The Bible isn't THAT Important

People have been experiencing God, embodying the Spirit, and practicing the Ways of Jesus for a very long time... without and before the Bible.

I’m gonna go ahead and say it:

The Bible isn’t THAT important.

Now, before you dismiss me or grab a pitch fork, let me explain.

For many Christians today (or, accurately, for most protestants… and to put an even finer point on it, pretty much all evangelicals), there exists an underlying belief that the Bible is everything.

They even call it the “Word of God,” which is ironic considering how the Bible (aka, their “Word” of God) clearly states otherwise in the opening chapter of the Gospel of John

John 1:1,14

1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his home among us.

But I digress.

If seen this way—where the words on the pages of the Bible are believed to be the actual words spoken by the Creator of everything—then it’s understandable I suppose to hold the Bible in pretty high esteem. But my point today is not to take aim at whether or not the Bible contains the very thoughts and ideas as though they were uttered and dictated precisely by God. No, for now I just want to try and name that if you take a longer historical view of the Church, and even a wider more global view of spirituality in general, then one must conclude that when it comes to the practice of Christianity historically the Bible has not been that important.