Stories Instead of Scripture

         In this day and age we have innumerable resources for information. Between the preponderance of books and documentaries and the giant (though often questionable) library that is the internet today's Christian has really no excuse to be uninformed. Unfortunately it comes as no surprise that much of the material that exists today is at best, suspect if not outright misleading or false. It occurred to me today that there is another form of misleading material that we may not think of right away, media that takes the place of someone's legitimate interest in God.

         There are two books I've seen recently that fit this category and that I'll use as examples, but first a disclaimer. I freely admit that I have not read these books through, mostly I've spent some time leafing through them. That being the case, it's entirely possible that I've missed some redeeming value they may have, but my point isn't really dependent on the books in their entirety.

         The first book bothers me first off because it's complete lack of logic...”A Story of God and All of Us,” by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett.

          This a novelization of the Bible...based not on the Bible itself, but on the miniseries “The Bible.” Now regardless of your opinion on the series itself (meh), this book makes no sense as we HAVE the story of the miniseries....the BIBLE! This simple obvious fact bothers me more than anything. I can only see two possible purposes for it, to make as much money as humanly possible from people's interest in the Bible, and to provide a source of “information” that is not actually the Word of God. Now as in most things I don't suggest that the second reason was one considered by it's authors, publishers, distributors etc. However we all know humans aren't the only forces working in this world. It appears as if the book's authors had the audacity to try and make the Bible more...interesting, I guess? The parts I read were filled with poor paraphrasing and nearly no grasp as to the actual point of God's Word. I remember reading about Jesus' interview with Pilot. In this section the authors wrote what Pilot was thinking, and even had him restraining himself from smacking this insolent prisoner, ie. Jesus. We don't know what anyone from the past was thinking and the Bible doesn't give any indication that Pilot smacked Him or wanted to. This of course is my second problem with this book, the authors did what everyone likes to do with history in general and the Bible specifically, they added information they could not possibly know and presented it as part of the actual account. Ultimately the only source we should look to is the Bible, these other books really only serve as a net to catch people and stop them on their way to God's Word. Think of it this way, some people can easily be steered away from every caring about God. Others however, may have a strong albeit earthly interest. The devil doesn't need to outright block everyone when he can simply provide other sources of “information” that seem like the same story but are ultimately different and do not lead to a saving knowledge of God. It would be far better for everyone who bought this book to simply get a copy of the Bible itself (statistically they probably already own one) and read not only “exciting” stories, but all of God's words to us.

          The other book I'll mention here is “Killing Jesus – The Unknown Conspiracy Behind the World's Most Famous Execution,” by Stephen Mansfield. This book contains the two hallmarks of quickly done, “for profit” books namely a large typeface and double-spaced pages. The book itself is probably half as long as it appears and also uses the familiar “dramatization” of Biblical events. This book isn't so much a deterrent from scripture as it is a parasite on scripture minded people. We don't need a book exposing the conspiracy that killed Christ because the Bible already lays out what happened! The religious elite of the time were ticked off because Jesus was undermining their authority, and since “official” Judaism of the time had long since parted ways with God's intentions for them, they failed to recognize their own Messiah. As far as I can tell this book is nothing more than another attempt to capitalize on the popular idea of religious mysteries and secrets. Ultimately I must say again that people would be far better served reading the actual Bible.

         God didn't give us a hundred different kinds of revelation. He didn't breathe out films or music vidoes. He didn't weave number based secret codes into His scriptures. The God of the Bible is not a god that makes us wonder and worry and dig and sneak and think ourselves better because we found the “truth.” God gave us His word that we might know Him! We need not think that He's keeping things from us, or that His Word is insufficient. As Paul said in his letters to Timothy, “All scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching...” (2 Timothy 3:16), and of course there's Revelation 22:18-19, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”