Monday, October 15, 2012

THe Holy Bible

Without the Christian Scriptures, we would know little, if anything, about Jesus.  Without Jesus, we would be left with a very different view of God. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve held a high view of Scripture. Before I could read, Dad and Mom bought me my first Bible.  Using a pencil, my Dad wrote my name and the date (December 25, 1954) on the presentation page.  When I preached my first sermon, I read the text from that Bible.  I carried it to church and packed it in suitcases until April 23, 1967 when Dad and Mom replaced it with a much finer one.  Having given me a Bible, they taught me to respect it, use it, and carry it with me.  One never went to church without a Bible.  If a trip was planned, one’s Bible was always packed for travel.  The lessons learned have followed me all my life.  I never leave home without a Bible.

The Bible is God’s Holy Word.  That’s what I was taught as a child, and it is what I still believe.  There was much in the Bible I didn’t understand during my childhood.  Never mind, I would be told, we will understand it better by and by.  I thought they meant when we got to heaven.  What I discovered is that a Bible reader does understand the Bible better by and by.  The more we read, the longer we ponder over Scripture, and the more we dare to apply our understanding of the text to our living, the better we understand.  It’s a process.

The process of growing in our understanding is dependent upon our belief in and commitment to Jesus Christ.  If Jesus is the Son of God . . . if Jesus is the Word that was in the beginning and if Jesus is the Word of which John wrote when he stated that the Word was God, that Word—Jesus—must be the Foundation on which we build our lives.  The Bible is Holy.  God is its ultimate source.  But Jesus is the Foundation on which we build our lives. 

The New Testament portion of the Bible reveals Jesus to us, but we are not left with only a written testimony of his life and teachings.  Jesus promised the “Comforter, who is the Holy spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatever I have said unto you” (John 14:26 KJV).  I first learned of Jesus through the Bible and Bible-based teaching I received as a child.  I believe in Jesus today both because of the witness of Holy Scripture and because Jesus’ Spirit bears witness to my spirit.

Since I experience the presence of Jesus through the Spirit and understand Jesus to be one with God, I am left with no choice but to read all of Scripture, interpreting it in light of who I understand Jesus to be.  This is important.  If Jesus was the Word and was with God and was God, we must read all of Scripture through the lens of Jesus’ life and teachings and ongoing presence through the Spirit. 

I still hold a high view of Scripture.  I read it daily.  I pray about what I read, and I allow Scripture to lead me to pray what I might not otherwise pray.  Yet there is a difference in the view of Scripture I have today versus the one I had as a younger person.  As a child and teen, I came close to making the Bible an idol before which I worshiped. Today I understand the Bible to be a holy tool meant to be used as a guide for understanding God, the world around me, and my relationship to God and the world of which I am a part. 

In many wasy the Bible is more holy to me today than it was in those younger years.  At the heart of my increased sense of the holiness of the Bible is my growing understanding that all Scripture, and all teaching that purports to flow from Scripture, must be read and heard through the heart and mind of Jesus.  To do otherwise is to be left with a very different image of God than is revealed in Jesus--the Word that became flesh and dwelt and dwells among us.

(For more on this subject, see my sermon, Word of God: Living and Active, at our church’s website: www.eminencebaptist.org.  Once there, look for “Pastor’s Pages,” and click on “Sermons,” and look for the title and date (October 14, 2012).

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