READING THE BIBLE (6): As God’s (Crazy) Family Album

In this series of posts we’re exploring the different ways the Bible confronts the reader and the appropriate response to each.

#6 – READING THE BIBLE AS OUR FAMILY ALBUM

Ever look back at your parents’ year books and laugh and gag at how ridiculous they appear? Ever read the embarrassing notes your friends scribbled in the margins of your year book? Acne covered faces, scrawny legs and awful hairdos. Many of us would like to bury or burn ours. Yet they are a part of us. That is our past and those are the people who shared our journey.

The Bible is our family album, the diary of our ancestors, the carefully preserved yearbook of all of our long-lost relatives in the faith. These are the men and women who have gone before us, paving the way, testing the waters, making mistakes that we will hopefully learn from and, most importantly, providing examples of imperfect yet real faith in God. I am so grateful that God didn’t sugarcoat the Bible and airbrush all the players. We find ordinary people — warts and all.

Let’s see: There’s David the murderous adulterer “after God’s own heart.” The dishonest schemer named Jacob. Abraham sends his wife Sarah into Pharaoh’s harem to save his own neck. Moses has a speech problem. Solomon, the “wisest man who ever lived”, had a womanizing problem and lifestyle that would make Hugh Hefner blush. Yet God still used him to pen a lot of wise proverbs.

The prophets are like our crazy, embarrassing uncles from down south who we’re ashamed to claim. You know: Isaiah runs around naked for a couple years. Jeremiah is on prozac in his constant battle with debilitating depression. Ezekiel was cooking up food over a fire of human excrement. Jonah gave God the finger and ended up getting in a big fishing accident…