Velvet Elvis Part 2 - Binding and Loosing
Another thing I have been reflecting on in relation to Rob Bell’s book Velvet Elvis is what he says about the Bible. Many books I have read quote the Bible and tell you that it means a particular thing. In a way Bell is no different but he first explains that someone else talking about the Bible has to be an interpretation whether they like it or not. He shows how he thinks it’s important to look at the Bible in the way Jesus looked at it.
He talks about how a woman told him that she “has the absolute Word of God (the Bible) and that the opinions of man don’t mean anything to her”. But much of this woman’s ministry was around telling people they need a personal relationship with God through Jesus. Bell states that the phrase “personal relationship” isn’t found anywhere in the Bible, so at some point someone has introduced this phrase, so it is an “opinion of man”. He is not saying that the woman was wrong to encourage people to a personal relationship with God, but he just calls on us to be honest when we say things like “we just teach the Bible”. In fact the Bible has to be interpreted because if it isn’t it can’t be lived out today.
Bell goes on to show how the Bible was viewed by rabbis in Jesus times. They knew the Torah off by heart by the time they were 10 and the prophets and books of wisdom by the time they were 14. They wrestled with the text with other rabbis. Two other rabbis had to lay hands on any new rabbis and say they had authority to make interpretations of scripture. When Jesus was baptised he was affirmed by John the Baptist and God himself, “this is my Son whom I love, with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17)
The rabbis would forbid and allow things based on their interpretations of the Bible, this was called binding (forbiding) and loosing (allowing). Giving the keys to the kingdom was the term a rabbi used to give his disciples (trainee rabbis) authority to bind and loose. Which brought a wonderful interpretation of Jesus’ words to his disciples in Matthew 16:19. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”.
So we need to wrestle with God as Jacob did and go away limping. Bell says “some people have no limp because they haven’t wrestled. But the ones limping have had an experience of God.
Once again Bell has made things difficult for me, if I really agree with this then I have a lot of work to do to learn my Bible. It is much easier to sit back and have the Bible interpreted for you but this was not Jesus way or his intention for us. But the difficult way offers the opportunity to experience the Living God which has got to be the most rewarding option.
