How (Not) to Use the Word 'Biblical'

And Why I Try to Avoid Using It At All

When I was an undergrad at Wheaton College, a regular stop on my student center rounds was a bulletin board near the college post office. This board was known by students as the Forum Wall, and it was used for all manner of informal announcements and discussion, a holdover from the pre-internet era of on-campus student-to-student communication. At any given time you could usually find half a dozen students gathered around the Forum Wall perusing the day’s postings. People put all manner of things on the board: requests for babysitting gigs, a quote or Bible verse someone found inspiring, meme-y photoshopped images of the college president, inquiries for a new roommate, advertisements of a voice recital, etc.

People would also us the Forum Wall to engage in idle theological sparring and musings. For example, I remember someone once posting a short reflection on whether it was theologically coherent to pray for someone in the past. “If God is outside of time,” the poster asked, “shouldn’t he be able to hear our ‘future’ prayers for things that are happening in our past?” In addition to quirky questioning like this, students of course engaged the usual suspects of theological controversy: predestination, political affiliation, gender roles, gifts of the Spirit, LGBT inclusion, and the like.

Though announcements and for sale notices were common, most of the airtime on the Forum Wall was reserved for jokes and debate of one kind or another. Students regularly wrote notes on others’ posts, correcting their grammar, offering scriptural counterpoints, expressing agreement or displeasure. It wasn’t uncommon for an especially funny or controversial piece of paper to solicit a dozen or more comments. The most common comment of all?

“Is this biblical?”

Sometimes this was meant sincerely. But the writing of this simple question had years ago also become the single most famous campus meme. Someone would post a picture of their friend in a silly hat. “Is this biblical?” An add for selling a collection of DVDs. “Is this biblical?” A poster for someone’s piano recital. “Is this biblical?”

This campus tradition illustrates just how flexible-to-the-point-of-uselessness evangelical employment of the word ‘biblical’ has become.

You Keep on Using That Word…

‘Biblical’ has come to be one of my least favorite words in the evangelical dialect of Christian-ese. This is for two main reasons, one less serious and one more serious.

The first (and less serious) issue with the way we use ‘biblical’ has to do with imprecision. Quite simply, we use the word ‘biblical’ so loosely and to describe so many things that it’s often difficult to discern what is even meant by it. We can speak of biblical arguments, biblical staff structures, biblical manhood/womanhood, a biblical view of abortion, democracy as a biblical form of government, how the Republican/Democratic platform is more biblical than Democrats’/Republicans’, biblical theology, biblical friendship, etc. etc.

Surely biblical-ness can’t mean the same thing in all these cases. What does it mean for democracy to be biblical? Our form of government is never mentioned, much less modeled in the Bible. Surely the claim that democracy is biblical comes from its application of scriptural principles like human dignity, impartiality, and the transcendence of social hierarchies in the Christ.

And if we’re talking about gender roles as biblical, do we mean the model of manhood lived by Jesus (single, celibate, homeless) or by David (adulterer, murderer) or by Abraham (polygamous)? More likely, ‘biblical’ means conforming to the Bible’s prescriptive teaching on sex and gender, yes? But this, of course, implies that one has rightly interpreted the Bible’s teaching on this or on any other topic, issue, or doctrine (more on this below).

What if someone were to say that the Trinity is a biblical doctrine. Well, this claim can’t mean that the actual word ‘trinity’ appears in scripture; it doesn’t. So, when we say the doctrine of the Trinity is biblical we likely mean something like ‘an orthodox theology implicit in scripture or taught by scripture when rightly interpreted.’

My personal (least) favorite is when endorsers or marketing teams slap the word onto a blurb for a book, declaring once and for all that its contents are biblical™ and therefore approved for faithful Christian consumption.¹ But when someone describes a book as ‘biblical’ do they mean it’s theologically orthodox? Quotes the Bible a lot? Aligns with their tradition’s/community’s view on X issue?

If we aren’t careful, ‘biblical’ becomes simply a stand in for ‘something I agree with’ or ‘a perspective I like’ or ‘something that feels Bible-y whether or not it’s actually drawn from the biblical text itself.’

This brings me to my second and more serious concern with the way we use the word ‘biblical’.

Thou Shalt Not Appeal to the Lord’s Book in Vain

The second (and far more serious) issue with everyday use of the word ‘biblical’ is that the term is often used in such a way as to borrow divine authority as a tool of human persuasion.

In the first instance, this happens when Christians use the word to describe their theological position over and against the position of other sincere, Bible-believing Christians who disagree with them. A classic example of this is when the credobaptist describes believer’s baptism as the “biblical” position at the expense of paedobaptists. I get appealing to scripture to defend your position, but simply slapping the word ‘biblical’ on your view slanders the other believer’s conscience and interpretive tradition. Bible-believing Presbyterians and Anglicans surely love and respect scripture’s authority every bit as much as their Baptist brethren, right? And many thoughtful folks on both sides of this hotly-contested, centuries-debated question could marshal strong scriptural evidence in favor of their view.

The fact is that there are some many things––mode of baptism, church governance, the tithe, sabbatarianism, the nature of free will, women’s ordination, etc.––over which sincere and faithful Christians have sincere disagreements. However, their trust in scripture’s authority is often not the issue. In cases like these, we shouldn’t slap the word ‘biblical’ on our view as a bullying tactic to belittle others. Instead of begging the question of a view’s biblical-ness, make the actual argument from scripture.

Far more egregious than this, though, is when we use the word ‘biblical’ for more culturally situated and idiosyncratic preferences. This could include describing someone as the ‘biblical’ candidate for office. Or (again) describing a book as ‘biblical’ because it’s written by a professing Christian with whom we agree. Or when we praise a woman who meticulously folds laundry saying she’s acting like a ‘biblical’ wife.

In many such cases, we are (perhaps subconsciously) trying to borrow God’s authority for that which we have no business borrowing it. This is something God takes very seriously, and we should too. The Third Commandment, after all, forbids us ‘taking’/’using’/’bearing’/’carrying’ YHWH’s name in vain. In the Ancient Near Eastern context in which this command was given this meant the Israelites were forbidden from using God’s name as a type of magical incantation for their selfish or merely human ends. Likewise, this command implies that in whatever the people do or claim to do on God’s behalf must be done with utmost reverence and humility. We don’t get to willy-nilly say that God is on our side in any war or conflict or even intellectual disagreement. That’s using the Lord’s name in vain.

We are not to borrow God’s authority for our own pet projects and preferences. Nor should we claim that authority it when stating our position about things about which we could be wrong or that humility would require us to be open to correction. I believe this is exactly what we do when we use the word ‘biblical’ in a haphazard way. We are implying that the co-eternal Spirit of God who inspired the Holy Scriptures agrees with what we are going to say next. You better be pretty darn sure you got that right, and if you aren’t sure, maybe find a different word than ‘biblical’ to describe your position.

As a marketing ploy, the word ‘biblical’ is also used as a buzzword to signal to a Bible-loving audience that they should buy and read it. “God approves of this book,” the ‘biblical’ label claims. “You can give me/us your money in confidence because our teaching is aligned with God’s Spirit in a way that those other no-so-biblical books aren’t.”

To sum up: We aren’t nearly careful enough with our use of the word biblical. At best it can be sloppy and imprecise. At worst it can be blasphemous––a clear and serious violation of the Third Commandment.

What I Say Instead

As you might have guessed by now, I actually try to avoid using the word ‘biblical’ whenever I can. If I do use it, I try to clarify what exactly I mean or what I’m claiming. Oftentimes I will swap out ‘biblical’ for ‘Christian’ if I’m trying to make a claim about what I believe is distinctive about Christ-follower belief on a given topic. I also sometimes (as I have once or twice in this article) use the word ‘scriptural’ as a less rhetorically loaded substitute. Or, I might say, “What I understand to be the biblical teaching…” as a way of creating distance between my view of what scripture says and what God has said. In any case, if I claim that language, thinking, or a perspective is “biblical” I try to point very closely and immediately to the evidence in support of that claim, e.g. a scriptural text where the language is used.

However, as I’ve already suggested, I mostly find the word unhelpful and for that reason don’t use it very often. In my experience there is almost always a better, more precise, more humble way of expressing what I mean when my Christian-ese brain reaches for the word ‘biblical’.

I invite you to join me in erring on the safe side and think of other words that are more respectful to brothers and sisters (or even pagans) with whom you disagree. I also caution you against careless use of your words, particularly if they use God’s name and authority like some sort of cultural trump card. We are commanded not to use God’s name in vain, and we will give an account for every idle word that escapes our mouth (Matt 12:36)––even if that word is ‘biblical’.

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1. Full disclosure: Both the marketing team at Brazos and at least one my endorsers have very recently described my next book, Men of Virtue, as “biblical.” I am of course grateful for the sentiment and do not judge or begrudge their use of the term. :) The idea for this article has been bouncing around in my head for months and it was in no way a passive-aggressive response to these generous endorsements.