Immerse and Youthfront is a proud sponsor of the National Youth Worker Convention Theological Forums again this year. Over the next months leading up to the conferences we will be having the various panelists that will
be at the forums sharing some pre-cursory thoughts on some of the questions they will be asked. This week our friend Amy Jacober is speaking briefly to her experience with interpreting scripture.
I have had more than one conversation about a concern regarding me allegedly not taking scripture seriously enough. Ironically, it is because I have such a high view of scripture that I end up in such conversations. It is always a little uncomfortable for people when they learn they have aligned their lives around biblical beliefs that are, well…not biblical.
While I can think of several times this has been the case, early in my ministry career an incident took place that has become a theme in my life. Years ago I served as a Bible Study leader for my denominational camp. What this meant was that for 10 weeks that summer, new groups of churches would trust their youth to our staff and we got to lead them in Bible study, recreation and a whole host of other really fun and silly things. Relationships were formed and theological questions came up daily.
In my very first week of camp on the very first day of Bible study, a student asked if the Bible allowed drinking. I mustered every bit of wisdom my 21 year-old self had and said I didn’t want to speak out of turn and would do some research and return the following day with an answer. That night I checked with my roommate, our director and every translation of the Bible we had, not to mention a commentary or two. I came ready to share what I had learned. And what I learned was that drinking was not forbidden but drunkenness was (Ephesians 5:18). I also reminded the group that in this country, we are also called to obey the law of the land and the legal age for drinking was 21 so the issue of their drinking was not an option for any of them as high school students (Romans 13:1). I then shared that as believers, we sometimes are held to higher standards and that our entire staff had signed a contract promising to not drink throughout the entire summer. I was proud of all that I had shared, thought I had offered a solid response that under no circumstances should a high-schooler be drinking and backed it up with scripture! Recreation came next and lunch followed.
Before I could even finish getting my lunch there was a clearly ticked off woman making a beeline for me. She grabbed my arm and pulled me over to her table with a few other angry leaders waiting. She asked why I had told all her youth that it was OK to drink. Stunned, I listened to her vent for a few moments and then offered my explanation of what had happened. I pointed out my careful study of the passages and that I had said it was okay to drink but not get drunk, that we must also obey the law of the land and even go above that sometimes as Christians. She looked at me and said I had undermined all her church had been teaching. Slowly and calmly (and in a moment of clarity I still can’t explain) I asked her to show me which passage she had used in her teaching as I would love to follow suit if her teaching was based on something more than personal opinion. She simply said to me that I was wrong and that I clearly didn’t know what the Bible said. There was no reasoning with her at that point. She asked for all of her students to be removed from the Bible study I was leading and called for me to be fired.
While I managed to maintain my job I was told, by my supervisor that it was better to share the opinions of the churches even when they seem to contradict scripture. That was the only time in my career that idea was instructed to me explicitly but over the last 20 years it has been implicitly communicated to me numerous times and in numerous ways. Including from inside some of the academic institutions where I was teaching.
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