The Bible Is Not Your Enemy w/ Tim Mackie

how do we help people in our congregation who are in that journey wrestling with the bible because i feel like what i've watched very personally here in vancouver is they they they want to believe but the bible which is an invitation to believe becomes an obstacle for belief yes totally how do we as pastors serve those people yes yep no that's totally right so yeah so so i hit it first with those issues of manuscript and history and so on but um [Music] what i learned like you through three years in pastoral ministry is many people uh hit that wall um usually around sex uh or violence in the bible just pick your pick one of those two and you're hitting most of your audience's struggles with the bible and so um for me the biggest reframe is actually not you need to address those particular issues but the bigger thing is to reframe the context to say the purpose of the bible isn't to make everything clear the purpose of the bible is to become one of the venues with which we wrestle and struggle with the living god and what god is doing in human history and through jesus and the spirit and the mission of god's people um the story the famous story about jacob wrestling with god in the middle of the night in jewish tradition and what that story is about that's the story where the people of israel are named israel that's the story that's where the story is right that's where the name comes from it means struggles with god and so um for and uh the co-founder of the bible project with me john has very much had that journey where he hit these obstacles and his his community of faith wasn't a safe place for him to ask his questions that's why he would always come to me with his questions and i loved it because i was like oh man you're you're in the wrestling match like you're in the wrestling match and that's where the action is at is um and that's where the growth happens in my mind and so it's that reframe to say like when you're having deep questions um the bible isn't your enemy the bible is actually becoming a venue through which your faith is becoming more nuanced and more mature but you got to wrestle with the thing um because if you let it go too soon you will have let go not of the bible but of whatever misunderstandings that i just haven't taken made the effort to clear up

Channel: Canadian Church Leaders Network

Views: 4,302

Rating: 4.978261 out of 5

Keywords: church, church leaders, pastors, pandemic, evangelical church, canada, alpha, evangelism, learning from, leadership, christian, jesus, jason ballard, network, vancouver, church leaders network, pastor, Catholic church, Portland, USA, Bible, bible project

Id: PCIRAmDHRL0

Length: 2min 54sec (174 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 14 2021