I do understand that in some ways the Bible is NOT an inclusive book! Coming from ancient paternalist cultures, women especially get a raw deal. But it didn’t drop from a timeless vacuum in heaven. It is a product of the cultures in which it was written, and it can be woefully blind. That said …. we can easily miss the many ways it is an inclusive book. It recognises that truth is a many-sided thing, and that inspired teaching and prophecy can be different in different times and places.

GOD IS LOVE

Primarily, of course, the Bible is inclusive because love is at the heart of it. Because God is love. Because mercy triumphs over judgement. Because God freely chooses to forgive us and free us from the burden of our sin. Because through Christ God is reconciling the whole world, Jews and Gentiles, to himself, breaking down every human barrier. Because in it we find God humbling himself in Jesus, and we meet the Prodigal Father, waiting for his Prodigal children, ready to embrace us and welcome us home.

ALL NATIONS

One of the lessons Israel has to learn is that being chosen by God is no excuse for nationalistic self-preoccupation. God loves other nations too. Jesus nearly gets killed off earlier than planned when he reminds the crowd (in Luke 4) how God has blessed people from other nations. Israel has a crucial role but no exclusive hold on God’s affections. The first chapter of the Bible has God creating all people in his image.

The Bible itself is a source of unity, despite our varying interpretations! Across the world we have a shared basis to our faith in Christ. We would be lost without the Bible.

EXTRAORDINARY VARIETY OF WRITINGS

The variety of writing and settings has been noted elsewhere. It is an extraordinary mix of styles and genres over hundreds of years of Israel’s history leading up to Christ and the spread of the Gospel into all nations.  Its genius is its diversity AND its unity. It invites us endlessly to discover new relevance and meaning, so that with the Spirit’s inspiration it becomes the word of the LORD.

THE PARTICULAR PLACE OF WISDOM LITERATURE

• Wisdom Literature is an influence in many biblical writings beyond the core OT books of Job, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs.
• King Solomon is closely associated with Wisdom and promoted study of the world around in his court in Jerusalem, probably in formal ‘schools’ as are known in Egypt and Babylon. The Book of Proverbs contains a collection of sayings from Egypt. The Queen of Sheba visits King Solomon indicating not just Solomon’s wisdom, but the sharing of knowledge across nations in the common quest to know and understand the world around.
• Orthodox Israelite wisdom begins with God: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). However, its main focus is not faith, but learning from the world around and passing on that knowledge to help people to live well. Derek Kidner writes:
• “Where the bulk of the OT calls us simply to obey and to believe, this part of it …summons us to think hard, as well as humbly; to keep our eyes open, to use our conscience and our common sense, and not to shirk the most disturbing questions.” (D Kidner Wisdom to Live by, p.11)
• The books of Ecclesiastes and Job both challenge the belief that people receive their just desserts, that life is fair. Ecclesiastes is thoroughly subversive to the dominant belief in Israel that the good prosper and live long, while evil is thwarted. The book of Job, like similar writings from other nations, probes the issue of unjust suffering. The innocent sufferer, Job, is vindicated over his ‘comforters’ who wrongly claim he is suffering because of his unconfessed sin.
• Nothing teaches like a well-crafted story, and the Bible has many, from creation through to Jesus’ parables. Teaching stories are a feature of Wisdom Literature.
• Wisdom Literature focuses on creation, the world around. This is inclusive since it transcends all religions, offering common ground in contrast to the tendency of religions to stress their exclusive beliefs.
• Wise men or ‘magi’ come to the baby Jesus. They study the world around and have a key part in the Gospel which affirms their search for understanding as well as affirming the kingship of Jesus over the nations.
• Jesus constantly focuses on the world around in his teaching, drawing especially from nature, farming and people’s everyday life.
• Proverbs chapter 8 creates a wonderful personification of Wisdom: “The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works … I was there when he set the heavens in place …. I was the craftsman at his side … filled with delight day after day.” It provides the background for the opening of John’s Gospel where Jesus (“the Word”) is with God in the beginning.
• In the early part of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes a lot about wisdom, referring to Jesus as “the power of God and the wisdom of God”.
• Elsewhere, Paul writes of his desire for the followers of Jesus: “.. that they may have complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:2-3)
• The influence of Wisdom Literature acts as an antidote to overly neat theology, or insistence that there is only one right point of view. It fosters common sense, encourages us not to leave our brain at the church door and welcomes doubters!

THE BIBLE INCLUDES DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS OF EVENTS RATHER THAN TRYING TO SMOOTH OUT THE DIFFERENCES

• At the heart of the Bible are the FOUR Gospels. Not one combined smoothed out story of Jesus’ life and teaching. There are differences and inconsistencies (though some people spend a long time trying to iron them out). But how much richer we are to have all four! The early Church’s priority was to include inspired writing, not to stand in judgement over every detail as our modern western culture often does.
• We have two creation stories in Genesis because they come from different traditions or sources. But both are included. They could have been tampered with to create one united story, but we would have lost the power of the stories which have their own priorities and inner logic.
• It’s sometimes easy to unpick different sources in the Pentateuch (Genesis to Deuteronomy) that later editors sewed together, but the emphasis again seems to have been on using the original material, even if the stories don’t always gel perfectly. Such as the story of Noah and the Flood. (The two sources of the Flood story use different words for God translated usually as ‘God’ and ‘The LORD’ – i.e. Yahweh.)
• All authors have an agenda, whether writing ‘history’ or a letter. The fact that scholars can still discern the different sources, and often the priorities of the editor(s) that tied them together and brought them into their current form, testifies to a desire to be inclusive.
• Under the heading A Spectrum of Truth (1), I pointed out that the writer of 1 & 2 Chronicles gives a very different account of Israelite kings, and especially of David and Solomon, than the account given by the books of Samuel and Kings. Again, those who decided what goes into the Hebrew or Christian Bible knew this but saw inspiration in both accounts so included both.

OTHER EXAMPLES OF INCLUSIVITY

• No-one has ever seen God according to John 1:18, 1 Timothy 6:16. 1 John 4:12. Exodus 33:20 says no-one can see God and live. BUT in Exodus 34:9 Moses and 73 elders of Israel saw God. Moses regularly sees God ‘face-to-face’. Isaiah (6:1) writes of his terror because he has seen God. Other key characters ‘see’ God. And yet in the mystery of God, I find this inclusion of both ‘truths’ is fitting.
• The Book of Hebrews was one of the documents most spoken against when the early Church was considering what to include in the New Testament. The traditional authorship of Paul was doubted, and one passage (10:26-31) was not felt to be good teaching.  BUT they included it despite their reservations. They could have cut out the offending passage but did not think it was their job to cut out uncomfortable verses out of Scripture. Of course, there were documents not judged worthy of inclusion, but the over-riding rule was to include wherever possible.
• I think the same is true of some of the stories Jesus tells in the Gospels which we still find very hard to understand but which therefore get us thinking hard. For example, Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman, the parable of the unjust steward and the parable of the workers in the vineyard. When something is unusual or hard to understand, scholars often conclude that it must be original since the Church or early editors wouldn’t have made it up! Peter’s embarrassing denial of Jesus is one of many more incidents that reveal the Bible’s tendency to include rather than omit uncomfortable sources.