By Jackson Posey | Sports Writer
The Bible is powerful. Saints have been slain and wars have been waged over its contents. The Bible itself describes the word of God as “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12).
So why do we treat it like a textbook?
It isn’t uncommon to hear Baylor students complain about how awful their experience in the university-mandated Christian Scriptures course was. Whether it’s too boring, too difficult or too “woke” — there’s always a complaint to be made. And while core classes will always generate frustration from those who don’t want to be there, Christian Scriptures is different. Because unlike American Literary Cultures or the U.S. in Global Perspective, the Bible has eternal significance.
That isn’t to say that Baylor should somehow make every student enjoy Christian Scriptures; that’s obviously a futile task. “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing,” Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Getting complete buy-in from every non-Christian student isn’t a practical goal. The Bible itself says as much.
But creating barriers to entry for what should be a simple introduction to the gospel is spiritually counterproductive at best and eternally harmful at worst. Even with no interpretive hand behind it whatsoever, proclaiming the truth of scripture is inherently powerful. There’s a reason why Paul calls the gospel “the power of God to save” in Romans 1:16. It doesn’t just represent that power; there’s a potency within the message itself.
The word of God “(pierces) to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart,” the author of Hebrews writes. “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
That’s power. And Christian Scriptures courses need to be taught with that sort of power. In the same way that Paul preached to the Corinthians — not with “lofty speech or wisdom” but “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” — professors have the opportunity to share the best, most urgent news in the world with hundreds of people on a daily basis: the news that God sent his son to die for us, that despite our deepest flaws and greatest shames, he offers unconditional forgiveness to all who repent and believe.
Christian Scriptures professors have the opportunity to share that news every day of their lives. And too many of them choose not to.
Not every Christian Scriptures professor falls into the trap of over-academizing the Bible. My own Christian Scriptures professor was a fantastic orator of the gospel. I always left that class with a newfound appreciation for God’s steadfast, abounding love. And I’ve heard many stories of peers who have deeply enjoyed their experience in the course.
But my experience isn’t everyone’s experience. And I’ve heard far more stories of students who have been deeply frustrated or hurt by the way the course is taught. The sovereign, divine being who created constellations as easily as we scribble M*A*S*H on a napkin gave us 66 volumes of absolute truth — the greatest book ever written. Rather than crouch in the weeds of Wellhausen’s documentary hypothesis, shouldn’t we rejoice that God cares so much about us?
I’m not suggesting that biblical studies can’t be academic. I am a religion major, after all, and I love a hearty discussion about thematic movements in the Old Testament. But it is possible to take that noble pursuit too far. The Tidwell Bible Building itself is named after a man who, according to the plaque in the lobby, helped affect a shift in the university’s approach to “teaching religion with an academic, rather than vocational, setting for studying the Bible.”
That move isn’t necessarily wrong on its face, but it certainly represents a slippery slope. Consider the biblical precedent in Nehemiah 8 of how the Israelites responded to the proclaimed word of God: joyful worship. “The ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law” — not even the teaching of the book, but the book itself — and when Ezra blessed the Lord, “all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen,’ lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.”
Any Bible teaching that is so academically dense that it fails to inspire awe and fear of the Lord in its hearers has failed in its most fundamental goal: proclaiming the glory of God. Merely hearing scripture read aloud was enough to cause recently returned exiles to worship on their faces in the dust. How, then, can we boil all of that down into endless lists of dates and names to memorize?
“There ought to be enough of the gospel in every sermon to save a soul,” 19th-century theologian Charles Spurgeon wrote in his book, The Soul-Winner. “Take care that it is so when you are called to preach before Her Majesty the Queen, and if you have to preach to chairwomen or chairmen, still always take care that there is the real gospel in every sermon.”
I suppose one could add “even if you are called to preach at a Christian university” to that list. There’s nothing wrong with an academic pursuit of scripture, which is absolutely valuable and worthwhile. The Bible is a fascinating document chock-full of literary intricacy and cultural significance. We would be remiss not to look at it academically.
And yet, that study cannot be merely academic. A method of teaching scripture that affects the brain but not the heart is insufficient to capture the true power of scripture. It’s a piercing sword — faith in the one who inspired it can move mountains. And we’ve reduced all of that to a weekly Canvas assignment.
The theologian R.C. Sproul once wrote that “everyone’s a theologian.” Everyone’s a preacher too. We preach with our lives, our actions and our words, but mostly one-on-one. The opportunity to share the gospel to a large group of people three, four or five days a week, for months on end is a role many evangelists only dream of.
But rather than emphasize the completed work of Christ, who died for our sins so that anyone who believes may be saved, that joyous news is far too often sloughed aside in favor of describing source-critical methods or drawing parallels to other ancient, near-eastern societies. And though these matters aren’t inherently wrong to discuss, they pale in comparison to the alternative. A person’s theology is only as good as the extent to which it causes him to elevate Christ. A purely academic method of teaching scripture can often hinder, rather than help, that pursuit.
The Gospel is an urgent need. For everyone. It isn’t something that can be cordoned off to a particular unit or to a single day in a 14-week course. It is the course. It’s the appetizer, the meal and the dessert. Nothing we do matters apart from the gospel.
The whole of the Law and Prophets, Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40, is summed up in two things: loving God and loving one’s neighbor with all of one’s heart, soul and mind. And while many Christian Scriptures professors clearly love pursuing God with their minds, we must come to a place where teaching for the heart receives its due emphasis — where preaching for the soul is a given, not an option. Not teaching with words of human wisdom, but following the example of Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
