But let's take a moment and understand what exactly a blog is. It's not a book, a newspaper, or a magazine. This isn't something that's printed and delivered; this is not a physical, tangible thing. It's a bunch of words on a web page beamed to your computer. Actually, even that is a gross oversimplification. The text is translated into data packets that are translated into a binary coding, sent through a series of non-centralized relay points to your computer or phone, and eventually reconfigured back to their original format. Mind you, this happens in seconds.
But let's take this up one more level of abstraction. What you receive is a set of paragraphs made up of sentences made up of words. Each word is comprised of letters, lines that represent phonetic sounds. The combination of these sounds themselves represent ideas, something we observe or point to, without actually being those things. The word "Duck" is not a feathered, flat-billed friend, but points to and reminds us of that bird.
So, this blog is data that makes words that represent ideas.
And yet, despite all this, you (hopefully) understand. You can read this. You kind of get what I'm pointing to. The actual letters, data "packets," nuts and bolts of the thing doesn't matter. Despite being ripped apart and glued together in your computer, despite being a set of squiggles and circles, despite the barrier of language, what I'm saying is still (somehow) coming through this blog post. This post isn't bound by words or data or language; rather, this post is that reality, that idea that lies behind the mechanics of syntax. You could call it the "heart" of the post. And, while the nuts and bolts certainly help define this post, the post itself is more than the words on the "page."
This blog is unbound. UnBound is unbound (get it?).
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart—it is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,full of grace and truth
Just as you are trying to understand the heart of this blog, the meaning of this post, from behind the mechanics and syntax, so too are we as Christians trying to understand the Word of God. The references above point to a "spirit of the law" rather than a "letter of the law." God Himself is unbound.
Jeremiah dreams of a day where the law of God is not kept in scrolls, books, indeed maybe even in words or strict adherence to them; rather, he paints the picture of a people with a new Law, one written on their hearts. God consciousness, ethical living, for Jeremiah, is so much more than rule following. The Word of God is unbound.
Saint Paul, in writing to the "church" in Rome, makes a bold statement about circumcision. Circumcision, in Jewish communities at the time, was a religious practice that identified the followers of God; to be circumcised was to be a light-bearer. Yet the Apostle Paul says that a Jew is not one who is physically circumcised, but one who is circumcised "inwardly." He spends a good deal of time in this epistle carving out room for those who are not ethnically Jewish to still participate in the Kingdom of God. The Word of God is unbound; it is for everyone who chooses to follow.
The writer of John (we'll just call him John, for simplicity's sake) goes a step further still. The logos (sometimes translated "Word" or "logic" or more liberally "natural/governing law) is that reality that underlies or governs patterns of existence; logos is that heart of reality that makes gravity work, that makes your heart beat, that bonds carbon together. That logos, that eternal, underlying Reality, Being in and of itself, came into the structures of existence (you can think my theological great-grandfather, a Mr. Paul Tillich, for that language). The Word is Unbound.
So what am I getting at? Maybe, after thousands of years, with countless translations and revisions of translations, with all the baggage of every sermon we've heard...
Maybe after all of this, it's time we stop limiting God to the Bible
Now, I don't mean to say we should throw out the bible, or that we ought to adopt pantheism, or anything else of the sort.
What I want to advocate is a step away from Biblical literalism. I want to forgo worship of the Bible for worship of God. The Bible certainly defines God, gives language to talk about Him, but it does not contain Him; the Word of God is vibrant, it is living, it is more than a strict adherence to a dead tradition. It is thoughtful, it is convicting, it is sharper than any two-sided sword.
Theologian Karl Barth, known as more of a conservative, orthodox theologian, noted that the Word of God lives equally in the Bible as in preaching/proclamation as in revelation; our experience of God is Unbound.
Micheal Gungor once tweeted "There is a trend in modern society, no more than a trend...a religion, an idolatry that elevates scripture above Jesus."
Which strikes me as odd, considering we had Christianity before we had a Bible (for about 300 years, in fact!).
See, the Word of God thrives, it lives, it IS, even before we can put language to it.
It's unbound.
Are we willing to be?
- Logan Long
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