When the Bible Offends

“‘Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.’” (Titus 1:12)

Holy cow. Talk about offensive.

This verse, part of the liturgical readings for Episcopalians yesterday, certainly disrupts the sweet rhythm of worship, to say the least. And it’s not the only one. The entire Bible is dotted with verses and passages that make one cringe. Take the second half of Psalm 149 (an approval of vengeance), or Exodus 4:24 (where God tries to kill Moses for no apparent reason), or Psalm 137:9 (which I can’t even bring myself to type).

What do we do with these? Do we pray them in the liturgy? Can we draw anything from them?

Accepting them as literal truth, let alone as prescriptive truth, is clearly not an option. The other extreme—rejecting them out of hand—is certainly attractive. Perhaps, though, it’s not the best.

Take the verse from Titus, which I wrestled with this morning. In the context, the apostle Paul is advising his young disciple on selecting leaders for the church in Crete and helping church members grow spiritually. In his description of Cretans, here and in other verses, I think he’s trying to set a sociological context for the direction Titus needs to take: “Because Cretan culture is like this, and these people have grown up in the culture, here are the steps that might be most effective in helping them grow.”

The way he says it, of course, would be condemned today, and rightly so. So would his use of gross generalization. But after wrestling with the passage, I take the lesson that when fostering someone’s spiritual growth, it helps to take the whole person into context—including the sociological air they’ve breathed.

Exegetical sleight of hand? Maybe; I’m no scholar. The point, though, is that the truth of hard passages just might come forth in the wrestling. After doing so, you may still think a particular verse or passage should be expunged from the scriptures. But by wrestling with it, at least you’ve tried to wring some truth out of it.

Maybe, too, the wrestling itself hones one’s spirit and attunes it more closely to God. That in itself would make the whole exercise worthwhile.