"What is the Bible trying to do to us?"

From the University Presbyterian Church (Fresno), pastored by someone you need to know:
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Dr. Chris Erdman, our Senior Pastor says: Today, it seems to me that "what is the Bible trying to do to us?" is not the first question we bring to the Bible (if we come to it at all). There are signs that this is changing among us at UPC, if the way our elders are now reading the Bible in their ministry teams is any indication. But by and large, the American church is asking different questions. I identify these questions according to three major varieties:

Questions of the refrigerator variety: is there something here that I can consume and feel satisfied?

Questions of the pharmacy variety: is there something here I can take that will make me feel better?

Questions of the life-preserver variety: is there something here that I can use to pull myself out of this mess I'm in?

Now, these on the surface one can hardly argue with these questions. They come from very real needs we all have. But at UPC we recognize how different these questions are from the single question we place at the top of the list: "What is the Bible trying to do to us?" We recognize that the typical questions put "I" as the subject who acts on the Bible as the "object" and that that gets things all wrong theologically. Instead, when we ask, "what is the Bible trying to do to us?" we are putting God and we are putting ourselves in the right order. The Bible acts on us just as God acts on us. The Bible seeks to form us just as God formed us from the soil of the earth.
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