Being Less "Biblical" and more "like the Bible."

You'll never see me roll my eyes more than when I'm reading an old-school Christian book. I say "old school" because these books are changing for the better, and by that I mean they are becoming less "biblical" and more "like the Bible" and by this I mean more honest, truthful and written with less pretense or worldly idealism.

Even hearing the word "biblical" in a conversation will make me want to run for the door. The word itself denotes a desire to "proof text" and I associate it with a controlling motive. That's not always the case, of course, but it often feels this way to me.

As a writer who does not like the word "biblical" though, I love the Bible. In my opinion, it is a rich tapestry of egoless narratives, poems and letters. Most of the writers were not chosen for their skill, I don't believe, but each of them has an uncanny ability to remove pretense from their work.

Even Christ's biographers depict Him without sparing us His humanity. He gets angry, He gets annoyed, He is hard to understand (and indeed hard to follow) and while He seems to love the world, He's as alien as E.T., pointing always toward the heavens rambling about going home. It's brilliant stuff when you stop reading it to figure out if you're right or wrong about something. It's life-changing, actually, the way your life gets changed by a friend over time.

I'm hoping this trend toward books that are less "biblical" and more "like the Bible" continues. I'm hoping to contribute a few more of those books to the world myself.

 

 

 

 

 

Being Less "Biblical" and more "like the Bible." is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog