Friday, October 15, 2010

Bible


The Bible is not a resource for the church or for the Christian life.  It does not exist so that the world or the church may draw upon the elements of knowledge, understanding and wisdom that are found in it.  It is not a resource for liturgy, or for personal sanctification.  It is not a resource for academic study, or the accumulation of doctrinal knowledge, or any or such like use.  The Bible is not a passive resource under our hands, and if we make it so, we rebel against it!

Consider Paul's exhortation to Timothy:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.  (2 Tim 3:14-17)

By understanding the text in red above, it is clear that the word of the Apostle Paul (preaching the New Covenant) is on the same level of authority as the Sacred Scripture (by which Paul means what we call the "Old Testament").

Furthermore, just as Paul was not primarily a resource which allowed himself to be passively used, but on the other hand was an active instructor, so it is with the Scripture.  The Scripture is not a passive "resource" which we use, but is an active power, through the Spirit, that has within it the ability to make us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

In fact, as seen in the words in blue, above, the very words of Scripture are breathed by God.  This is reminiscent of the divine in-breathing into Adam at his creation.  New life comes to us by the Spirit as we hear the creative Word spoken by God.  The Church of Christ lives by the actual, active speech of the Word of Christ, bringing spiritual life to our souls.

How serious it is, then, that we listen to this Word in every way that it speaks to us.  How serious it is to study the Bible, not as a "resource," but to be taken hold of by it, and by it to be recreated into new men and women of God!  We should marvel at this divine speech, pine to hear it, and seek to understand it.

A church which is not characterized by this hunger is a church which merely uses the Bible as a resource, implicitly under men's control, to justify their own projects, and to bring a nostalgic smell of Christianity into her life!  Cut off from her food, this church will eventually die.  Her spiritual soul will fade away into a haze, her work mechanically operated by those who trample her courts, until finally the Lord himself takes away her candlestick!

May it not be this way.

2 comments:

  1. It seems to me this "self help book" view of the Bible is very often propagated by those standing in Moses' seat. "Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you." ~ Matthew 23:1-3 (NIV). He could say this because these teachers, when quoting from memory the Law and the Prophets, were indeed espousing God breathed testimony about Himself. But to these "teachers" He said, "You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." ~ John 5:39-40 (NIV).

    So the point of the Scriptures is to bring us to the Lord Jesus. This is why I strive so hard to get folks to "see" Jesus portrayed in the OT. One wonders why the church has so many spokesmen who seem to lack the Holy Spirit's power to self teach.

    ReplyDelete