Lutherans Read the Bible

by Mark Allan Powell

First, although I am a Lutheran pastor and a Lutheran Bible professor, I cannot possibly speak for all Lutherans. I can’t even speak for all ELCA Lutherans. At best, I can only try to describe what is typical and traditional for Lutherans. If your understanding of the Bible is different from what I offer here, that does not mean that you are a bad Christian — or even a bad Lutheran. One thing that Lutherans believe is that not everyone needs to be typical or traditional. We are bigger than that.

The Word of God
Perhaps the first and last thing I want to say about Lutherans and the Bible is this: Lutherans believe the Bible is the Word of God. Of course, almost all Christians would say this — and they might mean all sorts of different things by it. So we have to ask: What does it mean to say the Bible is the Word of God? Simply put, it means that the Bible tells us what God wants to say. Things are going to get more complicated than that, but let us begin with that obvious affirmation: We Lutherans believe that the Bible tells us what God wants to say to us.

We read that our ELCA constitution says that we accept the Bible as "the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith, and life." Thus, when people ask me what Lutherans believe about the Bible, I try to use those words. I say, "We believe the Bible is the Word of God; we believe it is the inspired Word of God; we believe it is the authoritative Word of God."

But sometimes that is not enough, and people want to ask me other things. They ask me questions that I do not always know how to answer.

Someone says, "Do you believe the Bible?" I say, Yes, I do. "Literally?" they ask. "Do you believe it literally?" I’m not sure how to answer that. I believe the literal parts literally. And I believe the metaphorical parts metaphorically. When the Bible says, "The Lord is my shepherd" (Psalm 23:1), I believe that, but I don’t think that I believe it literally. If the Lord were literally my shepherd then wouldn’t I have to be a literal sheep? And I’m not.

The Bible says that God is a rock (Psalm 18:31). I believe that. But I don’t believe it literally.

And then someone will ask, "What about errors? What about contradictions? Do you believe the Bible is inerrant?"

Again, I’m not sure how to answer, because I’m not always sure what they mean by errors. Scientific errors? Jesus said the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds (Mark 4:31). Scientists tell me that orchid seeds are smaller. Is that a horticultural error? Or maybe Jesus was just talking to people who would never see an orchid, so the mustard plant had the smallest seeds as far as they were concerned. How far do we want to press this question of "errors"?

How about grammar? There’s one place in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus warns his disciples to beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing. He says, "You will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16). How, exactly, do you recognize a wolf by its fruit? Wolves don’t have fruit. My seventh-grade grammar teacher would have called that a "mixed metaphor." If Jesus had written it in her class, she would have marked it with red ink — called it a grammatical error and made him do it over.

But these things don’t bother me — and they don’t bother most Lutherans. There are churches for which these things are very important, and people write big books explaining why things that look like errors in the Bible aren’t really errors and why things that look like contradictions aren’t really contradictions. The point is to defend the Bible as accurate and reliable and true. Not many of these books are written by Lutherans because that is not usually what interests us. The difference lies in what we mean when we say "the Bible is the Word of God." We do not mean, "the Bible is a book that contains no errors or contradictions." We mean, "the Bible is the book that tells us what God wants to say to us." That puts a different spin on things.

For the most part, Lutherans are more interested in understanding the Bible than they are in defending it. We don’t think that we have to prove the Bible is the Word of God — we just believe that it is the Word of God, and then we focus on asking, "What does God have to say to us?"

Again, I cannot speak for all Lutherans, but I will tell you what I think. I think that the Bible says exactly what God wants it to say. Every book of the Bible, every chapter of the Bible, every verse of the Bible says exactly what God wants it to say. So, if there are contradictions or errors or whatever you want to call them in the Bible, it’s because God wants them to be there or allows them to be there. Either way, when we read the Bible, it tells us what God wants to say to us. And that is what I care about: hearing the Word of God.

But let us move on. Lutherans have more to say about the Word of God — and it is really good stuff.

Lutherans typically speak of "the Word of God" in a threefold sense. The Word of God is, first, Jesus Christ (the Incarnate Word); second, the message of law and gospel (the proclaimed Word); and, third, the Bible (the written Word). This, again, is in the constitution of the ELCA.

It isn’t just Lutherans who speak of "the Word of God" this way. The Bible itself does so.

First, the Bible speaks of Jesus Christ as the Word of God. In John’s Gospel, we read, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God" ( John 1:1). And, then, a little bit later, John’s Gospel says, "The Word became flesh and lived among us" ( John 1:14). Obviously, the Bible did not become flesh and live among us. Jesus Christ did. So Jesus Christ is the Word of God.

Second, the Bible speaks of preaching as the word of God. In the book of Acts, we often hear about Peter or Paul or some other missionary preaching "the word of God" (see, for example, Acts 13:5; 18:11). What did they do?

They didn’t just read the Bible to people: they proclaimed a message that convicted people of their sin and offered them hope of salvation. Lutherans call this "the message of law and gospel." Thus, the message of law and gospel may also be identified as "the word of God."

And, third, the Bible identifies the Scriptures as the word of God. For example, when Jesus believes that some people are failing to abide by one of the Ten Commandments, he tells them that they are "making void the word of God" (Mark 7:13).

Jesus did not just regard Scripture as ancient testimony, as a collection of old traditions that ought to be valued for their historical significance. He believed that the writings of Scripture continued to express what God had to say to people centuries after they were written. Thus, the writings of Scripture may be identified as the word of God.

Not many people will argue with this idea of the threefold word of God, but some might wonder why it matters. Are we simply using the same phrase for three different things? No, we would say that they are not three different things but three different representations of the same thing.

When the Christian missionaries preached the message of law and gospel, they revealed the same truth that Jesus Christ revealed when he became flesh and lived among us. Likewise, when we say that the Bible is the "Word of God" we mean that it also reveals this same truth. The Bible functions as the Word of God when it shows us Jesus Christ and conveys the message of law and gospel to us.

Mark Allen Powell teaches New Testament at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio.

Excerpted from Opening the Book of Faith by Diane Jacobson, Mark Powell, and Stanley Olson, copyright © 2008 Augsburg Fortress. Used by permission.

Join the conversation
The Book of Faith is an ELCA initiative that invites the whole church to become more fluent in the first language of faith, the language of Scripture, in order that we might live into our calling as a people renewed, enlivened, empowered, and sent by the Word.

Encourage your congregation to make a commitment to expand its study of the Bible. To register a commitment and to learn more about the Book of Faith initiative, go to www.elca.org/bookoffaith.

As part of your congregation’s commitment, encourage the use of Opening the Book of Faith, along with its Leader Guide and Assessment Tools. To order, go to www.augsburgfortress.org/bookoffaith.

Look for an introductory Bible course in fall 2008, a new Adult Bible Study in spring 2009, and the release of the Lutheran Study Bible also in spring 2009. For the latest information about new resources and e-updates go to www.augsburgfortress.org/bookoffaith.