I am convinced that we should read the holy scriptures as telling us more about who to follow rather than how to follow. If we have to choose a chief way to understand these texts, and we naturally have to prioritize some reading over others, we need to read these words as foremost speaking about who Jesus is rather than how to follow him.
I say this, despite it sounding like I have created a false dichotomy, assuming an “either/or” when it should be “both/and”, and in some ways I have. But I want to make a point about which way of reading needs to take precedence in our thinking. Truly, there is much in the books we call the New Testament that addresses how to follow Jesus, but is that what they are primarily about?
When we choose a “how to follow” reading as primary for the gospels, and also for the epistles, we are ever so close to creating a legalistic paradigm for discipleship. When the how is more the emphasis than the who, we inevitably become followers of a system rather than a Savior. One might argue that the system is the Savior’s system, but that won’t keep legalism from creeping in. We will end up Pharisees sooner or later.
My proposal is not that we can only have one reading or the other, how or who. I am actually identifying which perspective needs to come first, and I believe the scriptures are primarily about Jesus rather than how to follow him. The following part is secondary.
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. John 5:39-40
Notice that Jesus says the scriptures, by which he means the Hebrew writings we call the Old Testament, speak about him. He does not say they speak about how to follow him. I suggest that though he said this before what we call the NewTestament was written, what he says is true about those scriptures as well.
See, perhaps I am not as far out as you might have thought when you started reading this! Hopefully you know me well enough to assume that I would not have started with an assertion unless I was grounding it in something Jesus said.
The problem with the religious leaders of Jesus’ day is that they were reading their scriptures from a how-to-follow-and-please-God perspective, which is why they could not recognize Jesus when he came. If they had read them more about who God is, they might have not been as opposed to Jesus. But, they were never looking for a “who” at all. They saw a system and believed they needed to adhere to it to be doing God’s will.
Our scriptures reveal a Savior, not how to be saved. Our way of redemption is not a formula for us to follow, but Jesus himself. The who is the how of new life. The way is not some set of actions, beliefs, practices, and attitudes, carefully derived from the sacred writings and worked into a system, that, when done well enough, results in our salvation. Jesus is the Master for his disciples, not the holy scriptures, as important as they are!
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