Reclaiming the Bible From Fear and Control
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness…” 2 Timothy 3:16
But what happens when it’s used for something else?
For many of us, the Bible was first handed to us as a tool for fear, a manual for judgment, or worse — a weapon of control. We were told it was “God’s Word,” but it felt more like a rulebook where love was conditional, and God’s presence was always just out of reach.
And yet… something in us stayed curious.
Something sacred whispered, “There’s more than you were told.”
A Book, Not a Bludgeon
The Bible is a collection of poetry, letters, laws, songs, dreams, stories, and wisdom, not a single monolithic decree. It was written by people across centuries in shifting cultures and was never meant to be used as a flat, literal, weaponised text.
When scripture is taken out of context and used to create certainty, it stops being sacred — it becomes dangerous. Entire lives have been crushed under verses taken out of context. Women silenced. LGBTQ+ people condemned. Slavery justified. Abuse enabled.
That was never the point.
What if we could reclaim it? What if we could meet the Bible again, not through the lens of fear, but through the lens of liberation, love, and humanity?
Reading With New Eyes
To reclaim scripture, we must let go of the way it was presented to us. That means:
- Understanding historical context – Who was writing? Who were they writing to? Why?
- Recognising different genres – Poetry isn’t doctrine. Dreams aren’t decrees. Metaphor isn’t law.
- Asking deeper questions – What does this reveal about humanity, about God, and about the world we’re called to co-create?
- Reading alongside Spirit, not just church leaders or gatekeepers.
It’s okay to wrestle with it. In fact, it’s holy.
Reclaiming the Sacred
Here’s what reclaiming the Bible might look like:
- Reading Genesis not as a science textbook, but as a mythic mirror of beginnings, separation, and sacred return.
- Sitting with the Psalms, not to memorise them, but to feel the raw humanness of grief, rage, hope, and trust.
- Reimagining Paul’s letters not as universal rules, but as conversations rooted in the culture of his time — flawed, human, inspired.
- Letting the Gospels reveal a radical, mystical, justice-driven Jesus, not the colonised version used to uphold the empire.
When we read the Bible this way, we start to feel it come alive. Not as a tool of control, but as a living conversation between humanity and the Divine.
Beyond the Bible: A Broader Sacred Conversation
Reclaiming sacred text doesn’t stop with the Bible. No one religion or tradition owns the truth. We find the Divine echoed in:
- The Bhagavad Gita speaks of duty and the sacred path of the soul.
- Buddhist sutras whisper the nature of impermanence and inner peace.
- The Indigenous wisdom traditions are rooted in the earth, ancestry, and spiritual reciprocity.
- The wisdom of sacred geometry and sacred geology, revealing how matter itself bears the imprint of the Divine.
- Numerology and the Intelligent Mathematical Blueprint (IMB) are ancient systems that meet modern insight to help decode our unique path, timing, and soul contract.
- And of course, science, not as opposition, but as revelation. Quantum physics, cosmic patterns, and the Fibonacci sequence all reflect the mystery we call God.
All of these are pieces of the same truth — windows into a vast and loving mystery.
Your Relationship With Scripture Is Yours
You don’t need permission to read the Bible or any sacred text differently. You don’t need a seminary degree to engage with the Divine. You don’t need to agree with every word to honour the beauty that’s there.
The Divine is not afraid of your questions. Sacred text doesn’t need to be perfect to be powerful. And you are allowed to bring your whole self to the page, your doubt, your grief, your trauma, your curiosity, your sacred imagination.
This isn’t about going back. It’s about going deeper.
Welcome to the reclamation.
Next up: We’ll dive into the Book of Genesis and explore how its creation myths aren’t meant to control science classes — but to speak to the soul’s deep yearning for meaning, identity, and return.
With you in the wonder,
Suzanne
Fellow seeker. Sacred questioner. Keeper of quiet faith.
