Many years ago I heard a pastor say, tongue in cheek, that he “believed everything Jesus said about homosexuality and everything Paul said about the virgin birth.” It drew quite a few head nods and even a couple of “amens.” But the pastor knew that Jesus never mentions homosexuality and Paul never mentions the virgin birth. But, one would just assume…right?
It has also been said that “the Bible ruins a lot of good sermons.” People are a little perplexed when they hear that, but the idea is this: there are many ideas that are easily preached that have no Biblical (or even historically Christian) foundation. We just make a lot of assumptions.
It is not uncommon, for someone to ask me, “where is this (fill in the blank) in the Bible?” It also has not been uncommon when I’ve been asked that question that the answer is simply this: it’s not. Sometimes I have to do a little research before I give the answer (the Bible is a long book), but sometimes I know immediately. After a wedding one Saturday I was standing at the reception, a gentleman came up and asked me “where, exactly, is the wedding ceremony that we use located in the Bible?” And of course, it’s not.
It is important to read the Bible, and the best place to start is the gospels.
If people actually read the Bible, I suggest a couple of things would surprise them. First, they probably would be surprised at how often Christians talk about things that are not mentioned, or rarely mentioned. Second, people, if they actually read the Bible, would be surprised at how LITTLE Christians talk about things that are repeated themes throughout the sixty-six books that make up Christian scripture.
I’ve read the Bible a lot. Not as much as some people, but more than others. And I continue to find myself surprised at how often Jesus talks about some things and never mentions others. Jesus talks about money a lot. Jesus talks about this thing called the kingdom of God a lot. Jesus, as my pastor friend said, never mentions homosexuality. But Jesus talks about divorce a lot. Jesus talks about hypocrisy a lot, and Jesus doesn’t talk about heaven (the afterlife) much at all. If you’re like me, there are some things that I wish Jesus would have mentioned, and there are also some things that I wish he would have never brought up. But we have what we have.
One of the best books I’ve read over the past couple of years was by a scholar who died January 3 at seventy-six years old. Richard Hayes taught at Duke, and years ago he wrote The Moral Vision of the New Testament. I read portions of that book in the past, but last year I read the entire volume. There are many reasons why that work is beneficial, but what I still carry with me is the way in which he identifies the consistent and repeated themes from scripture, especially the New Testament. Things that are mentioned over and over, from the Gospels to Revelation. There’s not a lot of them, actually only three, and they probably would surprise you.
What do you think are the consistent themes of scripture? What did Jesus talk about the most? What did Jesus never talk about? Well, read the Bible. Start with the gospels. It may surprise you.