word of God (John 1:1, 14; 1 John 1:1-3; Rev. 19:13). My youthful impression of Scripture focused little on how Jesus’ life is the actual center point of faith, and it’s through the criteria of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that we interpret everything in Scripture and tradition.
I’m no longer backed into a corner when Scripture says something “plainly” in English that is against scientific, historical, or cultural consensus because I am trained to separate the accepted norms in that time period from the actual important theological claims that continue to be foundational to the historic and global Church. I no longer have to take things at face value, but I am invited to dig deep into the mysteries of Scripture so I can let God do the talking and not let my White American individualistic post-Enlightenment biases get in the way.
But my journey took me about four years. First impressions are hard to get over, even when you had an Old Testament professor who spoke nine languages, most of them dead, gently explain how the Bible could be more beautiful if you didn’t keep it in a box. I don’t expect anyone to read this one newsletter and suddenly transform their thinking. I know it’s not that simple—and it shouldn’t be that simple.
Nevertheless, I want to invite you on a journey with me to see the Bible in a new light. I'm not sure where all my newsletter subscribers are at in their faith journeys, but I suspect we can all learn a thing or two. As my mom would say, you never know until you try!
Ready to get started? Here’s where I’d start:
Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible - E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien
The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible - Scot McKnight
Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today - N.T. Wright
Let me know if you’re curious to know more about my journey or need more recommended resources. Happy to help!
Question of the Week
Leave your answer in the comment section below or reply to this email.
How has your view of Scripture changed over time?
My “Goings On”
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It’s not a ship,
Jake Doberenz
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