The Bible Beyond the Words

For many years there has been a rising din of doubt about the truth of the Bible and, consequently, the relevance of Christianity in today's cultured society. For nearly two millennia Christians have been led to believe that the Bible is a factual account of God's dealings with humankind. But as more and more people have been exposed to higher education, secularist teachers have taught successive generations that this mainstay of Christian belief does not reflect reality. Simply put, their reasoning is that most of what the Bible teaches is rooted in myths that were invented by primitive people to explain their origins and assuage their fears of both life and death.

Those teachers might be right—except for one confounding assumption. That is the assumption that people made up these stories out of thin air. In truth, they are factually based metaphors, some of which God fashioned (for example, the creation story) and some of which were formed by primitive humans in their attempts to describe visions and insights that God granted them.

These were people who, by and large, had only the rudimentary knowledge that fell within the sphere of their, so far, limited experience to draw from. Therefore, the full truth of these so-called myths was beyond their educational capacity to fully understand, and their linguistic ability to accurately describe. The account of creation, for instance, was built around things they could see: land, water, plants, dirt, the sky, the stars, moon, and sun. Visions of such things as innumerable galaxies and an endless and still expanding universe that began with a gigantic explosion of energy into matter would have meant nothing to them. It is hardly comprehensible to most of us today.

However, the secularists are not the only culprits in this confounding of the record. Many religious purveyors of God's word, in their passionate opposition to science, have also done mischief to the truth by tightly closing their minds to the possibility that God did not dictate every truth—or, according to some, every word—of the Bible verbatim. Both sides, however, base their arguments on scant knowledge of what the Bible actually says.

The fallout from these discordant viewpoints is that we believe and yet do not believe in the Bible. On one level, we believe in the basic doctrines gleaned from it because we have been steeped in our religious culture. We are willing to accept the words we read in the scriptures and hear from the pulpit at face value. On another level, we doubt, because scientific discoveries have made the case that those words cannot all be true.

The internal conflict created by this doctrinal dissonance leads to such uncertainty that many give up on the scriptural record that we are asked to accept on faith in favor of the more obvious case that is presented by observable truth. But, in this world, both scientific and biblical truth, like an iceberg in the sea, is only partially visible. To see the rest, one must dive into the unseen depths.

Why Does the Bible Not Reveal the Whole Truth?

When God first spoke, or inspired his prophetic servants to speak to humankind, his message was for all generations. But because earlier generations did not have the educational capacity and linguistic skills that later generations would develop, he conveyed these truths in metaphors and similes; stories that would reveal truth that, while not to the letter, can be fundamentally understood through their telling. The depth of the truth so revealed would always be dependent on the intellectual capacity of the hearer or reader.

One might think that the creator of humankind would have endowed them with knowledge for their own sakes. But that was not compatible with his purpose for them. Just a moderate amount of scripture reading will lead one to the discovery that the Creator God designed humans to be intellectually and spiritually growing entities. We were meant to contribute to our own salvation and post-mortal quality of life through our individual and collective efforts—in this case, learning. These stories would be adequate to teach the basics of a particular thought or subject to those who were not sufficiently learned to grasp the full meaning of it. Yet, on more enlightened examination by future generations, they would reveal the fuller truths that God intended us to grow into.

We might compare this to teaching children. We know that we cannot teach advanced mathematics to elementary pupils. So we begin by teaching them that one plus one equals two. From this rudimentary level, we guide them through each advancing grade level to ever more complex discoveries until they reach the highest level of mathematical skills to which they aspire.

We, as elementary students of biblical truth, obviously do not yet understand the fullness of God’s truth. We are still largely dependent on the so-called myths. But we should regard those “myths” as a source of basic information only. We must keep on learning, as Isaiah counseled, precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little (Isa. 28:10) until we comprehend all that our intellectual capacity will permit.