Un-Weaponizing the Bible--October 27, 2026

Un-Weaponizing the Bible--October 27, 2026

"Now we know that, whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For no human will be justified before him by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3:19-20)

Sometimes, somebody's got to remind the Respectable Religious people that the Bible isn't meant to be used as a weapon against other people, but as a guide and a corrective for ourselves. Enter Paul the Apostle: he takes it as one of his personal missions to remind the self-righteous not to beat other people with God's law, but to let it speak to them and hold themselves accountable.

That's really what's going on here at the start of this passage from Paul's letter to the Romans, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship (if you were celebrating Reformation Sunday).  Paul has the challenge of writing to a congregation made up of both devoutly Jewish Christians, who grew up rigorously observing the Torah's commandments, and also new Christians who came from Gentile backgrounds that wouldn't have known about, heard of, or kept the rules of the Mosaic Law.  And Paul is convinced that both of these groups have been brought into right relationship with God, not by their public performance of piety, but by trusting in the free gift given through Christ.

Now, to the non-Jewish members of the church, this was a pretty obvious claim.  They had all come from all sorts of different faiths--from worshiping the Greek and Roman gods whose temples were on every street corner, to the traditional gods of their own ancestral peoples and tribes, to the Empire's demand that its subjects worship Caesar and the personified deity version of Rome itself, a goddess they called "Roma." These Gentiles knew that they had been welcomed into the community of Jesus as former outsiders.  They knew that they had been received without having kept the Torah's commandments, or observed a sabbath day, or circumcised their sons, or eaten according to the fastidious roles of the kosher laws.  If you had come to believe in Jesus after having been a pagan idol worshiper or dutiful Caesar-devotee, you were under no illusions that your rule-following had earned you your spot at the table.

But on the other hand, those who had come from the rigorous observance of the Torah--those who had been steeped in the stories, covenants, and practices of ancient Israel--might have been tempted to tell themselves that their religious performance made them "better" than all those newcomers.  You might have convinced yourself that the reason you belonged in the people of God was that you had been a good commandment-keeping, Torah-observing, kosher-eating, idol-rejecting rule follower, and therefore that all these outsiders who had just recently shown up at your church were not really acceptable.  You might even point to the Law and say, "This is why you Gentile outsiders aren't worthy--you don't keep this Law. Therefore you are not eligible to belong to the people of God who follow Jesus!"

And it is precisely this group of people--who have told themselves that they are respectably religious and therefore truly righteous--that Paul has in mind in these verses.  He can tell that the church folks who see themselves as "long-standing members" and "who know how things are done around here" because of their Judean background are just itching to use "The Law" as a weapon with which to attack the new faces from Gentile backgrounds. He can tell they want to look down on these outsiders and disqualify them because they have never kept the rules before.  So Paul just up and says, "NONE of you have earned your way in by your rule-following, and ALL of us are completely dependent on God's grace to belong."  And, as a corollary, if you are using God's Law to smash other people down rather than to keep yourself and your own actions in check, then you are missing the point of the Law.  God didn't entrust us with the Scriptures to wield against other people like a sword, but to address US, and perhaps like a surgeon's scalpel, to cut out of our own lives the things that are malignant inside us. When we get that confused and start weaponizing "The Law" to attack others, we are abusing God's good gift, not mention committing theological malpractice.

Paul intends for those Torah-observant members of the First Church of Rome to recognize that the "Law" they are so hot and bothered about actually holds them accountable and shows them their own failings and faults.  Paul will point out to his readers over the course of this letter that the ones who think they are doing a great job of keeping the festivals and avoiding bacon cheeseburgers have some failings when it comes to loving their neighbors well and not turning their money or status into an idol.  And in that case, the Law exposes their failings and compels them to see that they could never earn their way into God's good graces.  Nobody's got a perfect record, and nobody's kept all the rules all the time.  So instead of weaponizing the commandments to keep other people out, Paul says, the commandments have a way of holding a mirror up to our lives and showing us where we are out of sync with God's good intentions.  And I can't weaponize that--I can only let it show me uncomfortable but necessary truths and then let it reshape me to be more in the likeness of Christ--of God's own character.

Today, then, what if you and I make the commitment to un-weaponizing the Bible all around, and instead to let God's Word speak to us as it will, both to hold us accountable and to offer us grace?  What if we promise each other we will do our utmost to resist the temptation of lobbing Bible verses at other people like hand grenades and instead letting them speak to us both to comfort and to correct where we need each of those?  And what if we celebrate with joy that God is choosing to draw in new people from all over creation, every background, language, culture, and story, to be a part of this found family we call church?

That seems like a better way to spend our day.

Lord Jesus, let your Word show us what we need to see about ourselves, as well as to hear the hope you tell us about your love for us.