“Book of Faith” is the title for a new program for biblical literacy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Biblical literacy is what we need if we are to carry out our mission to proclaim the revelation of God in Jesus Christ to our world. The Book of Faith Initiative arises in response to an urgent need to equip and form the faithful for worship and service in Christ’s church. I believe that this program can supplement what we are already doing with the Godly Play curriculum in our Sunday Church School and Wednesday Night Alive, in confirmation, in Lectio Divina, and in Friday Morning Bible Study.
You will be hearing and seeing more invitations to participate in the Book of Faith Initiative beginning in the fall. We will organize into several small groups that will meet throughout the week with a designated convener. The study of the Bible and the investigation of Lutheran ways of approaching the Bible will result in a deeper communion for us all. Click here if you would like to learn more now.
The first book, Opening the Book of Faith: Lutheran Insights for Bible Study, is now available through Augsburg Fortress. Three of our finest theologians have contributed to this introductory volume: Professor Diane Jacobson (Luther Seminary) is Director of Book of Faith Initiative with the ELCA Vocation and Education Unit. Pastor Stan Olson is Executive Director of the ELCA Vocation and Education, and Professor Mark Powell (Trinity Lutheran Seminary) is a New Testament theologian par excellence.
Lutheran Christians have always turned to the Bible as the written Word of God which for us is the “first language of faith.” The faith is always being translated for different times and different places. The Bible is the rule of faith by which we are able to discern the faithfulness of what we say in our conversations, in our sermons, in our liturgies, in our hymns, and in our prayers.
Most critical for the Lutheran perspective on the Word of God is Luther’s insistence that the Word of God is first and foremost the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, through whom the world was created, in whom the world continues, and to whom the world belongs. The written Word is our source for the living Word, whom we encounter in the assembly around word and sacrament. The written Word is our source of the incarnate Word. It is also subordinate to that Word which is Christ Jesus.
Evangelical Lutherans have generally eschewed the literalist, fundamentalist, and dispensationalist readings of scripture. The Bible does not have to be literally true in order to be true in its witness to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are novellas, parables, poems, visions, hymns, metaphors, literary allusions, etc. The Bible does not have to be scientifically or historically accurate as the fundamentalists so insist. Genesis 1 is understood more powerfully as a poetic expression of the Word of God creating the world than it is a scientific explanation of the how the cosmos came to be. The Bible does not offer any secret knowledge as to how specific historical events played out or will play out in history. Lutherans do not turn to the Bible to find out when Christ will come again, especially since the Gospels tell us that Jesus himself did not know. The latest version of this approach surfaced in the preaching of John Hagee who stated that the Holocaust was God’s way to force the Jews back to the Holy Land. This is not only crude, but it is arrogant.
If we are not literalist, fundamentalist or dispensationalist, what are we? We are Evangelical-Lutheran. We have learned with Luther to read the Bible in the expectation that where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name the Lord himself is there to meet us. The Bible is the “manger that holds the baby,” and the baby is the Word of God. The Word that we encounter is the one who renews the world through the life, death and resurrection of Christ. That Word is not a cheap word but a costly word that addresses us with the life-giving message of the cross and resurrection that both judges a humanity that could kill the Son of God and, nevertheless, offers forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration to that same humanity. The Word promises God’s continued engagement with creation and, thus, demands that those who have been renewed remain faithful to the God who claims everyone and everything that is.
I hope that you will ready yourself as the fall approaches and we give opportunity for a new conversation in the first language of faith.