BibleIn the beginning of his chapter about the Bible, Brian McLaren, in his fantastic book Finding Faith, begins by asking the question "God, couldn't you have done better than this?" He's referring to the Bible. He asks if it couldn't be "clearer, less controversial, more universal"? In the end, he wonders "What could God possibly think we have to gain by having a collection of holy Scriptures in this seemingly disorganized, patchwork form, if indeed they come from God at all?"

McLaren answers his own question later in the same chapter:

After [awhile], I begin to ask a different question: How else could it be? If God is indeed having a real story unfold throughout history, then of course, the story has to "happen" with freedom, and the reports of it have to come to us in their raw, unedited forms, warts and wrinkles, bizarre twists and unpredictable turns. And even if God were to edit the stories … for which audience would God edit them? For scientific, college-educated rationalists? For the wild-eyed artists and poets? For rice farmers in the East, fishermen in the North, hunter-gatherers in the South, or philosophers in the West? … If God wants us to interact personally with the story …. If God wants it to be a book that intersects and challenges people around the globe for their whole lives … stretches us to not be limited by our own inherited point of view, then of course it can't be like the phone book, a government code, or a high school biology textbook. Nor can it be a one-read book, after which we say, "The Bible? Oh, yes, I read that years ago," implying that we'll never need to look at it or think about it again. (McLaren, Finding Faith, 231-234)

I think McLaren is right on. The Bible is a story of God and humankind, alienation and reconciliation, faith and faithlessness, sin and forgiveness. Written over the course of 2,000 years by dozens of authors, the Bible nonetheless tells us the whole, interconnected, continuing story of humankind's walk with (sometimes closer to, often further from) God.

I highly recommend McLaren's book Finding Faith (not an affiliate link, buy it from Amazon or your favorite bookseller) to anyone, seeking, agnostic, Christian, whatever. It's the best book I know of to introduce people to 'real faith', not the type of 'bad faith' you'll hear belittled and riled against on the Internet and the world at large.