Post for Commuter Times

I show my anti-religious side often enough, I thought this time I’d show my religious side for a change. I draw life from the text of the Bible. Which is why it disturbs me when people make a mockery of the text. Take this verse from First Kings – one of the "historical books" in the Hebrew scriptures.

King Solomon was building an ornate < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Temple; “a dwelling place for God.” (We can talk about what might mean another time.) He had someone fashion what was called a "molten sea," basically a giant bathtub for priests.

The text says, "Then he made the molten sea; it was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high. A line of thirty cubits would encircle it completely" (1 Kings 7:23). Let’s see, . . . if you take the circumference, 30, and divide it by the diameter, 10, you get 3.0. Now the last time I heard, the value of pi, was not 3.0, but rather 3.14159265 . . . you get the idea.

You might say, “Really now, it’s an ancient document, and it was giving an approximation.” You’d be right. But in 1954 there was a Kentucky State Senator who put forward a bill to change the value of pi in all the state’s textbooks, to 3.0, based on 1 Kings 7:23. (Kind of reminds me of the ‘intelligent design” silliness going on in Texas.) The only thing that would make the story better would be if it passed. It didn’t.

The problem? He was treating the text like a magic book. It’s not. It is a series of ancient documents, written over a couple of thousand years. So how might I draw life from that?

We are spiritual creatures, the first with the ability to reflect on the purpose and meaning of creation. We are developing, self-conscious of our own evolution, and we are at one of those pivotal moments in history where real change – epochal change – is required of us. We would do well to reflect on the dynamic, creative power of God.

The Bible is a centuries long conversation about the dynamic, creative power of God. It represents generations of people who sought to understand how it operates in our lives. OK, they held that conversation within a worldview that we find “primitive.”But it is not their worldview that gives me life, it is what these insightful generations are pointing to, that interests me.

They built the giant bathtub because they sensed something beautiful behind creation, beautiful enough to terrify them, so they wanted to be clean. But they also sensed this beauty reaching out to them. So they built a house for their God and sought communion with the one who brings hope into the most desperate times of their lives.

That’s why I love the Bible. If you do decide to read it, I suggest that every page or so you repeat after me, “It’s a metaphor. They were pointing to something real.”