The written Word is not the ultimate object of our worship. The text serves as a means to an end. God is the focus of our adoration.
Scripture is one way in which God reaches out to us during this life. But in the next life, we will not need the Bible!
In heaven, when our perception has been clarified by God, we will perceive Him better and more directly. At that point, the written Word will become superfluous.
An analogy illustrates our point: you might enjoy getting letters from a person you love; you might read and reread them; you might love those letters. But even more, you love the person who wrote them. In fact, you love the letters because you love their author even more.
If that person were to visit you, you’d certainly set the letters down, and engage in conversation with that person.
So it is with God.
Yet it is possible, and wrong, to love the Bible more than God.
The word ‘bibliolatry’ is used to describe those who worship the Bible. Bibliolatry asserts, not that the Bible is a message from God and a means to God, but rather that the Bible is God.
This is the error of ‘biblicism’ or ‘bibliolatry.’ Because the word ‘biblicism’ has competing and controversial definitions, ‘bibliolatry’ is a clearer term for this error.
It is, in any case, a grave error to worship the book instead of its Author.
This error is found, e.g., in those groups which insist that you use only this or that translation, and in those groups who say or repeat Bible verses as if they were magical words which make things happen.
Among those groups who absolutely insist on certain translations, not all of them are guilty of bibliolatry.
It is possible to insist on using one particular translation, or set of translations, and insist on not using others, without engaging in bibliolatry. There are errors aside from bibliolatry which will lead to this peculiar insistence.
A manifestation of bibliolatry is also found in folk religion. Superstition makes the physical object, the book itself, into a talisman. Practitioners may clutch Bibles, sleep with them, keep small Bibles or parts of Bibles in their pockets, etc., to provide some imagined protection.
The Bible is holy, but its holiness is a derived holiness. The physical paper and ink are common and ordinary, but they represent and communicate words and ideas.
Those words and ideas, in turn, also have a merely derived sanctity. They are not holy of themselves, but rather holy because they come from, and direct us toward, God.
The word ‘God’ is not in itself holy. The idea of God is not in itself holy. God is holy.
Certainly, many serious followers of Jesus would, if presented with this definition of ‘bibliolatry,’ agree that bibliolatry is not good, and agree that it is something to be avoided. Most, hopefully all, Jesus followers would say that they worship Jesus, not a book.
Are there subtle ways, however, in which bibliolatry can creep into one’s thinking? Can one unwitting and unintentionally fall into some amount of bibliolatry?
The habits and attitudes of some Jesus followers are described by Skye Jethani:
Rather than a vehicle for knowing God and fostering our communion with him, we search the Scriptures for applicable principles that we may employ to control our world and life.
This is not a real working relationship with Jesus. It’s deism. The word ‘deism’ refers to a belief that God created world, and then went on vacation, having no further direction interaction with His creation.
In other words, we actually replace a relationship with God for a relationship with the Bible.
While such people may want to follow Jesus, and may think that they’re following Jesus, they may in fact be simply formulating sets of axioms and principles which they’ve found, or think they’ve found, in the text. God is more than advice. This type of bibliolatry, however, reduces God to advice and ignores the personhood of God.
To say that God is a person means that He has thoughts, emotions, desires, and intentions. God’s personhood means that He’s an agent: He acts in an original and self-motivated way. God is not a human, but He is a person.
Bibliolatry denies the personhood of God. This quietly creeping form of bibliolatry,
with its emphasis on working principles and worshiping the Bible rather than God, may be appealing because it is far more predictable and manageable than an actual relationship with God. Relationships, whether human or divine, are messy, time consuming, and often uncontrollable. But principles are comprehensible and clinical.
This mindset can sneak into our thoughts. Nobody wakes up one day and says, “today I’ll engage in bibliolatry.” But it edges, unnoticed, into our souls. Skye Jethani continues:
This posture is particularly tempting in affluent, professional communities where people are accustomed to off-the-shelf solutions and self-help manuals. Their education and wealth mean they are used to being in control of their lives, and a huge publishing industry has ensured they maintain this illusion. Many best sellers are self-help books advocating principles to overcome nearly any problem. While proven formulas might be expected for losing weight or growing a vegetable garden, we tend to apply scientific certainty to even the more mysterious areas of life. Perusing the shelves at the local bookstore can be a very comforting exercise. Knowing that there is a solution to any problem life throws at you provides a sense of control — it calms our fears. And if the answer cannot be found at the bookstore, we know there is always the pharmacy down the street.
This is a deistic view: we read the Bible, we analyze it and discover principles in it, we apply those principles to our lives, and we enjoys the benefits of acting on Biblical wisdom. This is the worst possible view. Notice that ‘we’ are doing everything, and God is nowhere to be found in this view!
This is the sinister shortcoming of faith built upon principles, laws, and formulas. It causes us to reduce faith to divine instructions or godly self-help tips: five steps to a more godly marriage, how to raise kids God’s way, biblical laws of leadership, managing your finances with kingdom principles, etc. But discovering and applying these principles does not actually require a relationship with God.
Skye Jethani points out that this view distorts what it means to be a follower of Jesus. If you follow this view, being a Jesus follower “simply means you have exchanged a worldly set of life principles for a new set taken from the Bible. But like an atheist or deist, the” Jesus follower who’s been tricked into being a “deist can put these new principles into practice without God being involved.”
Instead of a living relationship with Jesus, the person who’s been subverted by creeping bibliolatry has a ‘religion’ which is merely a set of principles – and principles begin to look suspiciously like rules.
God can be set aside while we remain in control of our lives. He may be praised, thanked, and worshipped for giving us his wise precepts for life, but as with an absentee watchmaker, God’s present participation is altogether optional.
So how do we avoid unknowingly slipping into bibliolatry?
We keep our eyes fixed on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus is the center of our lives and our thoughts.
We read Scripture, not to discover ways to live successfully, but to find out more about God.
We surrender the illusion of control. We never had control over our world or our lives, but we had the illusion of control, and it is a harmful illusion.
We pray to God, “Your will be done,” instead of trying to figure out how to get God to do our will (Matt. 6:10).
We remember that this life will necessarily contain suffering, and that our task, given to us by God, is to learn to suffer well.
We recognize that there will be suffering in our lives. Our assignment is to be good at suffering.
Paradoxically, when we rid ourselves of the subtle bibliolatry which is nothing other than an attempt at some type of magical manipulation of our environment – when we rid ourselves of trying to use Scripture as a formula to get what we want – when we surrender our wills and desires – it is then that we will find a peculiar and powerful type of peace and joy.
This subtle, self-help bibliolatry is an attempt to make things understandable. But there is a beautiful blessing “which passes all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).
