Your God is Too Damn Small - Excerpt

Your God is too damn small. Face it. Right now you are more concerned with the fact that I just said 'damn' than you are with your view of God. I assure you, the second is far more important.

God just doesn't get the respect God deserves anymore. Perhaps it is the cherubic faced angels or the faceless Willow Tree figurines that are to blame. Maybe it is our reaction to 1970's preaching that was once centered in guilt, shame and remorse. Whatever it is, the Divine comes across very warm and fuzzy these days. It is as if we have come to understand God as a great nurturing, heavenly helper. Contrast this to the scene from Job 38.

The manuscript that is now Job has a prologue and a postlude added. The first attempts to explain the heavenly drama in which the story of Job takes place. The second seeks to add some element of justice to the life experience of Job: the restoration of stuff and relationships to Job following his suffering.  Originally, neither prologue nor postlude was a part of the story. Job's life of misfortune and suffering is punctuated by one final plea to God for understanding, for an explanation of suffering. God, apparently weary of Job's questioning - replies in grand fashion.

Job 38: 1-7
Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
 2 “Who is this that obscures my plans
   with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man;
   I will question you,
   and you shall answer me.
 4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
   Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
   Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
   or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
   and all the angels shouted for joy?

The text continues with God pouring forth example after example of God's greatness and power, the end of which finds Job humble and cowering before God's awesome majesty.

Do we find God this big in our lives? Can we even imagine the vast greatness of this being to which we claim allegiance?  The writer of Proverbs 9:10 states, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." If my God isn't big enough to strike a little fear into my heart, my God is too small. I'm not talking here about being fearful, in a 'I'm scared God is gonna zap me to hell' kind of fear. No. I'm talking about an awesome respect.

In April of 2010 I was speaking at a Rotary conference in Asheville, NC. I happened to be attending that conference at The Biltmore House at the same time that President Obama and his family were vacationing there. The place was pretty well patrolled by Secret Service agents. I found myself standing in a hallway when about 9 agents appeared and asked me to step to the far side of the corridor. Within a few moments, the presidential family walked up a nearby staircase, past me and into a small dining area. I thought for a moment about reaching into my jacket pocket for my phone to take a photo, but stopped - a bit worried about how that movement might be interpreted (that and getting shot). I was a bit scared and frankly, nervous about the entire moment. I'm not sure we give God even that level of respect.

Fans will swoon and faint over a close encounter with a rock star. TV celebrities get swarmed with adoration and are often the desire of many. When Bono (from U2) speaks, much of the world listens. When Lindsey Lohan 'falls off the wagon,' again, it becomes animated conversation. Yet, when it comes to our God, we are more likely to walk into a worship experience late, or whisper gossip during a prayer than we are to be awed by the fact that the Divine Creator of the Universe is willing to listen to us.

Sometimes I wish God would jump out of a dark corner and shout "BOO!"

Is your God big enough? Does the Divine take you to a place of awe?

(an excerpt from the upcoming book by the same title)

5 Facts and Figures About the Holy Bible

If You’re Going to Quote The Bible – Know Something About It

The Christian bible is an amazing book. Almost everyone has more than one copy of it and it graces coffee tables, family archives and church libraries like no other single book. If you are ever staying in a hotel, you have to look no further than the nightstand drawer for a copy. It has been translated into almost every language. The bible is at the core of our lives, our worship and our theology – yet, most of us know very little about how to read it or how it came to be “The Bible.”

Consider these 5 things.

1. Mark is the oldest of the Gospels. Did you know that? The gospels are not in chronological , or even logical order. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (sounds like the Beatles). Most scholars believe that the author of Luke also wrote Acts. Yet, we have John sitting in between them. Why did we do that? Back to Mark. Mark, as I mentioned is universally agreed to be the older of the gospel accounts – separated by decades from its closet kin, historically speaking. As such, it contains a shorter and most likely less embellished account of the gospel story. If you want the story, pure and simple, that was considered by the early followers of Jesus as important, read Mark. Read Mark several times. Read it again. I’ll wait. Make a list of the events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. I promise you two things: you will be shocked by what is in the story and you will be amazed at what isn’t. Its good stuff, really it is.

2. Before you ‘proof text’* scripture, take time to know the context. We’ll come back to this one – in another post - it’s a beast.

3. Did you know Job has a prologue and postlude added to it? Remember the story of Job? An ordinary man is spotted by God and Satan and they make a wager: Satan says he is such a good man because God has made life good for him. God disagrees and that sets the stage for the testing of Job. The story now moves from heaven to earth and we see Job slowly and systematically smitten by evil: death, disease, social rejection (everybody un-friend-ed him on Facebook) – Job lost everything.  But, in the end he never rejected God and God saw to it that Job had everything restored to him – several times over (although the bible isn’t clear on exactly how you restore a dead wife – several times over). It is a good story with a simple moral. God may test us, but in the end, the faithful will be rewarded. Make sense? Sounds good – only it isn’t what the book of Job is about at all. Most biblical scholars agree (read - proving this is a long story) that the first few chapters of Job (the part about God and Satan’s wager) and the chapters that conclude the book (the part about the restoration of Job’s stuff) were actually later additions to the work. If you omit those and read the book of Job – the story changes drastically and in my humble opinion, actually sounds more like a sound theological treatment of the problem of suffering that we all face. In the end, God tells job (in dramatic fashion), “I’m God and you’re not – that’s why.” It’s a hard message, but sometimes that is the message we need to hear – We are not God, after all.

4. Consider the fact you are reading a translation of an interpretation of the translation of the original text which was a recollection of a collective memory. Jesus spoke Aramaic, the Gospel writers wrote it down (years later)  in Greek and which was translated to Latin which was translated to English...or something like that.

5. Get a good bible dictionary. You will learn loads of stuff just by reading about your favorite passages of scripture. I'd recommend consulting The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible.


If these things catch you by surprise and cause you to ask some hard questions about how you are reading and using scripture – good. We are off to a solid start. Thoughts?

The Bible Can't Prove It - Self Authenticating Authority

Just so I'm clear on this, you can't prove the infallibility of scripture by quoting scripture. It's an insane argument.