Did you sing this song growing up?
"The B. I. B. L. E.
Yes, that's the book for me.
I stand alone on the Word of God.
The B. I. B. L. E."
I sure did. Hundreds of times. I personally have 8-10 Bibles, not including Children's Bibles, or my Greek text or Hebrew-Greek Keynote Study Bible, or the box of very old Bibles handed down to me from generations. Those are all in storage.
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In the last post I sort of joked about how God stole my Bible. Of course, I cannot prove it, but I do half expect Peter to hand it to me as I walk through the Pearly Gates. Of course he'll have a smile on his face, perhaps a smirk and a nod too. We'll see.
Believe it or not a nice long break from the Bible was really good for me. I mean, I didn't stop reading altogether but I at least stopped that relentless pursuit of Biblical knowledge that so often consumes us. If we're honest we have to admit that LIFE does not come from the Bible. LIFE comes from God and Christ. What actually comes from the Bible is an explanation of LIFE in and through Christ. And that explanation is nearly essential for spiritual growth. But LIFE is found in God, by His Spirit, and alongside His people. I say "nearly" essential because, once again, if we're honest we have to ask some tough questions. So here we go....Please don't shoot me until the end.
Do we really think that if we were somehow completely stripped from access to a Bible that we would cease to grow in Christ? Imagine if a group of us were whisked away to some dessert island for some reason, perhaps an exile of some sort, and were not allowed a Holy Bible. Imagine that. Or what if you were put in jail for 40 years without those 66 precious books. Imagine that. Is it a lost cause? No growth? No chance? If it were true then would that mean God is limited to only working if a person has a Bible? Amazing thought. I am planting this thought only to make us think. I am not suggesting one should give up Bible reading or that the Bible is not God’s chosen tool for communication about Himself. I believe very strongly that the Bible is:
- One of God’s #1 chosen tools for communicating Himself to His creation
- Inspired by God
- Revelation and that no subsequent revelation to an individual or group will ever contradict it
- Powerful and it can quickly become an idol of an immeasurable size.
#4 is the real issue.
But think about this...We know that the entire beginning of Christianity was a beginning without the Bible as we know it. The Bible as we know it didn't start to come together until the late 4th Century. Even though they didn’t have a chapter-verse, leather bound, NIV to preach from, I think we all would agree the beginning of Christianity was a good one. But we can't say they were "Bible-believing Christians" now can we? So what did those first tens of thousands of followers of Christ have in order to get the ball rolling? Well, they had the Spirit of God... Himself, as well as the closest friends and followers of Christ... Himself. And with God Himself at the wheel the early Church exploded with power and growth, and thereby recorded astonishing things for us to read today. Over time they had a collection of circulating gospel, and letters from Paul, as well as the Old Testament. But these were each just further testament to what they were experiencing all around. So now that we have the full Canon, the Bible, the Scriptures, is the amazing stuff we read about gone? Is it replaced with rhetoric? Eclipsed by exegesis? Is it crazy to think all the tremendous life-changing power of the Spirit (as well as the close heart-felt relationships with Christ) are now contained only as stories in the text of the Bible? I sure think it’s crazy.
That’s brings me to the million-dollar question: So what is the role of the Bible in our lives? How are we to approach these pages? Most importantly, how are we to apply the words of the Word? Those are the important questions, I think; the ones with which I have wrestled for two decades. Only now am I beginning to feel more confident about the place of the Scriptures in everyday life, in our relationship with God, and as a co-guide to the Church (I say co-guide here on purpose, for reasons stated below). I'm still working things out in my head but here are some thoughts with which I get started. Here are my three truths about the Bible, followed by three applications. I'll elaborate on each of these in future chapters.
THREE TRUTHS ABOUT THE BIBLE (summary introduction):
- Number One: The MESSAGE of the Bible is without error and eternal, but the text of the Bible comes from various manuscripts which have minor, inconsequential issues. Hang on...Hold your fire! I'll explain in the next post, beginning with my 1994 trip to the Holy Lands, where I would see the textual mistakes in the Dead Sea Scrolls first hand. I do believe God ordained the Bible to be his instrument. Most important thing to realize, however, given these points, is that it takes God's Spirit to understand and apply what is written in the Bible.
- Number Two: The Bible is narrative history about God and His work in the world. If a book in the Bible reads as a history, it is a history. If it reads like a letter, it's a letter. If poetry, it's poetry. If prophecy, it's prophecy. It's pretty simple. It is not a book of magic spells and secret codes which, if one can only get enough training (or luck) to decipher them, he can then wield that awesome power and unlock the Bible’s deeper mysteries. Yet, with that being said, it does take God's Spirit to understand and apply what is written.
- And Number Three: The misuse of the Bible is the number one greatest source of division and death in all of human history. Why? Because it takes God's Spirit to understand and apply what is written.
Those are the three important truths about the Bible which I will ~oh-so~ carefully explain later. Now here are, in my humble opinion, the three great themes of the Bible. These are the most important applications of the Bible. (I sort of feel like God gave these to me because they are SO easy to remember. :-) It is the abbreviation of the word "Application" – App.)
- Atonement
- People
- Power
These are the great three themes of the Bible, and I want to write about each of these in more length as well. For now, here is a summary. But first, I know what you're thinking! Of course there is LOVE. I've heard a thousand times that the summary of the Bible is love. And that's true. I'm all about the lovey-dovey stuff. (See my Lovey-Dovey Stuff story.) Yes, the message of the Bible is "for God so loved the world." We all know that. So I'm jumping to the “how and why” of that love. Thus my three God’s-love applications: Atonement, People, and Power.
Atonement: You can barely turn a page in the New Testament without reading about how God's Son was an atoning sacrifice for our sins. That's just true, blue, Gospel Truth. Without the Atonement (or Justification by Christ) we have nothing. Without the Atonement we don't have a clue who we are in Christ. Without forgiveness of sin we have death. Without justification we have death. Without the Blood of Christ we have death. All the way through, from Romans to Revelation, we deserve that death and Christ takes our place. That's awesome love and amazing grace, and we should wake up every single morning and say, "Good grief! God Himself died for me! Thank you God!!!!" And then get out of bed. The Atonement is to the Bible what air is to our bodies: essential. And there is not a single thing we can do to justify our sinful selves before God. Therefore, God in His great Love provided Atonement.
More on that later.
More on that later.
People: You can also tie a line through a single phrase which occurs over and over in scripture, from beginning to end: "I will be their God and they will be my people." God wanted people, so he created a couple of them. God wanted people, so he delivered a bunch of them. God wants people, so he saves a bunch of...us. The Bible is a great epic story of bios and zoe -- biological life and spiritual LIFE. "I will be their God and they will be my people." To really understand this phrase you must stop and try to feel what God feels when he says it. My aim in future posts on this topic will be to do just that – try to feel what God feels about people and how that informs his actions as told throughout the scriptures.
Power: No, not that raise-Lazarus-from-the-dead sort of awesome power. I mean, that-certainly-is-awesome power, and mostly what we tend to think of as (deep voice here…) "GOD’S MIGHTY POWER." I mean, why does he do cool stuff, wow His audience in Israel, and cause hundreds of people to drop their jaws or run? We jump right to the physical universe when we think about God’s power. God puts these physical laws in place and then He comes down and breaks them. Is it just so we'll say, "Wow, you ARE God!"? I doubt it. I really just want to stop and think about the grand scheme of things. From the Fall to the future, what is the real "purpose" of God demonstrating His power? His primary motive can't be to impress us. I think it’s something much more difficult for us to look at.
Think about just how HOLY God is! And more sobering, think of how He wants us to be Holy as He is Holy. Think about how He wants us to CHANGE, to become like Christ, to show Christ to the world. Can that really happen, or have we lost all hope of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness,” and so on? Is there any hope for a good marriage, Godly children, and unity in the Body of Christ? Surely God has the power to do these things. That power in the pages of the Bible is described there for one and only one reason: that we'll say, "Please, God, please. Please change me, too." Now that would be, and is, a real miracle. That is what the power of the Lord and the words of the Bible are really all about. To see this power in our lifetime we'll need atonement and we'll need people.
Atonement, people, and power: that's my opinion anyway. I'm not suggesting for a moment I have it all figured out. But I like to offer these humble observations and write some more about them in the weeks ahead. For sure, I would love your comments and input.
Did you sing this song growing up?
"The B. I. B. L. E.
Yes, that's the book for me.
I stand alone on the Word of God.
The B. I. B. L. E."
I sure did. Hundreds of times. Perhaps a better song to remember is this one:
"On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand."
What I'm suggesting is that one can stand on the Bible AND Christ and be fine. One can also stand alone on Christ and be temporarily stripped of a Bible and be fine. But one cannot stand alone on the Bible without Christ and His indwelling Spirit of revelation. That is fruitless at the least and quite dangerous at the most.
Ok, you can shoot me now. :-) But before you do, I just want to say that I feel like I love God and like my Bible more than I have in any other time of my life. I wrote about my life with the Bible growing up, and told the story of loosing a Bible which I had for over 20 years. I can honestly say my life now with the Bible is wonderful and I thank my awesome Father and my faithful friends. I don't stand alone on the Bible. I stand with friends on Christ, the Solid Rock. I read about Him in the Bible. And I get to experience Him at work nearly every day. And I'm very, very blessed.
What I'm suggesting is that one can stand on the Bible AND Christ and be fine. One can also stand alone on Christ and be temporarily stripped of a Bible and be fine. But one cannot stand alone on the Bible without Christ and His indwelling Spirit of revelation. That is fruitless at the least and quite dangerous at the most.
Ok, you can shoot me now. :-) But before you do, I just want to say that I feel like I love God and like my Bible more than I have in any other time of my life. I wrote about my life with the Bible growing up, and told the story of loosing a Bible which I had for over 20 years. I can honestly say my life now with the Bible is wonderful and I thank my awesome Father and my faithful friends. I don't stand alone on the Bible. I stand with friends on Christ, the Solid Rock. I read about Him in the Bible. And I get to experience Him at work nearly every day. And I'm very, very blessed.
