Probably the worst mistake that Christians make is trying to understand the Bible by reading it. Letting common people read the Bible is very dangerous; this is why, one hundred years ago, in the Middle Ages, only the Pope was allowed to read the Bible, and then he told all of the pastors what to say, then the pastors told all of the common people, and nothing bad ever happened. But then Eli Whitney invented the printing press, which meant that Billy Graham was allowed to make Bibles and put them in all the hotel rooms, except then all the homeschool boys went to hotels to read Song of Solomon, and Billy Graham remembered the story of Gideon’s army and so he was like “make it smaller,” this is why some hotels have special little green Bibles called Gideon Bibles that don’t have any bosoms, and nothing bad ever happens in hotel rooms anymore.
But let’s not get too far of course: when Christians try to understand the Bible by reading it, they are relying on a human interpretation of Scripture. This is why you must read my book, where I tell you what the Bible really means.
insert straw man argument here
But wait, some people will say. Couldn’t, like, God help you to understand His word? Maybe through the Holy Spirit or something? This is, of course, foolishness. God may have helped people understand the teachings of Jesus way back in the Old Testament, but that was because there weren’t any thought leaders cranking out theology books. As soon as the thought leaders were in place, all that other funny business stopped, which is called secessionism, which is a theology term that I explain in my book.
Still not convinced? Consider the following thoughts, which are separated into headings, so that they don’t have to connect to one another or flow in any meaningful way:
The Bible is, like, hard to understand
Did you know that there are 66 chapters of the Bible, which probably comes out to like 100,000 pages or more? Who knows what could actually be in there!
For starters, there’s that part in that one place where Jesus says that the most important thing is to love God, and the second most important thing is to love each other. But what does that mean? This is extremely problematic, because it does not mention anything about engaging the culture, or shifting paradigms, or cultivating authenticity, which are all chapters in my book.
Farthermore, the Old Testament wasn’t even written in English, so when you go to the Greek, a lot of the names and places sound kind of foreign or whatever. My book doesn’t have this problem; all of the real life anecdotes that my publisher had me fabricate are easy to understand.
I wrote my book, so it is true
When you think about it, there’s no one who I trust more than myself. Why would I even write something that was not correct? That doesn’t make sense.
People are saying things
Listen. No one is saying that my book is more important than the Bible. I mean I’m certainly not saying that, even if other people are. And people are definitely talking, saying various things. What I am saying is that the Bible is the inspired word of God, infallible, perfect and complete, and it makes a very, very good complement to my book.
*Weekly-ish articles are free; periodic special articles are behind the paywall. If you are a paid subscriber, even for a short while, thank you for making this whole thing work. To everyone, thank you for reading and sharing. It’s either this or write about politics, I guess :/
((chuckles uncomfortably while Catholic))
That the same Billy Graham who invented them crackers that soften up in milk?