I had a problem when I first became a Christian. I read the Bible. 

I know how that sounds. I mean, aren’t new Christians supposed to read the Bible? Isn’t that support to help, not create problems?

Yes, I suppose, that is probably true.

But, not for me. Not in 1992.

You see, I wasn’t “raised in the church,” as some may say. I didn’t have the “baggage” of a learned theology or religious traditions. In fact, if I had, I often wonder if I ever really would have said YES to Jesus.

But, I did. And, I said it emphatically.

And I was also, very alone at the time. Oh, there were other Christians around, probably. And, lots of other people too, but I was alone.

You see, I was literally in the middle of Marine Corps boot camp. Not exactly the spot you might imagine coming to Jesus. 

(Well, except maybe if your next step was off to war. I mean, they say there are no atheists in a foxhole. Google the expression if you aren’t sure what I mean.)

Yes, all alone with my platoon of 60 or so of my closest friends. I wouldn’t say that either. They weren’t exactly my friends.

For one, most of my life, I’ve felt out of place no matter where I am. 

For two, while we were learning to rely on and trust our brothers with our very lives, I felt like I didn’t hardly know anyone around me. Not in a close, personal or meaningful way. It’s not like we had talk time in boot camp. Even the week I put my faith in Jesus, these guys were all mad at me for waking them up in the middle of the night. (You’ll have to read more about that in my book, NEVER SETTLED, for that to make sense.)

For three, I didn’t know one person directly available to me in boot camp who could guide me spiritually, and that included my best friend from high school who was our platoon lay leader, whatever that title meant.

So, I began my new journey with Jesus on my own, periodically hearing from a Navy Chaplain or the occasional church visit after boot camp. It was mostly just me and my Bible.

What I began to learn right away was that many of the church practices and ideas that I learned just prior to becoming a Christian or on those occasional weekend services, didn’t always line up with what I read in my Bible.

I mean, simple, obvious things like the idea of “dressing up” for church. I read somewhere that man looks at the exterior but God looks at the heart. So, why focus on what we wear, I thought.

But God expects our best, someone in the church told me, so we must dress up to give it to him.

Immediate clash, to me, between the Bible and man’s traditions/ideas. So, I chose the Bible and have always elected to dress as down as I felt like I could get away with.

Here’s one where I fell on the opposite side of organized religion, on their side. I had quite the foul mouth before coming to know Jesus. Almost immediately after trusting Christ and finding this new life, I became convinced that I needed to change the way I talked. I was convicted that “cussing” was a sin, so I made it my first and primary goal to quit sinning, er cussing. 🤬 

Ironically, there aren’t really any convincing scriptures I’ve read to this day that say I can’t say f&$k, s@$t, or d*+n. (See, I can’t even type them out straight in this example.)

But, there were some that alluded to the way I talked, having a pure mind, out of the mouth overflows the heart, etc. It was enough to convince me to clean up my language even though specific words weren’t banned. It was quite the challenge for me, it was a rather nasty habit. But, God had cleaned up my heart, changed the way I thought so that helped a lot. I mean, I also had a lot more peace within so I didn’t really feel the need to curse as much.

All that being said, I was constantly noticing how the Bible’s focus seemed to be in one place, but the Christian world seemed to be some place else. Personally, I decided to follow the Bible over these traditions and focuses, at least internally. Sometimes I kept my opinions to myself, sometimes I voiced them, usually as questions so as to illicit as little conflict as possible.

Another example was when I returned “home” from the Marine Corps. The church that had introduced me to Jesus before I went to boot camp and accepted him, was a denominational church. While I didn’t yet know much about denominations, I didn’t love that. The Bible’s focus seemed to be on Christian unity but denominations seemed to be the opposite. So, I mostly kept that opinion to myself while learning the traditions and theological ideas of this particular denomination and got closer and closer to marrying it.

But all this and these examples to say, just try actually reading the Bible. It’ll mess your world up. In a good way.

If you’re not a Christian, it might make you say, “what the… “ or “wow, I wish more Christians actually read this.” 

If you are a Christian, it will challenge you to reconsider your traditions and beliefs. If you really read it and consider the implications, it might wreck your world.

It wrecks mine all the time. BUT to me, there is no more real of a way to follow Jesus than to read what is actually written and then to consider the obvious implications. There is probably nothing this world needs more. 

(Except for perhaps, beginning to live in the ways of Jesus that he both taught and lived.) Lord, help us do both of those things.

I would love to hear back from you. How has the Bible wrecked your world? What have you read that seems so out of whack with the church today? How have you seen your life transformed by reading the Bible?