We all want something to function our moral compass in life. For Christians, that moral compass is ultimately God, but how can we know what it means to follow him? Do we glance to the Bible, the Holy Spirit, or perhaps to a spiritual mentor? For many modern Protestants, the reply may sound obvious: we glance to the Bible as our moral compass.
But that statement is more complicated than we might imagine.
What Do We Mean When We Say the Bible Is Our Moral Compass?
Before going further, we must establish what we mean by the Bible. The word itself means “book,” but we use it to seek advice from the 66 canonical books of Christian Scripture. These books have been kept across time because they’re divinely inspired. As 2 Timothy 3:16-17 puts it, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is helpful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, in order that the servant of God could also be thoroughly equipped for each good work.”
Throughout the biblical period, prophets (and sometimes national leaders comparable to King David) were directed to write down divinely inspired books. The Israelites collected and maintained the growing collection of Scripture. Different religious groups (comparable to the Pharisees and Sadducees in Jesus’ day) argued about which books mattered most. However, everyone prioritized the Torah, the primary five books we see today within the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).
When the early church was established, it taught members with the Scriptures that they had available, adding books the apostles or their associates wrote (the 4 gospels, letters to particular churches). There was a shifting process over the subsequent few centuries as churches removed books that claimed to be written by the apostles (like the solid Gospel of Thomas) from their teaching material. Then church councils established authoritative lists of which books were considered Scripture. During the Protestant Reformation, books that many churches had considered inspired (just like the book of Tobit) were deemed helpful but not sacred, so Protestant churches stopped treating them as Scripture.
This implies that the form of the Bible expanded and shifted until fairly recently (the 1600s). That being said, Christians have historically at all times agreed that the 66 books we read today are crucial. Opinions vary about a number of other books, but Christianity’s view of what books matter has never modified.
All this history gives us a transparent idea of what the Bible is. It also helps us understand something interested by how the Bible describes itself.
Can We Really Use the Bible Alone as Our Moral Compass?
When most of us think concerning the Bible, we expect of a digital or physical collection of all 66 Scriptural books that we are able to read ourselves any time. Therefore, we would consider using the Bible as our moral compass as reading a manual. We open the book, we discover what looks like the best instructions, we follow them exactly.
However, the Bible depicts studying Scripture as a more complicated process. The 4 gospels feature many scenes wherein Jesus debates with the Pharisees and other religious leaders about what Scripture says concerning the Messiah; evidently, it is feasible to misinterpret Scripture. Later, when apostles like Peter are called to evangelise to non-Jewish people and never to fret anymore about following every Old Testament command (circumcision, eating kosher food, specific cleansing rituals), the church has to reconsider what Scripture’s core moral teachings are.
In other words, the Bible affirms we want to know its contents for moral instruction. However, it doesn’t depict the Bible as a book where we are able to read any passage without considering the context. There are moral teachings (like not committing adultery or murder) that also matter in the brand new covenant that Jesus brought because the Messiah. There are other instructions (like Deuteronomy 22:11th of September commanding to not wear mixed fabric) that individuals don’t must follow under the brand new covenant. Knowing which moral teachings still matter and which of them should not included in the brand new covenant is a matter of interpretation, considering context to seek out the complete story.
Interpretation requires now we have something that ancient people took with no consideration but that we may forget.
How Did Ancient People Use the Bible As a Moral Compass?
Treating the Bible like an handbook could seem obvious to us, but wouldn’t make any sense to the individuals who wrote it. For one thing, the form of the Bible was changing as latest books were written, and people books couldn’t be shared with everyone immediately.
For one other, the common ancient person didn’t have access to books. Each book of the Bible was written by hand, copied by hand, and stored in (hopefully) protected places, comparable to the Qumran caves where the Dead Sea scrolls were found. As historian Robert Bartlett discusses in his book History in Flames, copying scrolls was time-consuming and expensive, followed by more money and time to move those copies to recipients. Even then, only a number of (perhaps lower than 10 percent of the traditional Roman population) could read those copies. Most ancient people didn’t learn to read unless they got here from wealthy families or entered specialized trades that required reading and writing. It was not until the last couple of centuries that advanced printing and growing literacy enabled anyone and everybody to purchase and browse a Bible.
These limitations mean that while many studied Scripture, most studied it through other people—teachers who hopefully taught memorization skills. In Jesus’ time, young Jewish men who desired to turn into rabbis needed to memorize all the Torah and pass tests before an older teacher accepted them as students. Someone just like the apostle Paul, originally a Pharisee (a gaggle known for meticulously following and teaching Scripture), would have learned Scripture by studying “within the footsteps of a rabbi.” People who couldn’t pursue being rabbis (women like Mary and Martha, tradesmen like Peter or James) learned Scriptures as best they might from their local synagogue or relatives.
Therefore, when the biblical authors discuss seeking to Scripture for moral guidance, they imagine studying Scripture as a communal activity. They couldn’t imagine a world where someone could have a private copy of the whole Scriptures… after which attempt to learn Scripture’s ideas on their very own. Whether it’s Malachi giving exiled Israelites a message from God or Paul exhorting the Corinthians to return to Scripture’s clear teaching about sexual boundaries, every biblical creator wrote to a community of individuals counting on one another to learn what Scripture says. The biblical authors believed in using the Bible as an ethical compass. But they saw studying the Bible as a communal process, not something people could do alone.
This fact has big consequences for a way we read the Bible today.
How Do We Interpret the Bible So It Becomes Our Moral Compass?
If the unique audience understood studying Scripture as something we do with help from other people, then our vision must change.
Yes, the Bible is our most explicit record of what God says and no message from God will ever defy its ideas. Therefore, we seek to review Scripture. Verses like 2 Peter 1:19–21 remind us that Scripture is God’s word created by the Holy Spirit guiding the writers. Passages like Acts 11:7 praise individuals who check what Scripture says to confirm that what the apostles said about Jesus being the Messiah fit how the Old Testament described the Messiah. Throughout his letters, Paul appeals to Scripture to support his teachings.
Since many moral commandments require some interpretation, we must approach the Bible with discernment. We should ensure we’re reading it accurately. Nowhere within the Bible do the authors suggest that we are able to do that on our own. We need assistance from outside sources to grasp the Bible.
What Tools Help Us Treat the Bible as Our Moral Compass?
There are several major sources that theologians have identified as key to helping us interpret Scripture.
First, we hearken to God himself. In John 15:26-27, Jesus says he’ll send the Holy Spirit to guide people. However, passages like 1 John 4:1-6 also warn concerning the dangers of presenting a “message from God” without checking that the message aligns with Scripture. So, we hearken to the Holy Spirit as we study the Bible, and hearken to the Bible to ensure that we hear the Holy Spirit accurately.
Second, we hearken to other Christians. The Bible talks again and again about participating within the church, the community of believers. Readers of all ages and marital statuses are advised to belong to a church, where we are able to find fellowship and advice. In the method, we are able to find people to encourage us to review the Bible, show us study tools, and offer insights from their experiences interpreting the Bible.
Third, we hearken to the past. Passages like Hebrews 11:17-31 highlight the worth of knowing how earlier generations of individuals followed God. By taking a look at how the biblical patriarchs, church fathers, and more moderen Christian leaders lived, we are able to see patterns in how they interpreted the Bible. Gaining a way of the historic faith helps us see if our understanding of the Bible’s moral instructions goes off the beaten path.
Fourth, we hearken to our minds. We know that God’s ways should not our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9), but in addition that God doesn’t change (Numbers 23:19). We can use reason to contemplate how the Bible’s ideas fit together, and what practices clearly fit outside the Bible’s vision of ethical living.
The Bible provides us with moral instruction. However, not one of the biblical authors imagined a world where we sit alone with our private copy of Scripture and teach ourselves learn how to interpret it and practice its ideas. It is just as we correctly seek to follow the Bible’s commands to hearken to the Holy Spirit, to take part in the church, to grasp the religion heritage we inherited, that we are able to accurately study and follow the Bible’s ideas.
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