If you approach scripture looking for an answer to a question like, “How should I live my life?” an honest reader will come away with a very good answer. That’s all there.

If you approach scripture looking for an answer to the question, “What should I believe?” you will end up confused. It’s the old joke: Gather three theologians around a verse and you’ll get four doctrines.

Modern evangelicalism is an embarrassing mess of people who believe they’ve cornered the meaning of scripture. Throw the Catholic church in there and it’s a overwhelmingly embarrassing mess.

Scripture asks us to be united, and yet we’re not.

So maybe we’re looking at the whole thing the wrong way around.