For Christmas, one of my colleagues gave me a compass. I’m not sure what to make of that but, since he’s off guarding the President at the inauguration, I don’t ask (as I write, he’s scanning the crowds in D.C., armed with his 9mm and an elevated score on the Psychopathic Deviate scale of the MMPI-II. This is why I don’t ask.).

At any rate, it’s a cool compass. It’s got a mirror with a small hole at the bottom, an arm with a peephole to look through, and lots of precision-looking devices and numbers under the glass. I keep it at my office. I have no idea whatsoever how to use the thing. That’s what cell phones are for, after all.

Well, it was densely foggy this morning when I took my dogs out for their daily romp at the park. I couldn’t see familiar landmarks or the homes that line the perimeter of the park. I found myself thinking about the compass at that time and, in a foggy stroke of creativity, thought that maybe my colleague gave me - not a compass but - a metaphor.

I’ve often said to him (I repeat myself monotonously with my friends) that the Bible is not a map, it’s a compass. I believe this to be true. When I first became a Christian I frustrated myself because I expected the Bible to show me exactly which step to take next and in what direction I needed to go. It didn’t work, anymore than my compass would have helped me find the landmarks and houses at the park if I had treated it like a map.

God has given us a compass, not a map; He has given us the Bible. But if we do not know how to use the compass that He has provided, then we may be worse off than if we had no compass at all. We might wander off in a direction that we think is the correct one, but it may be the very opposite of the right way. We are prone, after all, to follow the inclinations of our hearts rather than the compass. And, given enough distance, we all walk in circles.

Understanding a verse, passage, or book takes no small amount of work; given our “instant” culture, we want results, not formulas. God, however, doesn’t seem to be interested in what we want, only in what we need. This is fair, I guess, since this is His creation and my life belongs to Him. That sorta gives Him the right to do what He wants: seeing how He’s omniscient and good, I suppose He’s entitled to do that.

Does this mean we all need to invest years of study in seminaries, learning Hebrew and Greek, systematic theology, and - most relevant - principles of interpretation so that we can understand the Bible better? No. I would recommend it to anyone who has the time and money, but it’s not absolutely necessary. We have, thanks to moveable type, media, the internet, and an incredible thing called the church, a wealth of information at our disposal. Hopefully, we are all involved in a church or body of believers where we can find a wiser, more learned believer than ourselves so we can ask her what she thinks.

Two verses in particular bear upon my point. The first is 2 Tim 2.15, where Paul tells us to be careful to handle the word of God properly. The second verse is 2 Tim 3.16-17. The latter has the amazing promise that God’s word is able to equip us for every good work. Not just most or a lot or almost all, but every good work.

To have the Bible and Holy Spirit accomplish that remarkable feat in us, we have to learn how to accurately read the compass. It takes time, as I said before, but do you really have something more important to do with your life?


2 Cor 1.13