Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew about the Bible – Michael F. Bird
Bob Dylan once stated that the Bible was both the most overrated book and the most underrated book in the history of mankind. I’m not sure exactly what he meant by that, but I can speculate. I would speculate that his thoughts and feelings were that the Bible is a truly wonderfully work that is the word of God, and used correctly, it can serve as a reflection into the nature and character of God and how one is to live. However, it has also been misused and misunderstood throughout history, and in many cases, has managed to cause more harm than good.
Michael F. Bird discusses seven areas of the Bible and expounds on the importance of each, and how Christians should learn and apply what is here. This is good, and I found all of his points in this rather short compendium to be worthwhile reading. I have to honestly say, though, that I wished this book was a bit more focused, and a bit more black-and-white. The author may purposely not want to go there, but the overall issues I have is that even though most Christians would “agree” with Bird, you’re still going to have an awfully hard time coming to any sorts of consensus with the many different churches and branches of the one true faith. So I can imagine many Christians reading this book and saying “Yep. He’s right.” But at the end of the day, I can’t honestly say if anyone can look in the mirror and admit that maybe they’re guilty of not doing what the author states they should be doing, practicing, and believing.
I would prefer if this author would have given more concrete examples of what HE thinks should be correct ideas and interpretations. There are a few times when he’ll pull out selected passages and pontificate of how many Christians misuse the passage. He’ll then give (what he thinks is) the correct interpretation along with well-thought out explanations. I wish he would have done more of this.
He seems to want to stay in safe territory and not upset too many people. That’s very easy to do when talking faith; especially amongst the many branches of Christianity. He’s clear that the Bible is the Word of God and he himself is definitely a Christian, but I didn’t really walk away with any great insights. Yes, everything he says either rings true or convinces me that he truly is correct in his assumptions, but overall the feeling I came away with wasn’t convicting enough to make me raise my eyebrows while having some sort of shattering revelation.
What I have discovered throughout my history as a Christian, is that it’s too easy for the masses to follow conventional wisdom. If the majority of reformed Christian churches in North America all hold to basically the same positions, well, then they obviously have to be correct. Right? I wish the author would have spent more energy shaking up such assumptions. Again, though, maybe he’s trying to tread lightly.
What I wish this author would have done here, is maybe find the most egregious example of how churches don’t follow the seven things he mentions, and spent a lot of page space devoted to those examples. This, I think, would have much better shock value and maybe change some of the hearts and thoughts of his readers. True, it would anger a lot of obdurate readers, but with a title that includes “I Wish Christians Knew”, the thought picking up this book is that they DON’T know the things here, but I wasn’t really convinced of that, nor that the seven things were necessarily earth shattering.
I thought this was a well written book, and the author is very gifted in explaining his points (along with well-placed humor along the way), I just wish he would have hit his readers over the head with a metaphorical hammer a bit harder. At the very least, this is a good book to read with a group of Christian friends and have some good discussions. It may not provide answers, but it will allow for a lot questions to be asked that might normally not have been asked without a book such as this.
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