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"Belonging to the Bible'"
Sunday, March 14, 2010
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John 6:52-61, Revelation 10:1-6
I.
When God speaks to you, things begin to happen to you, wonderful
things, A. We receive invitations, promises, blessings, commands. We hear great stories of faith, all of these coming to us through the Bible. 1. We not only “profess our faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior;” 2. we “renounce evil and affirm (our) reliance on God’s grace;” 3. As new members, we “declare (our) intention to participate actively and responsibly in the worship and mission of the church.” 4. This means we promise to study and investigate as much as we are able of the Bible, its culture, its languages, its contents, its amazing and unique history, and how it has impacted people all over the world. 5. But how many of us have followed through on that? As Christians, you and I are largely ignorant about our Bible. a. If experts say the average human uses less than 30% of her brain, I dare to suggest that we use less than 5-10 percent of what God’s Word has to offer as a living, breathing document during our lifetime! 6. If you fall desperately in love with someone, when you get engaged, don’t you try and find out everything you possibly can about this person? a. you meet her family, b. you study her family tree c. You talk to her friends. d. You might read old diaries from the Civil War. 7. My great great grandfather, Private Columbus Joshua Lipe served in the Union Army right here in Arkansas as a teenager. a. You read love letters your ancestors wrote to each other- Peggy and I read letters her great grandfather, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister by the last name of Reese, wrote to his intended bride hand-written in very proper language! b. I spent over 30 hours studying both Peggy’s and my geneology –going back 5 generations, education, medical history, where folks lived, and how long, our family relationships and idiosyncracies, and then mapped it on a genogram, for the class I am taking in Lombard, Illinois. Why? Family systems theory says that the better I understand myself and my family of origin, the better pastor I will be, better skilled at handling conflict and motivating change. 7. And yet how many of us have done even a fraction of this with our Bible? a. Do you remember when Xingwei Ho made his first confession of faith and joined our church family? b. Xingwei told me that he has started reading his Bible from the first page. He was through about half of the Old Testament. For him that was the way to learn about his faith and to become a disciple. 8. Maybe you have seen the bumper sticker, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it!” a. Modern songwriter Charles Hayes has put these words to music b. but Hayes admits, it is for those who want their faith simple. c. I much prefer a childhood song: “The B-i-b-l-e” Do you know the verses to the song? 1st verse: “I have a book it teaches me everything that I know
And in this book it shows me how I need to grow
Refrain: The B-I-B-L-E, yes that's the book for
me
they sing a different song
or if they're wrong
the Creator of Life Himself 9. In this country, says Harvard chaplain, Episcopalian Peter Gomes, in “The Good Book,” we Americans have this idea that we own the Bible, it belongs to us, and God spoke in English. a. The Bible, says Dr. Gomes, is the most misunderstood and abused book in the USA! b. Such an exclusive attitude is idolatry, or what we call “Bibliolatry.”
II. in his publication, “Eat this book,” Eugene Peterson tells us, that in the Christian community, we belong to the Bible. A. “We are now part of a holy community that for 3,000 years ... has been formed inside and out by these words of God.” 1. You and I can no more put the Book on the shelf like a can of beans; we must whip up a hearty appetite and “Eat this Book!” 2. This metaphor comes from John 6, where Jesus literally tells his followers, “‘If you want to have life...you must eat my flesh... and you must drink my blood!’” a. The disciples were shocked, “‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’” b. Jesus comes right back with, “‘Do you take offense at this?... For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in (you).’” c. Jesus connected the sacrifice of his body to the manna given in the wilderness to the Israelites, which to them was the “bread from heaven.” 3. Hebrews 9 says the manna for the Israelites brought death, but the manna Christ gives you in his body brings life and “purifies your conscience.” 4. As the guardian angel in the letter to the church at Pergammum wrote, “To him who conquers”–who does not eat the food of idols–“I will give him some of the hidden manna...” a. You and I belong to the Bible; it is the source of our life, our salvation. It tells us the story of our 3,000 year old family.
B. Peterson quotes the 10th chapter of Revelation. In Peter’s vision, he is given the scroll and commanded to eat it. He found it “bitter to (his) stomach, but sweet as honey in (his) mouth.” 1. Does your faith ever give you a stomach ache? (page 2) 2. These metaphors in Revelation 10 are as old as Psalm 119 and the book of Daniel. 3. Not everything in God’s Word do we find to our liking, but when we belong to God’s Word, then... a. we must eat it carefully, chew on it, b. try to swallow and keep it down when we find it difficult to digest. c. We must let the Living Word in the Bible ooze into every pore, nourish our bloodstream. 4. It is never a faith lived simply or without difficulty; the Holy Spirit sees to that. a. It is not my Bible and what I want to do with God’s Word-- b. not an annotated Reader’s Digest condensed Bible, c. but something truly complex, powerful, mysterious, unlike any other words ever written down, and way beyond my ability to harness or possess it! 5. One of my favorite quotes from English literature comes from Sir Francis Bacon, who was born in 1561. (I took the course 3 times, but never finished a single semester of it!) a. Bacon was a philosopher, statesman, scientist and lawyer, also a champion of the truth which he saw as a matter for scientific inquiry. b. His quote almost does justice to the treatment of our Holy Canon: c. “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” d. While I have been here, I have offered you an assorted diet of Bible study on Ecclesiastes and Daniel, and the History and Formation of the Bible. 6. Holy Scripture in its original Greek or Hebrew is so much more graphic far-reaching than our common English, a. as it talks about “chewing” God’s word (Psalm 1:2) b. “walking and running in them” (Ps 119:32) c. and “turning and seeing the voice of God” (Rev. 1:2). 7. The next time you read the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119, instead of looking at it as a boring poem on God’s law, view it rather as a carefully-crafted poem, where each section of 8 verses begins with a sequential letter of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. a. And each of the 22 8-line stanzas contains 8 synonyms for “word” or “God’s word.” b. John Donne says the text leads us, like a guide with a candle in the vast labyrinth of Scripture and its heritage, which is an infinitely bigger structure than the cathedral in which he was preaching. [PAUSE]
C. “In the beginning was the Word.” That is the testimony of John and Genesis as well. 1. This word was with God, and the Word was and is God. a. So that when God speaks, creation happens; life happens. (i) pigs run off a cliff, an axe head floats, the sun stands still! b. When Christ speaks, people are healed, brought to life, salvation happens. c. When the Holy Spirit speaks or blows in the wind, the church happens. (page 4) 2. Which is to say, in Peterson’s words, “language is the primary way in which God works.” a. Human language, is how God reveals to us, communicates to us, and we to God. b. Therefore we are called to obedience in the Bible, (i) to service, to witness. 3. It is better to talk about obedience to the Bible, living in conformity to God’s commands in the Bible, rather than to worship God’s word, to put it on a pedestal equal to God. a. That also is idolatry. b. The Bible itself is a living, breathing entity, God’s creation which serves God by being a witness to God, surpassed only by Christ’s obedience and witness c Some believe it comes alive only as we interact with it. 4. Isaiah 55 is addressed to all of us who are hungry and thirsty, for wine and milk and honey, but we have no money. a. We are invited to come and feast without money or price, “to eat what is good, and delight (ourselves) in fatness.” 5. This is an invitation, but also a summons, something which invites obedience a. And there follows a living promise. “So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”. b. Jesus’ last word is an invitation to come to the table, come to the Word, let it live in you and consume you! (page 4)
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