[This sermon was preached on 1 July 2018, Apostles' Sunday / 3rd yea, ELCF Lectionary]
What is the Bible? And what to do with it? These are the two questions that the Apostle Paul is trying to answer in 2 Timothy 3:14–17. These were very relevant and very critical questions in the church that Timothy was pastoring. There were influential people in the church spreading wrong and harmful teaching about God and about Jesus. And as part of that teaching they also seduced Christians to live an unethical lifestyle.
Today, these questions are still very relevant, partly for the same reasons. But we should not only seek answers on a general level: What is the Bible, and what to do with it. We should also take those questions personally: What does the Bible mean to me? What do I do with it?
I remember a time when many people would come to church carrying their own Bibles. When the Bible was read from the pulpit, they would follow it from the Bible in front of them. Sometimes they would underline a word or a passage. Sometimes during the sermon, they would make notes in the margin. Many were carrying a Bible that was almost falling apart. Charles Spurgeon used to say:
“A Bible that's falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn't.”
But times have changed. Today, people don’t come to church with their Bibles. I know, for some people, the Bible is no longer 1,000 pages of printed paper in leather covers. Many of us carry the Bible with us as an app on our smartphone. But still, that Bible, or Bible app, often remains untouched during the service. It is not our priority to open the Scripture as we hear the Word preached. It is not our passion.
Let’s start with the question what the Bible is and what it is not.
Wikipedia defines the Bible as follows:
The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures that Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans.
Not bad! In 2 Timothy, Paul calls it “the Holy Scriptures” or simply “Scripture”. Elsewhere in the Bible it is referred to as “the word of God”.
When preachers quote a verse from the Bible, they may say: “King David wrote in the Psalms…” or “the apostle Paul writes to Timothy…”. But often they may simply say: “The Bible says…” or perhaps: “God says in the Bible…” That shows the unique character of the Bible. It has a profound position in the life of the church. And it has the capacity to speak to us, 21st century people—even almost 2,000 years after the last pages of the Bible were written. How come?
Paul, in his letter to Timothy, explains it this way:
All Scripture is God-breathed—breathed by God.
The Bible was written by over forty authors over a period of more than a thousand years. Some of them were prophets or kings, others were shepherds, farmers or fishermen, and still others were medical doctors, tax officers or civil servants. When reading their writings, you can easily recognize their personality, with their strengths and weaknesses, and with their all too human emotions. You could say that the Bible is a collection or library of through-and-through human writings. So how can we call it the Word of God? What does Paul try to tell us when he speaks about the Scripture as “God-breathed”?
The apostle Peter explains this in his own words when he speaks about Old Testament prophecies. He writes in his second letter:
Prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
They spoke from God. in other words, what they spoke or wrote was not their own original invention. Their criticism towards society and its political and economic leaders was not motivated by their own unhappiness or their hunger for justice. Ultimately, what they spoke and wrote came from God. They were his thoughts and his words. And how did they receive those words from God? Peter says, “They were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
Christians throughout the ages have tortured their little grey cells trying to make sense out of that. When you visit an old church, you may see representations of the four Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John carved in the pulpit or set in stained glass. Particularly Matthew is often portrayed with an empty page in front of him, a feather pen in his hand, and an angel hovering above him or sitting on his shoulder. The angel dictates word for word what Matthew must write down. That is not divine inspiration, but divine intervention.
But when we look at what is said in different books of the Bible about how the word of God came to prophets and others, we discover that that there is no fixed pattern. The word of God was transmitted to the authors in many different ways.
By far the most amazing—some would say: unbelievable—is that of the Ten Commandments. Moses himself recalls how God ordered him to chisel out two stone tablets. But Moses did not write the Ten Commandments. Instead, God himself wrote them. I quote from Deuteronomy 10:
So I chiseled out two stone tablets, and I went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. The Lord wrote on these tablets the Ten Commandments. And the Lord gave them to me.
Now you may or may not believe that this happened as Moses describes it. You may have some scruples about what it means that God’s hand produced concrete text on stone tablets. Personally, I am a rationalist. I have a degree in engineering and I think like an engineer. But I have no problem with what Moses said. If God, who is Spirit, can create a universe that is physical, why on earth could he not write a few words on stone tablets?
But there are other ways in which the Bible texts were received from God. Many prophets in the Old Testament heard God speaking to them and were given the task to repeat those same words to the people on his behalf. Others saw visions and they were told to describe and interpret those visions to the people. Some, like Jeremiah, experienced both. Often, they heard God speak to them in a vision. The same we see in the book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. How they knew that it was God’s voice and vision, and not their own imagination, we don’t know.
Paul, when writing to the Ephesians, describes a different process of divine inspiration, when he says:
In reading this, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.
Here he talks about receiving insight—a deep level of understanding of the mystery of Christ, as it was revealed to him and others by God’s Spirit. He speaks about the process of enlightenment of the mind rather than straightforward verbal or visual communication. When studying the Old Testament writings in the light of their experiences with Jesus and with the work of the Holy Spirit in the daily life of the church, Paul and others “saw the light”, so to say.
And let me give you a last example, even more down-to-earth than that of Paul. His travel companion Luke wrote both the Gospel that bears his name and the Book of Acts about the life of the early church. What does he say? Where did he get his message? Listen to Luke 1:
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
So what does he say here? He did a lot of careful investigation into what had really happened and what Jesus had really taught. He was like a journalist or a detective, talking to a lot of people, cross-checking, comparing notes, and looking for evidence. God used Luke’s educated and informed mind to compose the third Gospel. But there is no evidence that God gave him the words to write, or even classified information that he would have been unable to acquire through inquiry and research.
With those very different ways of inspiration in mind, there are a few conclusions we must make before going on to Paul’s second question: What to do with the Bible.
First, different texts require a different approach. When we read and study the Bible, we must keep in mind the mode of inspiration, the context, the target group, and the intention. I know many Christians who have a very one-dimensional view of Scripture. They do not identify the different contexts or modes of inspiration. For them, whatever text they pick from the Bible, it is God’s word to them—literally. And so it could happen that God’s command to Joshua to conquer the Promised Land and destroy the people who lived there or at least make them slaves was taken as God’s command for the European emigrants to America or Africa. Imperialism and slavery were sanctified through a twisted reading of the Bible. Let’s remember that what was meant for Israel 3,000 years ago is not necessarily applicable to us today.
The same principle applies also to New Testament writings, e.g. Paul’s letters to various churches. They are each written to a specific community with specific problems and questions and a specific social and cultural context. They are answers to their questions. But our context and our questions are different. So we need to dig out the principle behind the words of Paul or Peter or James rather than applying them per se with our eyes closed and our minds disconnected.
We must avoid literalism at any cost. Words are only a way of conveying meaning. Therefore, we always need to look for the principles behind the words. Paul says:
The letter kills but the spirit gives life.
Literalism turns the word of God into a handbook. It squeezes the life out of it. But did not Paul say that it was God-breathed? It is the breath of God that makes the Bible worth reading. If we choke it, the Bible becomes a powerful and scary weapon that can be misused to promote human purposes and human power.
Next, in order to understand how to interpret and apply the Bible, we need to consult with the Author. We are so eager to put words into God’s mouth and thoughts into God’s mind. We so easily read our own interpretations into the words of the Bible. But true Bible exploration should always be done in a spirit of humility, curiosity, and prayer. Bible reading and prayer belong together inseparably. Whenever you open your Bible, ask God to teach you what is his intention—what he is trying to tell you.
And last, we need to remind ourselves what we have learned from the Bible and from life in God’s world, and from whom we have learned it. Timothy had the great privilege of being brought up by a believing and devout mother and grandmother. He was raised in a home where God was honored. He could watch his mother and grandmother and see from their lives what the teaching of the Bible meant in practice. In the same way, Paul said: “Look at me! Look what kind of person I am because of the God I serve and the teaching I proclaim! Let that be the test of whether we preach the right or the wrong Gospel!”
Where we see abuse of power and unethical lifestyle, there most likely also the message of the Bible is twisted. And there is a special message here for you, mothers and fathers. When your kids grow up, can they look back at parents who lived out what they believe, and who taught them from early childhood to know and to love and to worship God? Remember, it is not just the stories you read them, the songs you sing with them, and the prayers you teach them. Your life matters, because it speaks much louder than your teaching.
That brings us to our final question: What to do with the Bible?
If I understand Paul’s view of the Bible correctly, then God breathed life into the words, and he continues to breathe life through the words of the Bible. The letter to the Hebrews says:
The word of God is alive and active.
Personally, I find it difficult, if not impossible, to read the Bible without feeling the breath of God and hearing his voice speaking through those age-old words that fill its pages. Every morning, when I read Bible passages that others have selected for me, and every time I open the Bible in preparation for my sermons and Bible studies, I am amazed at how close those words come to my life and my situation. The words are not dead. They are not just ancient relics from a different place and time. They are not just black ink on white paper. They actually live. They act. They penetrate my heart. When I read them, I actually realize that God is there and that he wants to communicate with me through the words of Scripture.
Paul writes about how these words can be useful to us. First, they make us wise for salvation. They reveal to us what God has done to secure our salvation and how we can receive ownership and assurance of that salvation. That also reminds us that the Bible is all about God, not so much about us. Particularly as modern readers, we like to put ourselves in the center of the story. But the Bible tells God’s story. When we read the Bible, we are called to focus on God, not on our own thoughts, emotions, or problems.
And when we focus on God, we learn to see and take ownership of his saving grace. The first questions to ask when we read the Bible is not: “What must I do?” but “What has God done?” The Bible makes us wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
Secondly, Scripture equips us for every good work. It teaches us the secrets of a good and fulfilled and God-centered life. How can we live to experience more of what God has prepared for us? How can we fulfil our calling as creatures made in the image of our Creator? How can we live out the love of God in all of our relationships—those with our neighbors and loved ones, but also those with the surrounding creation?
If we maintain an open and expecting mind and a prayerful and humble spirit in our Bible reading, we will find that God does indeed speak to us, assuring us of his love and salvation, and preparing us to live out our faith. But it does need more than an open mind and an open heart. It requires an open Bible.
Regular reading and study of the Bible is important. The more you know your Bible, the better you will be equipped for life as it comes to you. The more you know God’s pattern, the better you will be equipped to recognize his presence and intervention in your life. The more you know his saving grace, the better you will be able to resist anxiety and despair about your soul, when crisis enters your life.
The psalmist wrote in Psalm 119:
Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.
Do we feel the same about the Word of God? Amen.
