I am back to Genesis again in my readings as I have set up a plan how to read through the Bible in a year. Some parts later I will struggle with – all the ‘begats’ and the intricacies of the sacrifices and I am sure my mind will wander and I will not have ready every word. Today I was reading of Mr. Abraham and how it just drops in as normative comments about him and his brother that they have children ‘also to their concubine…’ Women come close to being owned, and there seems an absence of romance and commitment to the ‘one and only’. All who take the Bible seriously of course want to insist on following the trajectory of Scripture with a ‘yes that is there, but continue to read and see where this takes us’. In the case of marriage it takes us to a situation of exclusive committed relationships. Trajectory, follow the story.
Determining the trajectory is a challenge, such as we see in the history of the church. Slavery was one such challenge as it is not confronted head-on in the pages of Scripture. It seems that Bishop Lightfoot was one of the first scholars to posit that the gospel message itself refuted slavery even though there was not a specific text that did so. Thankfully no one seriously suggests that slavery should continue, though of course ‘modern slavery’ continues disguised and until consumerism (‘I saw, I took, I ate) is overturned there will always be a tendency to enslave others.
This concept of a trajectory is embraced by all – it is simply that we differ as to what issues are included. And as with the slavery debate when one adds a trajectory that goes beyond the pages of Scripture that the challenge grows. (In using the phrase ‘beyond the pages of Scripture’ I do not mean beyond the ‘story’ that unfolds, a story that culminates in a ‘new heaven and a new earth’ – i.e. a whole new, fulfilled, order.)
Pages / texts and story / trajectory – how do we determine our approach? Consider how Christians differ:
- Violence and war… plenty of that within the pages.
- Despotic / sovereign rulers who are endorsed by God.
- Same-sex committed relationships.
- Nationalism that protects borders.
- and… and…
Thankfully at the same time as reading Genesis I am also reading the Gospels. There is a trajectory, and Jesus distorts many previously held norms; Paul then seems to suggest that we live within a fallen oppressive world system, but are not to live by the mythical story of empire, but by the story from the empty tomb that tells us there is One who is the first-born of all creation.
Probably the differences within the Christian community as to how we approach various issues can be used to provoke progression in understanding, rather than division. Anyway all goes to say, I am interested to see what fixed point I will see differently at the end of the year when I finish up in Revelation… will I see ‘a new heaven and a new earth’?