Reading With Gospel Eyes: Record? Or Advocate?

There is a simple question that  each person reading the Bible needs to answer in order to better understand the message:  Does this passage record an event, practice or principle?  Or does it actually advocate it?  Discerning that difference quickly clears much of the confusion that I hear people struggle with.

The point is that the writers of the Bible often faithfully record things that they do not intend to advocate, especially as timeless, universal principles or behaviors.

Some Examples:

1) Genesis 12:10 Abram tells Pharoh that his wife Sarai is his sister out of fear for his safety.  As a result, Pharoh takes her into his harem subjecting her to danger, threatening the family line and damaging the marital relationship.  Ask any woman how she would feel if this was done to her and she can explain that!  This incident is recorded because it happened, and is never advocated or excused.  Remember the Bible is about a loving God who can work His grace through people who behave all to often like gutless scoundrels, just as Abraham did in this incident.

2) The practice of polygamy was common in the cultures and history covered by the Old Testament and is recorded as such.  We see from the account of the first "marriage" that it is never advocated, and indeed I cannot recall a single time when any polygamous Bible character had a positive or beneficial experience with multiple spouses.

3) Sometimes God commands particular behavior that is for a specific purpose and time, and not universal or timeless.  The Old Testament dietary laws are a plain example as Jesus Himself did away with them.  Likewise, the warfare and religious "total destruction" of the inhabitants of Canaan by the Israelites is commanded in that time and place, but not universally.  I may find it hard to understand even in that time and place, but I certainly know - by the statements of the command and the later teachings of the Bible - that I am not justified in applying those commands to my circumstances.

By Contrast

Both Old and New Testaments continue many commands that are clearly meant to ongoing and universal force.  The Ten Commandments come quickly to mind for example.  When Paul instructs husbands like me to love my wife as Christ loved the church, giving Himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25), he is simply continuing and clarifying the intention from the earliest account of God's vision for husband and wife (Genesis 2:18-25).  This view of marriage is advocated as God's universal, timeless and trans-cultural intention.

I hear many people take offense at the Gospel because they fail to take this question in mind.  The "New Atheists" like Christopher Hutchins and Richard Dawkins in particular have raised this sleight of hand to an art form.  They regularly scoff the message of the Bible by claiming that objectionable matters that were only recorded, are somehow advocated as universal practices.

Nobody in the Bible or the church through the centuries has advocated what Abram did to his wife in Genesis 12.  The same holds with what David did to his friend Urriah, or - I could go on - any of hundreds of shameful things done by characters in the Bible and truthfully recorded by the writers.  That is because the Bible is not about commendable people that we should imitate, or rules that we should follow or an instruction manual on how to get what we want from God.  It is about a holy and just God Who's creation is sick and broken, and all that He was willing to do to restore it to Him and His intention for it.  It would cost Him everything on the cross.