This essay is the first in a trilogy of essays entitled as a whole “Evangelicalism and the Kingdom of God.” The second and third installments are scheduled to release on August 16 and August 30, respectively.
In the Ted Talk “The Art of Misdirection” the brilliant pickpocket Apollo Robbins observes, “Attention is what steers your perceptions. It’s what controls your reality. It’s the gateway to the mind.”[1] With the aid of a randomly selected audience member, Robbins illustrates the power of distraction by pickpocketing his subject’s watch, cash, and other articles, and placing a shrimp in his pocket. Despite this humor, the implications of this lesson can actually be quite serious. Misdirected attention can result in auto collisions, medical errors, financial miscalculations, and a host of other negative outcomes.
Theology is no exception. The call to focus our attention on what matters most becomes more, not less, important when it comes to following Jesus. To its detriment, though, evangelical theology has largely erred by focusing its attention on the Scriptures over and above Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. In other words, evangelicals have focused their attention on their creed of sola scriptura over the proclamation of solus Christus as their primary guiding light.
The Question of Theology
A Preliminary Comment
At first, one might think that it’s wrong to pit Scripture against Jesus, but this argument is in fact Scriptural. After healing the paralytic on the Sabbath, Jesus told the pharisees, “You search the scriptures because you think that you have eternal life in them, and it is these that testify about me. And you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life” (John 5:39–40, LEB). According to Jesus, the pharisees misattributed to the Scriptures the means of eternal life instead of recognizing that Jesus deserved their sole and exclusive devotion as the source of all life. In this way, the pharisees replaced Jesus with the Scriptures, incorrectly making the latter the focus of their attention.
The Positive Arguments for This Position
This was a mistake, first, because no one would reasonably say that Scripture itself is Jesus. Consequently, one can preach from the Bible—for example, that Solomon was a historical king of Israel—without preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our Lord and his gospel form the heart of Scripture, but one can preach from the Bible without preaching its heart.
Furthermore, when Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus responded all three times with Scripture, but Satan also quoted actual Scripture word for word in his last temptation of Jesus as recounted in Luke 4:9-12. This shows that Scripture can be misused for purposes of abuse. However, the gospel that is Jesus Christ cannot be misused for purposes of abuse and must be counterfeited to be misused. Put another way, one can find a situation that would demand affirmative answers to both questions of “Is that Scripture?” and “Is that being misused to oppose God’s glory?” However, one cannot find a scenario that would allow for affirmative answers to both questions of, “Is that the gospel?” and “Is that being misused to oppose God’s glory?” The existence of false gospels or messiahs does not refute this argument; rather, the fact that non-counterfeit Scripture can be misused shows why it should not serve as one’s ultimate focal point.
This distinction between Scripture and Jesus Christ also points to a deeper consideration. Scripture is a fixed instantiation of words, whereas Jesus is a person. Scripture in and of itself does not have the ability to pursue its beloved, to actively call to account those who have strayed, or to intervene on behalf of those who belong to it, but Jesus can do all those things. Put another way, Jesus alone saves.
If Scripture alone was sufficient for salvation, then one could say something like, “If you read or study Scripture, you will be saved,” but this is clearly not true, because salvation requires faith, and having Scripture does not guarantee having faith (see Hebrews 4:2 or Jeremiah 42). In addition, neither does salvation seem to require Scripture. While “faith comes from hearing” (Romans 10:17, ESV), the word of Christ can come to people apart from reading Scripture. Adam, Enoch, and Abraham among others did not have Scripture but are quite presumably saved. Stories of Muslim conversions based on visions of Christ also suggest that divine intervention can save apart from a Bible.[2] Thus, Scripture alone cannot save, and for all these reasons, one ought not to replace Jesus Christ with his Scripture.
Responding to Objection 1: “Scripture and Jesus Go Together”
In response to these arguments, some might object that one cannot replace Jesus with Scripture because they are so closely interrelated. To this I would say that if Scripture and Jesus are not co-identical, then they must be distinct, which means they are interchangeable. Furthermore, Scripture teaches that God created the sun, moon, and stars to reveal his glory, but this has not prevented humans from turning them into idols. In a similar way, Scripture is like an arrow on a signpost that the pilgrim uses to navigate toward her or his goal, but to treat the arrow as the destination is both possible and a good metaphor for this sort of idolatry.
This essay intends not to minimize the value of Scripture but rather to lead evangelicals to evaluate it according to its own testimony. Perhaps counterintuitively, this approach maximizes the value of Scripture, and any alternative minimizes its importance. If only Jesus should be our ultimate guiding light and if he has said that Scripture should come second to him as such, then those who act otherwise subtly reject his authority and (consistent with the dynamics of idolatry) arrogate it to themselves. But if one interacts with Scripture in one’s own authority, not under Jesus’, what happens? This perverts engagement with Scripture into a mastering exercise designed to inflate one’s ego and advance one’s self-centered ends, just as the pagan cults sought to manipulate their idols. Thus, putting Scripture first will enervate one’s engagement with and result in the devaluation, functional rejection, manipulation, and improper use of the same.
To be clear, this thesis does not mean that Christians should replace time spent engaging with Scripture with contemplative meditation or reading emotive devotionals about Jesus. To make Jesus one’s focal point does not mean focusing on a mystical or emotive relationship with Jesus that relies on one’s feelings, bodily sensations, or internal thoughts. Rather, it consists of “fixing our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2, LEB) and “seek[ing] the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God,” (Colossians 3:1, LEB). This means living as those who have been united with him in his death and resurrection and expressing that union in the tangible choices and circumstances of our lives.
Responding to Objection 2: “But What About Psalm 119?”
Another objection might point to Psalm 119. Given that the psalmist speaks of “having my eyes fixed on all your commandments” (119:6, ESV[3]) and declares “I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love” (119:48, ESV), one might wonder what to make of this essay’s arguments.
First, the psalm is not a love poem about the Bible itself. Since the modern, Protestant Bible did not exist at the time of Psalm 119, it cannot serve as an explicit endorsement of the same. Even more to the point, though, Psalm 119 is more about keeping the word of God than it is about loving the Bible. The psalmist clearly lays out their focus in the very first verse, “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, / who walk in the law of Yahweh” (LEB, emphasis added). Only then does the psalmist proceed to praise the teaching and instruction God gives for this purpose. The focus here is on God’s word as an expression of his character and the psalmist’s adherence to such in their life. Though the psalmist certainly meditates on God’s precepts (see verse 15), the psalmist seems keenly focused on walking in God’s ways in terms of the psalmist’s life, choices, and actions. For instance, verse 121 states, “I have done justice and righteousness; / do not leave me to my oppressors” (LEB, emphasis added). Thus, Psalm 119 is about keeping the word of God, which could also be described as becoming conformed to the image of Christ (see Romans 8:29), which in no way raises problems for this essay’s arguments. If anything, it supports them.
To help conceptualize this, the Bible might be analogized to a set of light bulbs, with each light bulb being a book of the Bible. The paper and ink that make up each book and represent the text are not God’s word, just as the filament of a light bulb is not the light. The light as a substance is God’s Word, Jesus, who fills all of Scripture just as each light bulb emits light, but no light bulb emits all the rays of light, and to identify one or even all of the light bulbs as the light would be incorrect. Thus, even though Jesus is the Word of God, this does not make him identical or co-extensive with the Bible or even with Scripture more generally.
In support of this analogy, consider that evangelicals usually conflate the terms “Bible”, “Scripture”, and “God’s word”, treating them all as exactly the same, whereas these three terms are closely associated and even interrelated but not precisely equivalent. “Bible” refers to a collection of Scripture based on a canon, and there are actually at least three different Bibles—the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox—each with their own unique canon.
Furthermore, even whatever Bible is based on the “right” canon is not necessarily an exhaustive collection. In fact, Scripture contained in all three Bibles suggests that none of them contain the totality of Scripture that has ever existed. For example, 2 Chronicles 9:29 states, “As for the remainder of the words of Solomon from the first to the last, are they not written in the chronicles of Nathan the prophet and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer, concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat?” (LEB). Here “the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite” and the “visions of Iddo the seer” are referenced as writings. Some might respond that while these writings existed, they might not have been Scripture. However, Ahijah the Shilonite appears as a known and verified prophet in 1 Kings 11:29-39, and the fact that the writing is described as “the prophecy of” would certainly seem to lead to the conclusion that this writing bore God’s imprimatur in a way that would make it Scripture. The same logic applies to “the visions of Iddo the seer.” Consequently, the Bible itself seems to suggest that it is not an exhaustive collection of all Scripture that has ever existed.
So much for the term “Bible.” Here, “Scripture” is defined as a particular instantiation of God’s word that has been written down, or put another way, a particular set of God’s words in writing. However, one cannot say that all of Scripture is all of God’s word. Even if we had every piece of Scripture that ever existed, this would not be the totality of God’s word, both because it would not be all the words that God has ever spoken and also because chapter one of The Gospel of John reserves that spot for a particular person.
While this essay cannot exhaustively treat the enormous question of how to define the term “God’s word,” we can start by identifying Jesus Christ as the preeminent definition of the Word of God (uppercase “W”). When it comes to God’s word (lowercase “w”), the phrase is often used in Scripture for referring to a particular message from God (see 1 Samuel 9:27) or an expression of God’s power at work (see Hebrews 11:3). Overall, a good way of describing God’s word is that it is an expression of God’s character. In sum, one can envision God’s word, Scripture, and the Bible, respectively, as concentric circles that get progressively smaller and are contained within the bigger, previous term, with God’s word being the biggest circle, Scripture being the next smallest, and the Bible being the smallest.
In light of this analysis, consider another analogy. If forced to choose between the two, the beloved should always choose her lover and not his letters, because the lover and his love are bigger than the sum of his correspondence, even though each composition voices that indescribable love. Indeed, if the beloved did choose the letters instead, some might wonder whether she was a narcissist and valued the letters not as expressions of the lover’s affection but as means of stroking her own ego. But the truth in all this does not logically equate to or functionally result in devaluing the lover’s writings. To the contrary, it is the beloved who chooses the lover first who will also wait by the mailbox for the next correspondence, read the letters over and over, melt at the words of a love poem, and ardently respond to his plea for her affection and devotion. Jesus Christ has called us to love him and treasure his writings, but if we choose his letters apart from or in place of him, then we have become like the narcissistic beloved who never really loved at all.
The Question of Fact
Having established that Jesus should come first as our ultimate focal point, I would also maintain that the evidence leads to the conclusion that evangelical theology has generally focused on Scripture as its guiding light or focal point over and above the person of Jesus Christ.
Our Language
First, it seems that the primary messaging of evangelicalism tends to revolve around Scripture rather than Christ. For starters, how often have you heard someone say in a church context that we just need to preach the Bible, as opposed to saying that we need to preach Jesus? Similarly, how many churches talk about Bible-based teaching as opposed to Christ- or gospel-centered teaching? For that matter, how many churches have “Bible Church” but not the name of Jesus in their own name?
The subtitle of a quite popular evangelical book also exemplifies this claim when it states that the Bible is both “necessary” and “enough.” The back cover of this book implies via rhetorical questions that the Bible is “sufficient for our complicated lives” and that we can “trust the Bible completely.”[4] Surprisingly, these assertions sound an awful lot like statements that Christians typically, and ought only to, say of Jesus. These examples matter, because what we prioritize in our language indicates what guides us.
Our Epistemology
As another point, consider the question: do we believe that Jesus is God because the Bible says so, or do we believe that the Bible is God’s word because Jesus says so? Most often, and almost uniformly, evangelicals seem to say the former,[5] but I would maintain that this gets things backwards. Christianity’s chain of how we know what we know does not begin with the Bible but rather with the historical-eschatological event of Jesus’ resurrection. The Bible is one form of testimony that bears witness to this event, but it is Jesus and whom he showed himself to be in that spatial-temporal action that sets the foundation for Christian epistemology. Evangelicals’ mistaken answer here both exemplifies how and potentially partly explains why they have focused on Scripture instead of Jesus as their ultimate focal point.
I believe that, unfortunately, evangelical theology has put Scripture in a place that Scripture does not claim for itself because evangelical theology then can be more easily manipulated and manipulate Scripture to protect entrenched interests and improperly assuage its followers’ psychological needs. In a sense, approaching a Bible can seem much easier than approaching Jesus. Anyone can easily acquire a Bible, handle it, open it, memorize its words, and learn to exegete it, all of which involve acting upon the Bible. We cannot do the same with Jesus. Rather, if the Apostle John’s encounter with Jesus in chapter one of the Revelation of Jesus Christ indicates anything, it is a fearful thing to approach Jesus as our risen Lord and Savior. Instead of acting upon something, we in our encounters with Jesus are acted upon, and if we heed his call, are broken as he conforms us to his image (see Romans 8:29).
The Ramifications
At this point, some might ask: why does this matter at all? In response, the one-in-sixty rule for navigation states that for every sixty miles an aviator flies with a one-degree error in their direction they will arrive one mile removed from their destination. If we misfocus our attention away from Jesus, this will divert our reality and our message away from him as well.
Unfortunately, the effects of this misdirected attention appear all too readily in two trends in the evangelical church in the United States. First, consider how the American evangelical church has aligned itself with the Trump-MAGA movement. Claiming to take back the United States in order to restore Judeo-Christian values and combat anti-Christian bias[6] seems inconsistent (to put it lightly) when one’s champion has raped at least one woman according to the common meaning of the term[7] and sexually assaulted other women[8] (see Proverbs 3:31), has boasted about sexually assaulting women[9] (see Proverbs 24:2), owns an organization that has committed tax fraud[10] (see Matthew 22:21), has committed fraud[11] (see Proverbs 4:24), has deprived his workers of their wages[12] (see James 5:4), and based on his responses to the discovery of these evil misdeeds, has yet to change. This inconsistency also exposes any pro-life argument in support of this alignment as an “ends justify the means” rationalization, propounded more ardently by some and simply accepted by others.
To be clear, this essay does not claim to prescribe how one should vote or have voted. The point is that the reasons the evangelical movement has proffered for its strong embrace of President Trump do not add up. As one pastor observed, “Many of them saw Trump as Messiah-like… Many of them were so Trump-focused that he became their sermon series.”[13] It seems that President Trump’s character and behaviors do not even give many evangelicals pause at this point in large part because they love and believe his promises to restore their ideology to supremacy in the culture and nation writ large, just as a human “messiah” should. In a similar way throughout the gospels, the pharisees claimed to protect and defend “their” Scriptures, all the while betraying its values. For example, Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin featured a charge of blasphemy based on the Mosaic law but violated numerous principles of that same law and culminated in the murder of their Messiah. But those who are Christ’s are not pharisees but redeemed; therefore, let us live as such and focus our eyes on our one and only Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who will fulfill all his promises to us.
Some might ask whether making Scripture one’s focal point would best support seeing these dynamics as inconsistent given the Scripture references included above. However, remember that making the Bible into an idol rejects Jesus’ authority and puts oneself in his position, thereby enabling a mastering and manipulating approach to Scripture. The fact that the Scripture passages referenced above seem to have had little to no effect on many evangelicals’ views only reinforces this essay’s thesis.
The second trend is the shrinking of the church in the U.S.[14] We cannot simply blame this mass exodus on the degradation of social mores, because we should not rely on the dominance of cultural religion that does not penetrate the heart. Social supremacy is not the gospel. Some might say that the church is crying out, has decried the shifting of cultural tides, and has reached out to a society gone wayward. This, however, does not negate the argument but if anything strengthens it. Jesus attracted sinners to himself. If the church has preached and those listening have turned away, then our lips must not have his gospel upon them. If we are “the light of the world” and the “salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13-14, LEB), then the darkening of this world and the bland decay of this age can only mean that our light has dimmed and our saltiness diminished. As one can see, the ramifications of this departure from Christ are not minor quirks but quite serious in nature.
Conclusion: What to Do?
This essay has argued both that humans can make the Bible into an idol and that evangelicals in the United States have broadly done so. Given this critique, what alternative does this essay propose? It is simply an inversion: to proclaim the way of reserving for Jesus Christ, and him alone, the one spot of our hearts’ desires and the single focal point of our attention and lives. In this context, it means to recognize that we as Christians do not worship an object but a person.
This calls us to give up any means by which we mask or compensate for our weaknesses before Jesus. Doing this leads us to see our nakedness, helplessness, and vulnerability, moving us to cast ourselves on his mercy, crying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon [us]” (see Matthew 9:27 and Luke 18:38, LEB). When we admit our fragility and strip away our paper armor, we find that we have no claim of our own to being saved and in that sense are more vulnerable than we ever realized. At the same time though, we learn that we are not alone, but that on the other side of death there stands a Living Person, whom we cannot control nor master, but who in his gracious mercy loves us and has freely offered us eye salve to give us sight, white robes to gloriously clothe us, and fine gold to make us rich in him, even as he himself has declared, “Behold, I am making all things new!” (Revelation 21:5, LEB).
[1] Apollo Robbins, The Art of Misdirection (TED Conferences, LLC, 2013), 8:33, https://www.ted.com/talks/apollo_robbins_the_art_of_misdirection.
[2] “More Than Dreams: Muslims Coming to Christ Through Dreams and Visions | Lausanne World Pulse Archives,” https://lausanneworldpulse.com/perspectives-php/595/01-2007; Darren Carlson, “When Muslims Dream of Jesus,” The Gospel Coalition, May 31, 2018, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/muslims-dream-jesus/; “More than a Dream — Muslims Coming to Christ,” AGNews, May 30, 2023, https://news.ag.org/en/article-repository/news/2023/05/more-than-a-dream-muslims-coming-to-christ.
[3] I opted for the ESV for these quotations because its word choice in translation seems to provide a stronger sense of support for the objection’s argument than the LEB translation.
[4] Kevin DeYoung, Taking God At His Word: Why the Bible Is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me (Crossway, 2014).
[5] See, for example: Simon Turpin, “10 Biblical Reasons Jesus Is God,” Answers in Genesis, August 8, 2017, https://answersingenesis.org/jesus/jesus-is-god/10-biblical-reasons-jesus-is-god/; Bryce Klabunde, “How Do We Know That Jesus Is God?,” Insight for Living, June 15, 2009, https://insight.org/resources/article-library/individual/how-do-we-know-that-jesus-is-god; “Is Jesus God? Why Should I Believe That Jesus Is God?,” GotQuestions.Org, https://www.gotquestions.org/is-Jesus-God.html.
[6] “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Eradicates Anti-Christian Bias,” The White House, February 6, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-eradicates-anti-christian-bias/; “Given Christianity’s Dominance in US, Trump Raises Eyebrows with Anti-Christian Bias Initiative,” AP News, February 13, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/eradicating-anti-christian-bias-trump-religious-freedom-c4a01b2d75b471e7329f84a6e662c934.
[7] Jack Queen and Luc Cohen, “Trump Sexually Abused Writer E. Jean Carroll, Must Pay Her $5 Million, Jury Says,” Legal, Reuters, May 9, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/legal/jurors-set-deliberate-civil-rape-case-against-donald-trump-2023-05-09/; Aysha Bagchi, “Did Donald Trump Rape E. Jean Carroll? Here’s What a Jury and Judge Said.,” USA TODAY, January 29, 2024, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/01/29/donald-trump-rape-e-jean-carroll/72295009007/.
[8] Michael Barbaro and Megan Twohey, “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private,” U.S., The New York Times, May 14, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/us/politics/donald-trump-women.html; “Transcript: Donald Trump’s Taped Comments About Women,” U.S., The New York Times, October 8, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html.
[9] The New York Times, “Transcript.”
[10] Jonah E. Bromwich et al., “Trump’s Company Gets Maximum Punishment for Evading Taxes,” New York, The New York Times, January 13, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/13/nyregion/trump-organization-tax-fraud.html.
[11] Ben Protess et al., “Trump Convicted on All Counts to Become America’s First Felon President,” New York, The New York Times, May 30, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/30/nyregion/trump-convicted-hush-money-trial.html.
[12] Steve Reilly, “USA TODAY Exclusive: Hundreds Allege Donald Trump Doesn’t Pay His Bills,” USA TODAY, April 25, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/.
[13] David Siders, “The ‘Shrinking Baptist Convention’ Is Doubling Down on the Culture Wars,” POLITICO, July 3, 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/03/the-shrinking-baptist-convention-is-doubling-down-on-the-culture-wars-00104174.
[14] Travis Mitchell, “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace,” Pew Research Center, October 17, 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/; Daniel A. Cox, “The Coming Evangelical Christian Decline – The Survey Center on American Life,” Survey Center on American Life, AEI, September 8, 2022, https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/the-coming-evangelical-christian-decline/, https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/the-coming-evangelical-christian-decline/.