I might have missed out on some quality Sunday school cheese – including a wealth of supposedly memorable acronyms. Most of them don’t bother me, but there’s one that irks me to my core. When folks try to explain the place and importance of the Bible by calling it the B.I.B.L.E. – the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. The Bible isn’t basic. It’s a complex, complicated document across dozens of authors and generations of time – and it will never be fully understood for what it is if God Himself doesn’t open us up and walk us through it. Nor is it an instruction manual. An instruction manual tells you what to do in a way that is simplified, reproducible, and will always be that way regardless of who, when, or why a person tries to do it.
If we go about the business of framing the Bible as an instruction manual for life – it doesn’t succeed. It’s terrible at that – because it was never written to be that way. There is clearly instruction in it – but it’s bigger and more beautiful than a manual can ever be.
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