Comments on The Reason for God By Tim Keller

From time to time I want to share some thoughts with you from this book. Chapter 7 is titled “You can’t take the Bible Literally”. Keller rightly says, “The Christian faith requires belief in the Bible.” For a host of reasons, people reject this book. The Jesus Seminar tells us that “no more than 20% of Jesus’ sayings and actions in the Bible can be historically validated.” Keller presents his thoughts on this, and other attacks. But what I found most interesting was the section “We can’t trust the Bible culturally.” People read the Bible and find parts of if offensive, objectionable, and outmoded or what our culture would call regressive teaching.

Keller offers three thoughts to people who are investigating, reading the Bible for the first time.

First, he urges them to consider the possibility that the passage that bothers them might not teach what it appears to be teaching. One example he gives of that is Paul’s statement “slaves obey your masters.” On the surface this teaching is outrageous and regressive, but Paul’s statement makes perfect sense in the culture of “slavery” that existed then.

Second, Keller offers that even after studying the issue that some would still find the text troubling thus he challenges us to consider that the problem may be an “unexamined belief in the superiority of their historical moment over all others.” If we have arrived at the ultimate historic moment in our Post-Modern culture--superior in our tolerance, then rejecting the Bible as regressive makes perfect sense. The question Keller poses is “how can we use our time’s standard of progressive as the plumb line by which we decide which parts of the bible are valid and which are not? To stay away from Christianity because part of the Bible is offensive to you and me assumes that if there is a God he wouldn’t have any views that would upset us. Since all of us are compromised by the changing norms of culture, I have to guard myself not to take and mold the Bible to current trends.

Keller offers another piece of advice for those who struggle with some teaching in the Bible. Distinguish between the major and minor teachings of the Bible. The Bible talks about the work and person of Jesus but also taking care of widows. The foundation is Jesus, the apostle’s creed. A lot of the secondary teachings don’t make sense until you take the step of faith in Jesus. If you don’t like what the Bible teaches about sex, does that mean that Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead?

I know this doesn’t answer all the questions people have about the Bible, but I was struck that we want to reject a lot of the Bible because we think we’re smarter, brighter, more progressive when maybe truth isn’t up for a vote.