Abandoning the Cult of Prooftexting: Why I Don’t Attend or Lead Bible Studies Anymore

Confession is good for the soul, so it seems wise to begin there: Five years ago I stopped attending and leading Bible Studies. It’s not that I don’t believe in the importance of studying the Bible in community anymore. It’s the core incongruity of social expectations each time I try, which has led to an unhealthy recurring pattern of hurt feelings and damaged relationships. That’s why I stopped trying. Call me crazy, but I think an event called a “Bible Study” should involve, ya know, studying the Bible. Bizarre though it be, apparently that’s a rather controversial idea these days.

First let’s define our terms. By “Bible” I mean the collection of most sacred religious writings of the Christian faith, which includes the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books that comprise the New Testament.1 As for “Study,” Google defines this noun as “the devotion of time and attention to acquiring knowledge on an academic subject, especially by means of books” or “a detailed investigation and analysis of a subject or situation.” A Bible Study, then, is a detailed investigation of the collection of most sacred religious writings of the Christian faith.

Looking back, I’ve had quite an eclectic set of Bible Study experiences. These experiences range in formality from official church-wide Bible Studies with designated curriculum to casual Bible Studies among friends where we just read a section of Scripture aloud and discussed it. These Bible Studies have met in locations that range from Sunday School classrooms to scenic public parks. And these Bible Studies have reflected spiritual perspectives that range from low-church Pentecostalism to high-church Eastern Orthodoxy.

What is so strange is that, with one notable exception while I was leading a grad student ministry, the rest of these so-called “Bible Studies” involved no actual study of the biblical text. Sure, a few started with a reading of a biblical passage followed by a top-down declaration of their tradition’s interpretation before turning to an informal discussion of application to one’s own life, but most jumped straight from reading the passage to the individualistic, therapeutic application. All this under the guise of study without any study of the biblical text ever occurring.

Just to be clear, I have no problem with more reader-response or mystical interactions with the Bible. In fact, I regularly employ Lectio Divina in my pastoral work. This ancient, contemplative practice treats the Bible not as scriptures to be studied, but as the Living Word to be experienced. This helps listeners be artistically immersed in the biblical narrative, and to feel psychologically and spiritually conscious of God’s presence in their lives. Each time I lead it, however, I ensure the participants understand that Lectio Divina has a different method and purpose than Bible Study.

Labels matter. They establish expectations. None of this would bother me if I’d been invited to a Bible Skim, but I’m always left wondering, ‘Uh, where was the bloody study in this Bible Study?’ I guess you could say the gatherings kinda-sorta centered around the Bible as the background topic, or launch pad, for discussion. Yet at no point did we ever do anything that would remotely resemble studying. It’s like being invited over for dinner but all they offer is light snacks. The lack of a full spread itself is no problem, but it’s annoying when you’re stuck there hungry for hours.

The strange part is that I’m quite flexible about what “study” entails in this context. It could mean a careful examination of the ancient Hebrew and Greek text. It could mean a closer look at the cultural-historical context of a passage and how the original audiences would’ve understood it. It could involve an exploration of a single theme running throughout the Bible’s various books and genres. It could entail a comparison of how different Church fathers, theologians of different eras, or modern church traditions interpret the same passage. But all these require actual study.

In my experience, the problem with most “Bible Studies” is they’re obsessed with immediate application to a person’s individual life. We rush through the careful examination portion while dedicating the overwhelming majority of the time and energy to answering questions of personal relevance like “What does this passage mean to me?”, “How does this passage influence my life?”, or “What does this passage invite or call me to do?” This always causes me to wonder, ‘How can anyone discerningly apply a passage they don’t begin to understand?’

Therein lies the rub. Please forgive me for sounding less than charitable, but, quite honestly, I’ve become convinced the overwhelming majority of my fellow Jesus followers don’t really want to understand the Bible. For them that’s simply not the point of this social gathering. Instead what they’re interested in is piously sounding like they’re putting in hard work all the while half-assing their way to a predetermined destination via prooftexting. What they want out of a “Bible Study” is simplified sound bytes that serve to confirm their assumptions and reinforce their beliefs.

The trouble is, for many Christians Prooftexting = Bible Study. They’re so conditioned by years of practice that they struggle to understand the idea or imagine another way of interacting with Scripture. Nevertheless, Wikipedia defines prooftexting as “the practice of using isolated, out-of-context quotations from a document to establish a proposition in eisegesis (introducing one’s own presuppositions, agendas, or biases).” In other words, prooftexting means ripping a verse out of its original literary and cultural-historical context to justify one’s preexisting beliefs.2

Certainly this is not true of all Jesus followers, but the overwhelming social expectation for a “Bible Study” in most Christian circles is a bare minimum of exertion with a maximum amount of gained assurance and confidence about what they already believed. Think I’m putting too fine a point on it? No less than N.T. Wright, who is perhaps the most acclaimed theologian in the world today, once observed, “People often get upset when you teach them what is in the Bible rather than what they presume is in the Bible.” What most people want is prooftexting.

What befuddles me is that, growing up, I was taught that the Bible is sacred. Perhaps it was only lip service, but an incredible volume of words were dedicated to encouraging us to study God’s Word. That’s why I went to two Bible colleges, attended seminary, and invested an incredible amount of time and energy studying this stuff. My intention was and is to honor God by carefully interpreting and only then discerningly applying this sacred collection of texts. Yet now the same group of people condemn me for doing so because I’ve abandoned the cult of prooftexting.

The deeper I’ve gotten into studying Scripture the more heinous of a spiritual abuse I find proof-texting to be. It’s like sedating, caging, declawing, and neutering a powerful lion. I’ve come to see the Bible as not only alive but wild through the invigoration of the Holy Spirit. Like the dragons freed by Tyrion in Game of Thrones, I now perceive that the Bible needs to be left unharnessed and unchained. We need to stop trying to tame it and domesticate it, but allow it to violently break forth from our schemas and continually subvert our expectations.

Here I make a solemn vow. After decades of actively participating in half-ass Bible Studies or passively condoning their existence, I’m out. No longer will I participate in that broken system. No longer will I tolerate Bible Studies that skip from reading to applying without bothering to understand and wrestle with the text in-between. Never again will I attend or lead a Bible Study that dumbs and numbs the depth and breadth of Scripture with unrelenting proof-texting and a dearth of actual study. Instead I will unshackle the Bible and let it spiritually roam wild.

Some may wonder if it’s foolish to abandon the language of “Bible Study” instead of reform it. After all, my objection is not to studying the Bible but to the popularized approaches used in Bible Studies. The truth is, I’ve grown weary of such religious rhetorical battles. I now put “Bible Study” in the same rhetorical category as “fundamentalism” and “evangelicalism.” These terms retain technical value for those who know this field, but in my estimate they’re so far gone in their mainstream usage that I find them nearly impossible to use in effective communication.

So, am I willing to attend or lead a faith community event where we study Scripture? Yes. But here’s the deal: My patience is permanently depleted and I don’t feel bad about it. I’m not down with any of the populist methods I’ve witnessed that habitually digress into proof-texting extravaganzas, including and especially inductive Bible Study. I’m down with Lectio Divina, but if we’re going to study Scripture then we’re going to do it right. Leaning into my historical training, that means studying Scripture in tandem with excellent primary and secondary sources.