GUEST POST ~ The Bible: Transforming a Weapon of Harm Into a Tool of Healing

I am not willing to concede the Bible to those who wield it like a weapon

An interview with Zach W. Lambert by Sarah Bessey

Today’s Field Notes interview with pastor and author Zach W. Lambert about his new book Better Ways to Read the Bible: Transforming a Weapon of Harm into a Tool of Healing was planned for today many weeks ago yet it feels particularly timely right now, since so much of the divide we are experiencing seems to have its roots in how we read, understand, and live out the Bible. I’ve felt such cognitive dissonance - and deep grief - all over again this week because of the reality that the very thing that compels me to pursue more healing liberation, more empathy, more costly love, and more sacrificial compassion is somehow the same one that is seemingly leading others in a completely opposite direction. This has all reminded me of something my friend Rachel Held Evans wrote about the Bible years ago,

“If you are looking for verses with which to support slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to abolish slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to oppress women, you will find them. If you are looking for for verses with which to liberate or honour women, you will find them. If you are looking for reasons to wage war, you will find them. If you are looking for reasons to promote peace, you will find them. If you are looking for an out-dated, irrelevant ancient text, you will find it. If you are looking for truth, believe me, you will find it. This is why there are times when the most instructive question to bring to the text is not "what does it say?", but "what am I looking for?" I suspect Jesus knew this when he said, "ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened." If you want to do violence in this world, you will always find the weapons. If you want to heal, you will always find the balm.”¹

All of which is to say that I think this week’s interview and the book we are discussing might be very helpful for us right now.

I was honoured to contribute the foreword for Zach’s book, Better Ways to Read the Bible: Transforming a Weapon of Harm Into a Tool of Healing.

As soon as I finished reading Better Ways to Read The Bible, I knew that I wanted to share it with you all. We do talk a lot about the Bible around here because many of us know that “weapon of harm” all too well - we bear the wounds ourselves. We see the consequences of it in our lives, in our policy-makers choices, in our institutions, and in our neighbours. Basically, a broken lens for reading the Bible leads to brokenness everywhere.

As I wrote for the book’s foreword, “None of this is theoretical. How we read the Bible has a direct impact on our lives. It changes how we think, how we spend our money, how we vote, how we show up in our communities, how we love our neighbours, and so many other aspects of our lives. A bad or incomplete, wicked or even just selfish reading of the Bible is profoundly dangerous.

As Zach writes, “Jesus chastised folks who weaponized Scripture and elevated it above love of neighbour. He repeatedly denounced those who used sacred texts to divide rather than unite, incite violence rather than make peace, and exclude rather than include.” Learning how to read the Bible again is not merely a theory to us anymore: this work matters deeply not only in your own heart and life but in the lives of your neighbours and this world God so loves.”

With that reality in mind and with my love for you all in my heart, I hope this interview brings some goodness to you this week.

Interview with Zach W. Lambert

Sarah : Many of us have had formative experiences with the Bible: teachers, pastors, Sunday schools, or forms of media that shaped how we thought about and encountered the Bible. I’m curious about how you were introduced to the Bible, of course, but what other pivotal experiences have formed how you read the Bible today?

Zach: I begin the book with a story about getting formally kicked out of my youth group as a middle school student for asking too many questions about the Bible, so that was certainly a pivotal moment. Growing up in faith spaces where voicing doubts and questioning common biblical interpretations was equated with attacking God and subsequently punished with exclusion from the community quickly trained me to stuff my doubts and questions down. But that didn’t work. My doubts grew bigger and my questions loomed larger. I viscerally understood Christian spaces were not safe places to ask pesky questions or voice nagging doubts, so I spent most of my teenage years searching for answers and meaning elsewhere.

Thankfully, the story doesn’t end there. God graciously introduced me to incredible people, both through books and conversations, who taught me about better ways to read the Bible. One of those pivotal moments happened when one of my seminary professors (at Dallas Theological Seminary–one of the most conservative schools in America) responded to my questions with curiosity instead of condemnation. He invited me to meet with him in his office and, after a long conversation, said something like “don’t tell anyone I recommended this to you, but I think you would like a book called Surprised By Hope by NT Wright.” I immediately bought it, read it in one sitting, and the way I viewed the Bible started to shift dramatically.

Sarah: One of my favourite aspects of your book is the compare-and-contrast you offer between the different lenses with which we read the Bible. I want to talk more about that but before we get into it, how do you explain the idea of a “lens” for interpretation and application or even understanding scripture, especially to someone who would bristle at the notion (i.e. “I don’t have a lens! I just want a plain reading of scripture! The Bible said it, that settles it” sort of thing).

Zach: I used to feel the exact same way! I didn’t think I had any lenses. I thought I was reading the Bible objectively and the people who disagreed with me were just letting their biases get in the way.

But here’s the truth: None of us are truly objective when it comes to reading the Bible because none of us can remove who we are, what we’ve been through, where we grew up, or our underlying assumptions. Also, none of us belong to the intended audience of Scripture. We don’t intrinsically understand the context and culture of the biblical setting, and we don’t natively speak Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic. We aren’t ancient Hebrews or 1st century Near Easterners living under Roman occupation—and even they debated the correct interpretation.

We ALL have biases. That’s not the problem. The problem is pretending that one group of people don’t have any and everyone else does.

Sarah: Continuing with “lenses,” you talk about four harmful lenses that are pretty common in our Bible introduction or experience: Literalism, Apocalypse, Moralism, and Hierarchy. But rather than simply expose those dangerous lenses to the light, you do something that I really love: you offer four alternatives with which we can read the Bible. Around here, we talk a lot about learning to be “for” things rather than simply “against” them so I think that will really resonate with us. Can you share a bit more with our readers about the four alternative lenses for reading the Bible?

Zach: Absolutely! And I completely agree with learning to be “for” things rather than simply against them. I think we should critique what’s wrong, but we also need to celebrate what is right. We should tear down what is harmful, but we also need to be committed to helping build what is helpful.

Here are all four with a brief description:

Jesus: Interpreting Scripture through the life, teachings, and character of Jesus as the fullness of God in human form.

Context: Exploring historical, cultural, and literary contexts to help illuminate author’s intent and build bridges for modern applications.

Fruitfulness: Prioritizing interpretations that lead to more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Flourishing: Reading the Bible in ways that promote the flourishing of all people, especially liberation of the oppressed.

Sarah: I could ask a dozen questions about each of those “lenses” for reading the Bible but I’m particularly interested in the “flourishing” one. What does flourishing mean, particularly for those of us who are seeking to reimagine our relationship with the Bible?

Zach: From the opening words of Scripture to the final ones, God has a consistent desire for all of creation: flourishing.

Flourishing is what defines the Garden of Eden in Genesis and the New Heaven and New Earth in Revelation—the two pictures we have of God’s design for creation based around love and beauty. Flourishing for all people is also what defines God’s Kingdom, which is the thing Jesus spends more time talking about than literally anything else.

In John 10:10, Jesus gives us a brief picture of why he put on flesh and came to earth: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Fullness of life. Flourishing. This is God’s intent and design for all of creation. But things get in the way of flourishing. We hurt ourselves, we hurt others, we build systems that oppress people and we don’t take care of the creation God entrusted to us. So there is a gap between what we experience and what God wants us to experience.

Choosing to put on a flourishing lens when reading Scripture means choosing the interpretation that leads to the most flourishing for all people, especially the most vulnerable and those on the margins. The flourishing lens isn’t just for other people, it’s for us too! Reimagining our relationship with the Bible, particularly attempting to read it in ways that lead to fullness of life for us and our neighbors, means leaning into biblical interpretations that promote your own flourishing too.

I love this quote from Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper turned activist during the civil rights movement of the 1960s: “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” We are in this together. My flourishing is tied up with yours and vice versa.

Sarah: I often remind myself - and our readers here at Field Notes - that no one gets to take Jesus away from us. I think you do something very similar with the Bible. Why do you care so much about making sure that people like us are able to stay in relationship with the Bible?

Zach: I am not willing to concede the Bible to those who wield it like a weapon. Jesus famously chastised folks who weaponized Scripture and elevated it above love of neighbor. He repeatedly denounced those who used sacred texts to divide rather than unite, incite violence rather than make peace, and exclude rather than include. Those of us who love the Bible and have seen God use it to bring hope and healing must stand against the weaponization of Scripture. We must push back against anyone who uses it to harm others, especially the most vulnerable among us.

I care so deeply about it because I’ve seen the power of healthy Bible interpretation in action. In fact, I’ve seen it and experienced it firsthand too many times for me to doubt it now. Here is how I wrap up the final chapter of the book:

“You can be transformed. The people you love can be transformed. Your parent who has bought into the lie of religious hierarchy and spends their time supporting a version of Christianity consumed with power and domination can embrace the way of Jesus. Your child who has been wounded by moralistic doctrine can heal from the damage of legalism. Your partner who has walked away from faith because they find literalistic interpretations of the creation story preposterous can find a faith that works with science instead of against it. Your friend who has fallen into conspiracy theories based on Left Behind theology can be set free. There are better ways to read the Bible than what many of us have been taught—ways that lead to liberation and fullness of life for absolutely everyone.”

Sarah: One reason why I was interested in reading your book - even before you asked me to write the foreword! - is that you are actively serving as a pastor for a church in Austin (Restore Church). There is a very rooted-with-real-people quality to your work here. You are interested in the real life impact of our reading of the Bible on ourselves but also on our neighbours. I often feel a real absence of pastoral care for deconstruction/reconstruction conversations so I think it matters that you approach this work from a pastoral perspective. How does active pastoring - both in real life and online - influence how you want to engage in this public work?

Zach: I can’t overstate the profound influence that pastoring has had on this book, especially our community here in Austin. The Bible has always been the church’s book. It belongs to the people and is best interpreted within a healthy and diverse community. That’s how I know that the lenses I outline in the book promote healing rather than inflicting harm. Not because an expert said so or because I cracked some code, but because I’ve seen them bring healing, wholeness, and flourishing to our community at Restore for a decade.

We can be incredible Bible scholars, have all the right interpretive lenses, and memorize Scripture until Jesus returns, but if we don’t have people who love us and are loved by us, none of it matters. We are better when we are all together. We make better decisions, we hurt fewer people inadvertently, and we more fully represent the image of God when we belong to a healthy and diverse community.

Many of the interpretations I talk about in the book have been birthed out of pastoral relationships. When someone in our church has been wounded by a particular interpretation, I believe it’s my job as a pastor to help them explore better ones. It’s not at all reductive to say that these explorations are the very heart of this book.

Sarah: A number of us simply cannot read the Bible anymore due to abuse or misuse or any number of reasons. What would you offer to people who cannot or even simply won’t be able to engage with the Bible any longer and yet still long to meet with God or come into a deeper relationship with God?

Zach: I know it might sound strange coming from a pastor, but I would advise anyone who can’t read the Bible without being further traumatized not to push themselves to read it. I believe God wants us to experience the Fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control), which means that if our engagement with the Bible is yielding toxic fruit (hate, misery, chaos, intolerance, cruelty, corruption, betrayal, brutality, and carelessness) then something is deeply wrong.

Instead of trying to force yourself to read the Bible, maybe consider other ways to connect with God: prayer, meditation, lament, music, art, journaling, storytelling, spending time in nature, gardening, walking or hiking, serving others, community, silence and solitude, rest, gratitude practices, breathwork, or pilgrimage. I’ve seen all of these things and more yield beautiful connections with God, ourselves, and one another.

Sarah: Related to that question, if someone is wanting to “begin again” with the Bible, what would your advice be to them?

Zach: Start with the Gospels–the accounts of Jesus’ life found at the beginning of the New Testament. This is what I did at 17-years-old after I had a life-changing encounter with God. I started with Matthew, the first book in the New Testament and one of the four Gospels, which tell the story of Jesus’s life. I didn’t go verse by verse with a commentary or attempt to translate every word from the original language like some pastors have done. I just read it. Like a book. Like a story. And that changed everything.

I began to realize that I knew the beginning and the end of Jesus’s story by heart—the stories of his birth at Christmas and his death and resurrection at Easter had been drilled into me—but I knew very little about the rest of Jesus’s life. I’d heard about Jesus walking on water and feeding a bunch of people with just some bread and fish, but outside of that, I was clueless. I didn’t know Jesus was constantly offering alternative interpretations of Scripture, even when other rabbis disagreed with him. I didn’t know he was reprimanded for hanging out with people on the margins. I didn’t know he taught that love was the most important thing. I didn’t know he pushed back against the occupying Roman authorities. I felt like I knew baby Jesus and resurrected Jesus, but I was meeting the radical, revolutionary Jesus for the very first time. This was the Jesus I wanted to follow.

If Jesus is the foundation of our faith, then I believe our faith should be founded upon Jesus.

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