Book Review by Kathy Vandergrift
Lambert, Zach W. Better Ways to Read the Bible: Transforming a Weapon of Harm into a Tool of Healing.
Brazos Press, c. 2025. 201 pages.
How to read the Bible is an old question – and ever new. It arises quickly in conversations about Christian faith and the LGBTQ+ community. This book holds a unique place among the many books about Biblical interpretation because of its alertness to the ways the Bible is currently being used to harm others, such as women, the LGBTQ+ community, and racial minorities, and its search for better interpretations. Pastor Zach Lambert, author of Better Ways to Read the Bible, is blunt about the harm done by misuse of the “Good Book”; changing that is what motivated his own, long struggle, which started with being kicked out of a youth group for asking too many questions.
This easy-to-read book is as much story as study guide. It is not an academic book, but it is informed by scholarship from diverse sources, which gives it reliability and credibility. Humble in tone, it inspires readers to follow Jesus and keep reading the Bible with fresh questions, rather than getting trapped into either-or choices on current controversial issues, which he addresses in helpful ways.
Most helpful is Lambert’s critique of four harmful approaches to interpreting what the Bible means for our times. In the chapter on literalism, he works through current questions about Genesis 1–3, reminds readers that the Bible is not a science book, and focuses on what Genesis tells us about Creator God’s character. In the chapter on the apocalypse he addresses the harm done by the interpretation of Revelations in the popular Left Behind series and highlights how a different reading of Revelations can help us resist empire. In the chapter on moralism he takes a fresh look at the story of the woman caught in adultery and how Jesus understood sin. The chapter on hierarchy, the fourth harmful lens, presents compelling evidence to conclude that “God is in the business of eradicating discriminatory human hierarchies in every form.”
The four rejected lenses detract from Jesus as the central message of the Bible. Lambert presents the Jesus lens as the primary and first of four helpful lenses to replace the four harmful ones. The centrality of Jesus is not new, but, as Lambert observes, churches sometimes practice a text-centered faith instead of a Jesus-centered faith. “Christians spend so much time arguing about what is “biblical” and “unbiblical” when we really should be distinguishing what is Christlike and what is un-Christlike.”
The three other helpful lenses support the primary Jesus lens. In the chapter on Context, Lambert takes on sexism, showing from the Bible itself that interpretations of a few texts to restrict women are a harmful distortion of Jesus way. The choice of Flourishing as the third helpful lens allows a fresh look at the justice theme through the whole Bible, in a cultural context where the word justice has itself become polarized. The chapter on Fruitfulness, the fourth healthy lens, includes a positive approach to inclusion by contrasting the Christlike good fruits of full acceptance with the documented evidence of the serious harm done when Bible texts are weaponized against LGBTQ+ Christians. “When we exclude the people God tells us to include, we miss out on the gifts and talents they bring. . . What Christians have often done to the
LGBTQ+ community is like the body of Christ cutting off an arm or a leg. We are incomplete without them.”
This book will not be the final word on how to read the Bible. It is a good conversation starter that takes the Bible and Jesus call to love God and neighbour seriously in its examination of current controversial issues. It models the kind of Bible reading that builds healthy churches and a positive Christian witness in society.