The Inerrancy of College Basketball
My alma mater, the University of Northern Iowa, recently won the Missouri Valley Conference championship. It’s the second year in a row they’ve done it, but this season was sweeter. They beat a team in the Wichita State Shockers that had given them two tough games earlier in the season, each team claiming a victory.
As I watched the final minutes of the championship game on Sunday, something hit me. How we read Scripture is a lot like basketball commentators–they’re all watching the same game, but the way it’s interpreted varies from person to person. Sometimes greatly.
Allow me to explain further. . . .
Crank Up the Transistor Radio, Ma!
The Wise household doesn’t have cable. Most of the time it’s not an issue, except when I want to watch one of my teams play. UNI happens to be one of my teams. They played the Shockers twice earlier in the season before beating them in the conference championship on Sunday. I missed the two prior games because–you guessed it–no cable.
So I had to listen on the radio.
The first game I caught on a local station here in Des Moines, no problem. The second game, however, was a bit trickier. Our house is like a black hole for AM signals and it was a foggy night in Des Moines. Both of these factors add up to no AM radio in our house! Bad news.
So I flipped out my iPhone, fired up the Wunder Radio app, and searched for the game. I found it, thankfully, but had to listen to the opposing team’s commentators call the game. At this point, I couldn’t be choosy, so Wichita State Shocker radio it was.
As you can imagine, the experience was much different than listening to the usual Panther commentators–Gary Rima and Kevin Boyle. I had to hear the game called from a much different perspective than my own:
- Calls against the Shockers were protested more loudly.
- Points scored by the Panthers went uncelebrated.
- Complaints about the refs were louder when the Shockers were behind.
- Players names on the Panthers were butchered–not intentionally but because of unfamiliarity.
A Shock to the Shockers
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. The Shocker commentators, while watching the same basketball game as everyone else, clearly had a bias towards their team. And why wouldn’t they? This team is their meal ticket. They know the players and have interviewed them countless amounts of times. There’s an intimate bond that is not present with the Panthers. Their perspective on the game is influenced by the experiences they’ve had with the team.
It would be silly to call the Panther or Shocker commentator perspective “inerrant”–that is, without errors. Completely perfect from top to bottom. Categorizing the commentary wouldn’t make any sense. It would defy logic. The only “inerrant” part of the whole ordeal would that the Panthers won and the Shockers lost the championship game. That cannot be disputed–the Panthers had more points at the end of the game. Therefore they won. Boom. Done.
The Bible as Inerrant or My Perspective as Inerrant?
The point I’m getting at is this–often times when we read Scripture, we believe our perspective is inerrant. We say that the Bible is inerrant, but what we mean is that the way we read it is without error. To classify the Bible as inerrant–at least, in the sense that it has come to be known in the American Evangelical world–is like calling a basketball game inerrant. That doesn’t make any sense. A basketball game can’t be inerrant, in the same way that a husband’s love for his wife cannot be inerrant. It’s not set up that way. It doesn’t make sense.
We bring so many different experiences to the table when we sit down and read the Bible. Just like the Shocker commentators calling the game against the Panthers, we have biases towards seeing what we want to see. Many of which we’re not aware of. The key in reading Scripture is be aware of this and “proceed as planned.”
In the same way that the outcome of a college basketball game is inerrant–someone will win and someone will lose–so is the Bible. The “outcome” of reading the Bible is inerrant–that is, if we engage the pages of Scripture in the way God desires us to, it will have its intended effects on our soul. We have to take the entirety of Scripture in mind–the message it sends from top to bottom–into mind when we read the Bible. If I would have just watched the first half of the ball game on Sunday, I would have concluded, wrongly, that the Panthers lost since they were behind. Many of us are stuck in the locker room at halftime when it comes to reading the Bible. We don’t have the “full picture” and our view is seriously skewed.
The Bible is “living and active.” I’ve never heard of a human being–one who is living and active–be classified as “inerrant.” Have you? The modern notion of inerrancy is forced and dangerous. Kind of like calling a college basketball game “inerrant.” It doesn’t make sense.
Good comparison. Good stuff to think about.
I'm possibly a bit confused, but I think a simple statement is missing from this post, or perhaps it's missing because you disagree, “Perspective is the culprit of errancy.”
A basketball game is inerrant because it is, not because it can't be applied. Something can't err from what it does, because what it does IS what it does. It's a tautology, to call it inerrant is redundant, not a misnomer. The judgment of truth and untruth is done by those viewing the game, not the game itself.
Which is what I (currently, could change) hold as my view on the inerrancy of Scripture. I believe Scripture to be the inerrant Word of God, written by people, inspired by God and read and affirmed by and with the Holy Spirit. Its error comes when we do two things, we read passages with an unintended hermeneutic and/or we do not allow the Holy Spirit to affirm the Word's truth to us. Kind of like watching a basketball game with the wrong set of eyes and no one to help explain what you are seeing. You would need glasses and some one who explained the rules if you didn't know them. And Scripture reading becomes this, bad eyes and not understanding the “rules.” Perhaps this is why Scripture was written to people in communities, so that there was always someone with you to give you a proper perspective? Agree? Disagree?
Sorry for the rant, Justin. Love what you do and say, brother.
Kyle
Well said. I think a good example of this as applied to the Bible would be an argument between a Christian and an atheist. When the atheist reads the Bible, he is more likely to interpret passages as proof of hate and discrimination, while the Christian will see more love and grace.
I like the thought here. I do have a question: what about the person who reads the Scriptures and concludes that God does not exist? I have a couple friends who would claim this. So, then, are they reading the Bible wrong, or not as God would intend them to, since it is not having what a believer would consider this as not the intended effect on their soul?
Good question. What do you think? What are your thoughts?
I think it shows the complexities that theories fail to fully take into account. I do believe that people can get beaten down by religion, and approach scripture with the eyes of their heart closed tight. But of course, it remains our objective to love without ceasing, hoping that they will see the Spirit of Christ in us.
Dude. You just blew my mind. Great distinction and clarification.
Thank you!
Quick question – did you notice Christopher's comment above your original one?
What did you think?
So how does an atheist go from seeing hate and discrimination to seeing love and grace in Scripture?
Yes I did. And to go back to to Kyle's point, this is where I see a necessity of cultural understanding of the Scriptures original audience. The Bible was NEVER meant to read alone with a 21st century sense of individualism. The Torah was written to a nation. The epistles were written to cities. They wrestled with the texts together, in a social context. The phrase I like to use is this, scripture wasn't written in a vacuum. An atheist friend responded to that once, if God wanted me to understand te Bible, he could have written it to make sense across generations and cultures. But that is lazy because God is interested in our story. To make Scripture generic is to take away the human touch. Maybe needing background and stories and folklore is part of the point – or the point entirely! We need each other. You can't understand God outside of community, because he IS community (except for our non-trinitarian friends)
From this perspective (not saying it is write or wrong) I can see why people struggle with absolute truth and the Bible.
I don't think ENOUGH people struggle with absolute truth and the implications it has for Scripture. The thought is “Believe what you are told.”
We are told the Bible is inerrant. When I shook loose that narrow understanding, my love and adoration for God's word increased exponentially.
Exactly. Great point
Quick question – did you notice Christopher's comment above your original one?
What did you think?
So how does an atheist go from seeing hate and discrimination to seeing love and grace in Scripture?
Yes I did. And to go back to to Kyle's point, this is where I see a necessity of cultural understanding of the Scriptures original audience. The Bible was NEVER meant to read alone with a 21st century sense of individualism. The Torah was written to a nation. The epistles were written to cities. They wrestled with the texts together, in a social context. The phrase I like to use is this, scripture wasn't written in a vacuum. An atheist friend responded to that once, if God wanted me to understand te Bible, he could have written it to make sense across generations and cultures. But that is lazy because God is interested in our story. To make Scripture generic is to take away the human touch. Maybe needing background and stories and folklore is part of the point – or the point entirely! We need each other. You can't understand God outside of community, because he IS community (except for our non-trinitarian friends)
From this perspective (not saying it is write or wrong) I can see why people struggle with absolute truth and the Bible.
I don't think ENOUGH people struggle with absolute truth and the implications it has for Scripture. The thought is “Believe what you are told.”
We are told the Bible is inerrant. When I shook loose that narrow understanding, my love and adoration for God's word increased exponentially.
Exactly. Great point