The one thing we can be certain about is that the Bible was written by human beings for human beings. This may be obvious, but it is very important to remember it. Where and how God comes into the process is a matter of faith.  No-one thinks the Bible dropped from heaven, but it sometimes sounds as if Christians think God wrote it or dictated it.

The Bible doesn’t need defending, it needs reading

• Because it is so extraordinarily precious, we can spend a lot of time ‘defending’ the truth of scripture. But in doing this, Christians have often shackled the Bible, denying its freedom to challenge and subvert our human schemes of interpretation. Or perhaps more correctly, denying God’s freedom to challenge us through the Bible as it becomes the living and active word of God. We do the same thing with God himself. We are created in God’s image, but that doesn’t stop us trying to return the compliment and create ‘God’ in our image! Subconsciously, perhaps, remoulding him to make him more like us, reflecting our presumptions and prejudices, like we can do with the Bible.
• To point out the human and fallible side of the Bible is seen by some as negative, because it is against the view that the Bible is “infallible” or “inerrant”. In my view, to use these words reveals a misunderstanding of the nature of the Bible, as if we were only to read it to find instructions to be followed. In fact, the very obviously ‘human’ nature of the Bible is what makes it alive and real and endlessly worth reading to encounter the God at its heart.
• I have known so many people who are afraid of studying the scriptures in an academic way. As if questioning and critical study would destroy our simple faith and the Bible would lose its otherwise undoubted power to speak to us. I’ve met many pastors who loved their flock and wanted to spare them the doubts that critical study would involve. However, I think this is ultimately a failure of care. It requires dishonesty. It often ends in tears. Without doubt there is no faith. And certainty has no need of faith.

A Story from Sudan

• I remember well a time in South Sudan at a conference run for Church leaders at a place called Kajiko. We read together passages from Lamentations and the Psalms and gave pastors an opportunity to share together their genuine feelings after many years of ministering amongst the horrors of war. It eventually led to such a release of faith and celebration, like opening the floodgates. They had been so used to finding simplistic explanations, defending God to their people week in week out, and finally they could share with each other and cry out to the Lord in their pain and anger and confusion. It didn’t lead to a lack of faith, but to a genuine outpouring of faith and joy. Only God can do this.
• One passage we looked at was the end of Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 28) – a high point as the risen Christ sends the disciples out to make disciples of all nations. When the eleven disciples see Jesus, they bow down and worship him, “but some doubted” (28:17). How liberating then and now for the pastors (and for us) to know that Jesus still sends us out with our doubts to carry on his work.
• To hide our doubts harms the mission of the Church. They can make us fearful to say anything at all about our faith. Christians don’t have all the answers, but all of us have experience of God to share. We do turn to him in prayer and have a story to tell. Jesus means a great deal to us. Let us just tell it as it is and admit our own uncertainties and trust the rest to God. My own impression after many years of pastoral ministry is that Christians expressing their doubts is actually helpful in their witness to others. It makes it more real.

Faith Seeking Understanding

• And as regards the Bible in particular, we need to introduce people to it in a balanced way, according to our own experience of its treasures and its potholes. Initially we can point people to so many wonderful encouraging passages, but if we are encouraging them to read the Bible for themselves (we should!) then we need to prepare them for the difficult parts and the mixed messages.
• As Christians, in reading the Bible as in the whole of life, our journey is one of “Faith seeking Understanding” as St Anselm (11^th century Archbishop of Canterbury) famously put it. Many people are anxious to prove the Bible ‘true’ by which they mean factually correct, wanting any story to be told exactly as an imaginary camera would record it, rather than being true to the normal expectations of storytelling which always reflect the agenda of the storyteller, leaving room for a little creativity!
• Not so much “never let the truth stand in the way of a good story” but rather “make sure the truth is illustrated by a good story”!
• We sometimes hear or read that this or that episode of scripture is ‘proved to be true’ by archaeology or other investigation. The fall of Jericho is a favourite, but there are no remains of Jericho from Joshua’s time despite what is sometimes claimed. So we have to think a bit differently about this striking story now, both at the human level (the writers’ agenda) and also trying to understand why God might be happy to have such a story in the Bible.
• Our confidence is in God, and that nothing can separate us from his love. His purposes are always good, and this faith gives us a freedom to engage in the search for understanding without fearing what unexpected things we might discover and have to work through. In fact, it will often be the unexpected things that lead us deeper into God.
• The scriptures encourage us to engage with them. The fact that the inspiration of holy scriptures is not too far from inspiration as we know it today encourages us into a relationship. God doesn’t tend to bypass our humanity with its weakness and failings, but he works with them. Like he does with every biblical character like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. We are not to idolise anyone (except maybe Jesus)! 
• Nor are we to make an idol of the Bible so that it replaces the living God. We speak of the holy Bible, but only God is truly holy. And according to the Bible, God allows himself to be questioned. How much more can we question the writings in the Bible in our search for understanding and integrity.

St. Paul

• St Paul is undoubtedly a brilliant and pioneering theologian whose writings are foundational and without which we would be lost. He occasionally notes, and few would dispute, that his teaching is deeply influenced by his culture and personal context. I think this enables us to hold lightly some things he writes about slavery or women or hair or the mysterious baptism for the dead he mentions in 1 Corinthians 15.
• It helps me to imagine the man Paul. I see a mixture of brilliance, passion, stubbornness, humility, pride and faith – a tough working man (tentmaker), who has braved the seas and so many physical hardships in his travels. In chapter 11 of his 2^nd letter to the Corinthians he boasts about the floggings he has received and all he has suffered.
• He is a Roman citizen, born in Tarsus but brought up in Jerusalem. A Pharisee, and an expert in the Jewish Law, he trained under the great Rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22: 2). He persecuted Christians, even to their death, and on one such a mission he was converted when Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus.
• He is more than willing to state his credentials compared to the false teachers who are leading the Corinthians astray: “I am not in the least inferior to those super-apostles, even though I am nothing” (2 Corinthians 12:11). In the same place we read of his mysterious ailment which, despite his repeated prayers, God doesn’t take away. So, he learns to be content and see the positive side of his weakness.
• He is self-assured enough to challenge Peter with hypocrisy face to face, yet he calls himself the least of the apostles, because he persecuted the Church (1 Corinthians 15:9).
• This is the formidable person whom I can now imagine writing a letter from his prison cell. He is deeply prayerful, committed to seeing the young Christian communities grow in faith and understanding. He receives news from them, and I imagine inspiration coming to him as he struggles in prayer, sometimes searching for the best words, sometimes wondering what on earth he can say when there are no ‘oven-ready’ answers. He must use his brain, his scrolls and his prayers to listen for God’s leading. Perhaps, as I have often found, he starts writing and the inspiration starts to come.
• This is the scenario I imagine when I read the letter to the Corinthians. Getting to chapter 15, Paul is desperate to share his deep faith in the resurrection. He is straining to understand and to share what he senses he is given by the Holy Spirit. I don’t for a minute think that he understands everything, but as he writes he knows what to say. It’s from him. It’s inspired. It’s somehow from God. It’s what’s needed. And he wants to dance and sing as he writes and believes: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”