I love the Bible.
And I don’t like to say that because when I do, I feel like one of those people who say, “I love running.”
I don’t believe those people.
I think that they are some combination of
lying
trying to impress others
fooling themselves.
Maybe they know running is good for them and enjoy the benefits. Maybe it helps to pretend that the running itself is actually fun.
I respect all of that. Admire it even. Would like to be one of them.
But I am not. And I just can’t quite make myself believe anyone could possibly mean “I love running.”
So when I say, “I love the Bible,” I thoroughly expect you to think that I am some combination of
lying
trying to impress others
fooling myself.
I think all of those assumptions are fair.
Plus, depending on your perspective and how much Bible thumping you’ve endured in your life, you may not give the Bible even the benefit of the doubt that I give to running. Running at least is objectively good for most people.
The Bible? There’s a lot more about it that’s questionable. Is it worth studying, worth being informed by, worth living by? Or is it irrelevant? Even straight-up harmful?
There’s one thing you can cross off the list of assumptions:
I’m not trying to impress you when I say “I love the Bible.”
I’m actually scared to say it. Scared of what it’ll mean to you, what it will make you think of me.
The truth is that if I’m trying to impress you, what I’ll actually do is turn up my criticism and cynicism. Somewhere along the line, I’ve associated those qualities with being smart, so if I want to impress you, I’ll do my utmost to hide my heart and keep things as logical and academic as possible. Gushing about loving a problematic ancient text is not what I’m going to do.
But I’m getting to the point where I can’t really help it. It’s like loving Taylor Swift1 with unending devotion. It doesn’t matter if it brings me scorn or makes me cliche. It’s just who I am, and I can do no other.
I really do love the Bible. I love it.
I love it like Jane Austen novels and scribbled notes in Shakespeare margins. I love it with the same nerdy fervor I took to literature classes and bring to book clubs.
I love it like John Mayer lyrics and inside jokes with old friends, words that have wound themselves into my being.
I love it like wind in my hair when the windows are rolled down, summer days, driving barely-two-lane roads through forests and foothills, everything the greenest green and the bluest blue.
I love it like home and coffee and oversized cardigans. Like fireflies and fireplaces.
I love it like chocolate, rich and bittersweet on my tongue. I love it like Coca-Cola so fizzy it hurts to drink—“Did not our hearts burn inside our chests?”
I love the Bible.
And I love Jesus.
Which sounds like another of those “I love running” comments.
Maybe worse? What it means to be a person who loves Jesus should be so clear, so beautiful, so marked by love and light, but it’s gotten so mangled, hasn’t it?
When I identify myself as a person who loves Jesus, that could mean so many different things to you. And many of them are so ugly that I shudder.
Because Jesus is *sharp, involuntary intake of breath*
beautiful.
stunning.
everything.
source of all light, life, and love.
And so I love Jesus, the Word made flesh. And I love the Word that reveals Him.
I especially love the Gospel of John, and as I think about what has made the Bible more and more precious to me, I think of Jesus in John 5:39-40 telling a religious audience that they were missing the point:
You examine the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is those very Scriptures that testify about Me; and yet you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.
Over the years, I’ve read the Bible for a lot of different reasons:
out of curiosity
out of duty
for knowledge
for inspiration
to mine it for promises
to sort out theology
and—let’s be honest—to be equipped for debates.
I’ve read it to try to understand.
I’ve read it looking for answers.
I’ve spent a few decades, as Jesus said, examining the Scriptures, thinking they would unlock all that perplexes me about life. It turns out that it’s Jesus who does that work.
Not my reading. Not my understanding. Not what I’m able to figure out.
Just Him working in me, giving me life. And somehow one way He does that is through the Bible. Don’t ask me how.
Lately, I’ve been learning to read the Bible to see Jesus. And in the light of Jesus, I love the Bible all the more. Everything looks different in the light of Christ, ablaze with life abundant, afire with love.
I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. After all, I’m pretty sure no one’s going to convince me to lace up my running shoes.
But, like those people who really do love to run, I really do love Jesus, and I really do love the Bible— both essential to who I am, why I live, and why I write.
I wrote this a year and half ago before the Eras Tour made it crystal clear that people who love Taylor Swift are actually the majority of people. As one whose love for her has never waned, it’s been glorious to watch her reach truly legendary heights this past year. I’m here for every bit of the much deserved hype. Long live.