Beyond a Veggie Tales Gospel: Russell Moore on a Christ-Centered Understanding of Scripture

What's missing from our Bible studies and Sunday School lessons? It could very well be Jesus, according to Dr. Russell Moore.

In his must-read Henry Institute commentary, the SBTS dean builds the case for a Christ-centered understanding of the Bible. Not stopping at the Bible, Moore contends that we are to see everything, including "galaxies and quasars and blue whales and local churches," as existing for Christ's glory.

From "Beyond a Veggie Tales Gospel: Why We Must Preach Christ from Every Text," Moore begins in his usual anecdotal style:

Have you ever seen the episode of Veggie Tales in which the main characters are martyred by anti-Christian terrorists? You know, the one in which Bell Z. Bulb, the giant garlic demon, and Nero Caesar Salad, the tyrannical vegetable dictator, take on the heroes for their faith in Christ. Remember how it ends? Remember the cold dead eyes of Larry the cucumber behind glass, pickled for the sake of the Gospel? Remember Bob the tomato, all that remained was ketchup and seeds?

No, of course you don't remember this episode. It doesn't exist--and it never will. Such a concept would be rejected out of hand by the creative minds behind the popular children's program, and the evangelical video-buying public wouldn't hand over the cash to buy such a product. It would be considered too disturbing, too dark, for children. Instead, the Veggie Tales episodes we've all seen are bloodless. They take biblical stories, and biblical characters, but they mine the narrative for abstractions--timeless moral truths that can help children to be kinder, gentler, and more honest. There's almost nothing in any episode that isn't true. But what's missing is Jesus.

As evidenced by the shallowness of our pulpits, Moore states, "Whenever we approach the Bible without focusing in on what the Bible is about--Christ Jesus and His Gospel--we are going to wind up with a kind of golden-rule Christianity that doesn't last a generation, indeed rarely lasts an hour after it is delivered." This explains the paper-thin VBS Gospel and Sunday School discipleship handed down from the last generation of evangelicals, one that continues to pervade our churches as it's latched on by this generation.

Moore argues that understanding the biblical narrative is much like understanding the film The Sixth Sense after already knowing the plot. "If I were to see the movie now, I would see the same film that everyone else saw at its release, but I would be seeing it with the mystery decoded. I would notice patterns and themes. I would see where the story was going." Moore explains:

The same is true of the storyline of Scripture. The apostles announce that a great mystery has been revealed in the gospel of Christ Jesus--a mystery that explains the "whys" of everything from the creation itself to the existence of the nation of Israel to the one-flesh union of marriage. What God has been doing in His universe for all these millennia, Paul tells the church at Ephesus is not accidental or haphazard. It is part of a blueprint, a purpose "which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph 1:10). Paul tells the church at Colossae of Jesus that "all things were created through Him and for Him" and that "in Him all things hold together" (Col 1:16-17).

Moore brings the commentary to a conclusion showing why it's "damning" to abstract biblical truths or principles from Christ and His relation to them. "It is because, apart from Christ, there are no promises of God," he writes.

The people in our pews can go to hell clinging to Bible verses abstracted from Jesus. One can read the message of Psalm 24: "Who shall ascend to the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully" (Psalm 24:3-4). Perhaps the Pharisee that Jesus mentions had this verse in mind when he stood in the Temple, next to the repentant Publican. Perhaps the Pharisee--and his successor on the altar at First Baptist Church--can say, "Thank you God that I can approach you with clean hands and a pure heart." That attitude is damning.

It is damning not because it is not true--it is. It is damning because there is only one Man who can stand before the holiness of God, only one Man with a pure heart and clean hands, only One who is the righteousness of God. If I pretend to come before God apart from Him--as though this text and a thousand more like it applies to me outside of Jesus Christ--I will only find condemnation. But, hidden in Christ, this promise is my promise. When I cry out with the Publican, "Have mercy!" and find myself in Christ, then everything that God has promised to Jesus now belongs to me.

The Christian Church has been entrusted with more than a Veggie Tales Gospel. It's to our everlasting shame that many in our culture conceive of evangelicalism as a movement toward morality, that is, that Christians are calling people to merely external, moral reform. Sadly, the culture is right in its assessment because many in our churches do see Christianity as just that--a morality movement. This is so because it is precisely what church-goers are taught from their pulpits and in their Sunday School curriculum.

Whenever Bible-based religion becomes more about personal morality than sinners coming to understand mercy, that religion desperately needs Jesus. Just ask the Pharisees.