An Exercise in Primary Thoughts
So, let me ask you a question. What is your primary language?
Let me ask you another question. Why is that your primary language?
The answer is probably because it is the language to which you have grown most accustomed. It is the language with which you are most familiar, and likely the language you have heard since early childhood if not birth.
It makes sense. The familiarity we have with the language is second nature. We are so used to it that we can immediately pick up on accents, other languages (even if we don't understand them) and we certainly pick up when people use idioms that are slightly different from ours.
Again, this makes sense.
So, let me ask you yet another question.
What is the Bible to you?
I will not assume your answer the way I did before. But what I would say is that if you answered "The Word of God" or "Holy" or something along those lines, I would ask in response: Why is this your answer?
For many of us, the answer to why something is or is not holy is the same as to why we have a primary language: we have learned it to be so. And yet, for so very many who claim that the Bible is holy, there is a vast gulf comprised of a lack of knowledge about it, what it says, what it claims about itself and the fact that the Bible is not as "fixed" as we might think.
By that I mean that if you are a Protestant, you will likely never have heard of the Apocrypha or the books it contains. Yet if you are Roman Catholic, the "Apocrypha" is as much a part of your Bible as ever. You might not recognize a Bible without those extra books in the Old Testament. And if you were Eastern Orthodox, you would have 5 more books than the Roman Catholics in your Old Testament, and if you were an Ethiopian Christian, you would have 4 more books in the New Testament.
The Bible is not as clearly defined as we might imagine.
Not only this, but even the English editions are different. Different Christian groups use different translations of the same books, and there are sometimes tremendous differences between translations, which means that there are different conclusions to be had among the different Christian groups about what the Bible actually says.
We know why our primary language is what it is. We should also be able to conclude that our primary answer to the question of the Bible is, by and large, due to very similar circumstances. If we had been born in Istanbul, our view of the Bible would be very different. If we were born in Poland or Jerusalem or Liberia, our view of the Bible would be very different. If we had been born in different times, our view of the Bible would be very different. And if we lived in the time of Peter and Paul, there would be no New Testament at all.
I am not building to some larger point here. This exercise is the point.
Let me ask you another question. Why is that your primary language?
The answer is probably because it is the language to which you have grown most accustomed. It is the language with which you are most familiar, and likely the language you have heard since early childhood if not birth.
It makes sense. The familiarity we have with the language is second nature. We are so used to it that we can immediately pick up on accents, other languages (even if we don't understand them) and we certainly pick up when people use idioms that are slightly different from ours.
Again, this makes sense.
So, let me ask you yet another question.
What is the Bible to you?
I will not assume your answer the way I did before. But what I would say is that if you answered "The Word of God" or "Holy" or something along those lines, I would ask in response: Why is this your answer?
For many of us, the answer to why something is or is not holy is the same as to why we have a primary language: we have learned it to be so. And yet, for so very many who claim that the Bible is holy, there is a vast gulf comprised of a lack of knowledge about it, what it says, what it claims about itself and the fact that the Bible is not as "fixed" as we might think.
By that I mean that if you are a Protestant, you will likely never have heard of the Apocrypha or the books it contains. Yet if you are Roman Catholic, the "Apocrypha" is as much a part of your Bible as ever. You might not recognize a Bible without those extra books in the Old Testament. And if you were Eastern Orthodox, you would have 5 more books than the Roman Catholics in your Old Testament, and if you were an Ethiopian Christian, you would have 4 more books in the New Testament.
The Bible is not as clearly defined as we might imagine.
Not only this, but even the English editions are different. Different Christian groups use different translations of the same books, and there are sometimes tremendous differences between translations, which means that there are different conclusions to be had among the different Christian groups about what the Bible actually says.
We know why our primary language is what it is. We should also be able to conclude that our primary answer to the question of the Bible is, by and large, due to very similar circumstances. If we had been born in Istanbul, our view of the Bible would be very different. If we were born in Poland or Jerusalem or Liberia, our view of the Bible would be very different. If we had been born in different times, our view of the Bible would be very different. And if we lived in the time of Peter and Paul, there would be no New Testament at all.
I am not building to some larger point here. This exercise is the point.
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