Instruction Manual

Does life come with a playbook? An instruction manual?

A few months ago, I got an angry call from a woman who had seen one our church's ads on the subway. The ad says, "Because life doesn't come with an instruction manual" and pointed the viewer to come to the church for help. The angry woman berated me: "the Bible IS our instruction manual," she cried. "What are you teaching over there!?" I tried to appease her, told her I kind of agreed with her point. She calmed down.

While I agreed with the general premise (the Bible is important), it's not a rule-by-rule, line-by-line guide for how to live.

Case in point: Yesterday, I sat with a young woman who is navigating a new relationship that has gotten wonderful--and serious--quickly. She's trying to figure out whether she can trust her emotions, especially in the wake of past relationships where her instincts turned out to be false. As much as I love the Bible, this woman is going to have to spend a lot of time poring over Habbakuk and Nahum until she finds something she can use. Jesus didn't spend a lot of time talking about dating ethics and protocols, either.

The Bible is an instruction manual, in a sense. It describes, sometimes in the broadest strokes, sometimes in arcane specificity, how human beings have related to God. It gives countless examples of how women and men have come to know God in the diverse, everyday circumstances of life. The Bible does offer GREAT rules for living: the 10 commandments; the Beatitudes; the consistent emphasis on love, mercy, compassion, justice; the sense of awe and wonder and faith in the Psalms.

But the Bible's not a fool-proof manual. It's foolish to think we can pluck words from the Bible to speak plain truth into our lives. Using the Bible for guidance in faith and life is not fool's work.

It takes wisdom, patience, and a community of interpretation to help the Bible's truth live in the present day. Just as we need this instruction manual to help us understand life, we need life to help us understand the instruction manual.