1. The Bible (more specifically, our dogmatism around the Bible)
The Bible is full of uncertainty, disinterest and even apathy. Unanswered prayers, and prayers answered in ways no one asked for, appear from book to book. I like to think of the Bible as a library of 66 books. Each one carries intense and often uncomfortable stories that show what it feels like when our spiritual scaffolding starts to crumble. They remind us that people in the past were often far less certain than they should have been.
From Moses wandering in the desert, to Job sitting in the dirt picking at his scabs, to John the Baptist questioning Jesus from a prison cell, we haven’t been taught that faith can look like this: dry deserts, scars, honest questions about Jesus.
Whether it’s been explicitly taught or subtly caught, most of us have not been prepared to embrace a faith that stays committed in the face of uncertainty. Instead, we’ve been told that the stronger our certainty, the stronger our faith. Ironically, that kind of faith can become ossified and brittle and often looks to the rest of the world like close-mindedness or stubbornness.
While spiritual leaders work hard to protect people from doubt, the human experience keeps calling for something different—more questions, more wrestling, more mystery. Because in real life, the sick aren’t always healed, the addicted aren’t always delivered, and broken relationships aren’t always mended. The only thing that seems certain is that certainty itself doesn’t change our reality.
The Bible was never meant to be used that way. Faith is not about psychological certainty; it’s about confidence—choosing to move forward based on the trust you have (Heb. 11:1).
The Bible isn’t an argument for God’s existence (though it does reveal his character). It’s not a science textbook or a math book. It’s a record of human experience—a reliable and honest mirror reflecting our thoughts, emotions and motives. And it’s worth saying, especially for the skeptics in your life: The Bible isn’t a book of spells. We aren’t delivered, saved or healed by reciting a verse.
The real barrier isn’t that Christianity has a sacred text; every worldview does. The problem is when we practice a hermeneutic of certainty—when we treat our interpretations as the standard for who’s in and who’s out.
When our interpretation becomes the price of admission for following Jesus, we risk helping people lose their way. Faith has always been about embracing truth wherever it’s found—including, but not limited to, the Bible. None other than John Calvin said, “All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God.”