One of the things I often see in mainline congregations is that when people are pressed about the role of scripture in their lives – they report that the Bible has little influence over how they live their lives. While I am not sure that this is true in reality, I am convinced that most of the people who attend mainline churches think it is. Why?

Much of it has to do with the fact that fundamentalist and conservative evangelical churches often describe themselves as “Bible believing.” That is not something you would ever see on a mainline church’s billboard ad (do mainline churches even use billboards?). As a result, mainline churches have, by default, then just assumed that they aren’t “Bible believing.” This is a common issue. When people aren’t sure what they do believe, by default they watch others who are clearer and then decide what they don’t believe. This leaves a void that is either filled with something else or else simply results in a hole in the center of their faith.

In his book Yes, And, Richard Rohr makes the important case that rather than taking the whole Bible at face value, Jesus uses the Bible selectively and strategically to teach what he knows stands at the center. Some aspects of the Old Testament (Jesus’ Bible) are used often. Others are not referred to at all. The key is not to be “Bible believing” but I would contend people are to be “biblically fluent.” In other words, we need to know what is in there and how to use it. The best way to learn how to use it is to learn from Jesus how he used it and use it in the same way.

Knowing scripture is part of following Jesus. In fact, Luther believed that “the Bible was the manger in which the Christ was laid.” In other words, the point of the Bible is to meet Jesus – crucified and raised from the dead. Meeting Christ in scripture allows us to know Christ here and now. Faithful discipleship is then, not getting stuck in scripture, but with a foundation in the Bible, moving faithfully and boldly forward into the emerging future that the risen Christ is leading us into.

So, if we teach people to understand scripture and help them see that the Bible and Jesus are intimately intertwined, much of what they currently don’t seem to understand will become foundational. In the process, they will renew interest in scripture, pay more attention to the presence of Christ in their lives, and the void they report about how faith and life connect will begin to fill with faithfulness again.