The Bible is Like Granola

I’m notorious for selectively eating things. Before I had diabetes, I would pick out the cookie dough chunks from the cookie dough ice cream (and I would try to smooth the gaping holes over as though my family were idiotic enough to believe that Breyer’s kept selling us plain Vanilla in the wrong packaging.) I’ve even been known to scoop out a fudge swirl or two.

Even now, in my carb-conscious lifestyle, I still pick out my favorite, slightly-healthier things to eat. So when my husband brought home hazelnut granola the other day, I didn’t want all the carbs from those oats- but I definitely wanted some hazelnut pieces. So I began mining blissfully for filberts, turning to the back of the package to check the nutrition facts while I munched.

The nutrition facts, of course, are based on a portion of the WHOLE package. So if I ate a half cup of granola, I’d be eating 240 calories, 7 grams of fat, and 34 carbohydrates.

But I was aware that if I ate a half a cup of straight hazelnuts, with a few chocolate nibs on the side, the nutrition facts don’t apply to me the same way. I’m certainly eating more fat and fewer carbs than are listed.

That doesn’t negate the authority of the nutrition facts, because I’m not eating the granola as intended.

And since we all think of the Bible while eating granola, ;-), my mind naturally wandered there.

I marvelled at how much the Bible really is like granola.

For one thing, like any good mixed granola with oats, nuts, chocolate and some ever-ambiguous ingredient, the Bible is full of different kinds of passages, like poetry, narrative, genealogy, and commands.

Some parts are easy to understand, and others more esoteric. Some passages we call “descriptive but not prescriptive” and others we label literal commands. Some passages (like ingredients) seem to go together naturally, and others almost seem to contradict each other. (Like the sweet and salty nature of granola.)

I’ve heard so many people criticize my generation especially for minimizing the authority of the Bible. People say that we’re gravitating towards only taking the parts of the Bible that we like authoritatively.

That can certainly be a dangerous path. But it is just as dangerous to pretend that the Bible isn’t at least ambiguous in the most granola sense of the word. For example…

• If I wanted to, I could pick out verses that show God as unrelentingly wrathful OR abundantly forgiving.
• I could pick out verses that prohibit women from leading men, or I could pick out verses or stories that specifically support women’s authority through Christ.
• I could pick out verses that suggest the Bible supports slavery, or I could point to verses that clearly indicate slavery is not God’s ideal.
• I can show you verses where God seems to endorse murder and also tell you that his ten commandments prohibit it.
• I could point to a verse that suggests men shouldn’t have long hair, and also tell you a story where God told a man to never cut his hair.

So what does that say about the authority of Scripture, if it seemingly contradicts itself at several points?

I believe it says that the authority of Scripture is much like the nutrition facts for my bag of granola. The nutrition facts ARE COMPLETELY ACCURATE and reliable if I’m eating each piece as part of a serving of the WHOLE .

But if I take a handful of hazelnuts and you take a handful of the chocolate bites, and someone else takes a handful of that unidentifiable dried fruit, we are going to be looking at three distinct parts of the granola that do, in fact, have different nutritional values on their own.

My point is not to say that the Bible isn’t reliable or trustworthy. My point is simply that we must take the whole arc of scripture into account when trying to understand what God is saying to us. This means, unfortunately, that though God’s WORD is God-inspired and authoritative, our understanding of His word will always be limited by our humanness.

Therefore, I think there are three things that can help us in our understanding of the Bible:

1: Ask God to show you what parts of the Bible you place more emphasis on than others. (i.e. Which parts of the granola you seem to like best. 🙂

Whether we favor all the positive, grace filled passages of God, but minimize God’s freedom to discipline us OR we can recite all the passages about how God feels about one sin and conveniently minimize his feelings about others, we all have our “favorite” parts of the granola. Asking God to show us our natural bias can help us read through his eyes, not ours.

It also helps to remember that we ALL struggle with bias, not just millennials or Baby Boomers or conservatives or liberals.

2: Someone else might have insight into a different part of the granola than you.

There is so much in the Bible that speaks to our NEED for others to balance us spiritually. (We are Christ’s body and each of us brings something important to the table.) If we each bring a somewhat unavoidable bias to the Bible, perhaps only in community do we see the Bible in a more 3-dimensional way.

We bring bias to the table based on our age, gender, race, orientation, family background, geographical location, and more. So have a conversation with someone DIFFERENT.

Are you a man? Maybe you need to hear the Bible from a woman’s perspective to get greater insight. Are you white? Maybe you should hear the Bible from the perspective of a different race to understand better. Are you straight? Maybe hearing thoughts on the Bible from someone who is gay would give light to a passage you’ve overlooked. Are you young? Maybe you should speak to someone from an older generation to see what you’ve missed. Do you lean towards the passages on grace? Maybe have a chat with someone who seems legalistic to you.

I’m not asking you to change what you believe unless God moves you there. But I am asking you to be willing to seek out those with different perspectives on the Bible, knowing that the our different understanding of the Bible doesn’t nullify the ultimate authority or truth of God’s full word.

3: Only God gets the final say in the meaning of His Word.

If we are each biased in our Scripture understanding and we need each other to have a fuller view of the Bible, this requires us to listen and wrestle with passages. At the end of the day we may not move from our original understanding. But the minute we close down conversation with others, we begin to believe that we are equal with God in our understanding of his word.

And the truth is, that only God has that final say. This side of heaven we will see some things dimly. Here on earth we still have to live with our personal bias, false motivations, unintentional manipulations and even willful misunderstandings of God’s word.

And that knowledge can drive us crazy- or it can drive us to division and blame- or just maybe…we can embrace it as a beautiful, messy, delicious gift (just like a good bag of granola.)

In closing, am I a monster for picking out the best pieces from ice cream or granola? Maybe. But I’ll have to dissect the nutritional and moral consequences of my actions in another post. Right now, I’m off to drink some seltzer so I don’t have to worry about selectively messing up the nutrition.