Measure twice, cut once.
Recently our church needed some banners set up to shout to the neighborhood that we would host an awesome block party, and the construction team decided on modifying some U-channel posts to support the banner in the high winds of suburban Chicago. Our tape measure satisfied our plans on the first banner, but we neglected to measure twice on the second banner. Something seemed off while we attached everything, only to measure our posts…and discover that we were off by a foot.
Our measurements aided us in setting up awareness for our churches event, and they warned us about the danger ahead for our setup should we venture beyond a certain degree of tolerance.
Unbeknownst to many Christians, the canon of Scripture, or the “rule” of faith, is the tape measure to determine which texts ought to govern our faith and practice. The collection of books we call “the Bible” tell us what is correct and what is useful for all manner of practice.
Unlike a tape measure, though, the Bible has many human features to it that train up the virtue of humility within us.
The Bible isn’t a single book; it’s a series of books. Even the term “books” is inappropriate for the wide variety of literature within it. Some of these books are narratives (1 and 2 Samuel), some are entirely poetry (Psalms), some are letters (Romans), some defy our attempts to fit them into a genre (Revelation). As we read this stack of assorted writings, this variety of genres forces us to slow down and let the different authors inform us how we ought to understand them.
Compendiums are nothing new to us, though. Lest we think that we can understand the Bible as a collection, it also humbles us by a distance of language. The Scriptures were written in ancient Hebrew, Koine Greek, and a bit of older Aramaic. None of these are easily intelligible to American English speakers, and even modern speakers of these languages find the texts old-fashioned. Word order requires an adjustment; vocabulary requires study; idioms bewilder us. The contours of these languages force modern readers all over the world to submit to the process of translation and interpretation.
Finally, even if we think we can use translation tools of today to master the language barrier, there is an issue of time. We can use social media to learn how cultures of today act in real time. We can only use scattered records of recent history to piece together just the last century. What hope do we have to recover how ancient Hebrews thought of themselves under Egyptian oppression? In the wilderness of Sinai? How did they understand the world, and how can we verify that? What assumptions do we make about their culture to break up the passage of time, and which of these assumptions are leading us astray?
In faith as in construction, the Lord calls us to humility. Measure twice, cut once. By the canon of Scripture the Lord, by His Spirit, calls us to measure our faith that our lives might be cut properly in the image of Christ.