Today we presented each of our third graders a Bible. Why did we do it? Certainly their parents could afford to buy Bibles, and I imagine that in each of the homes from which these children come there are more than one Bible. It isn’t that we thought that if we didn’t get a Bible to them, they would not have access to the scripture.
So, why did we do it? We did it to make a statement - to say not only to these children, but to ourselves - all of us - that for the Christian in the church this is it. This is the most important resource in our life and in our congregation.
That’s why we did it. We wanted these children to know, and we wanted to remind ourselves that what we are about as Christians, and as a church is here, in this book. This is in John Wesley’s word: “The whole and sole rule of Christian faith and practice.”
That’s why we did it, and I want to make that more clear by talking about the Bible as More Than A Book.
A while back, one of our pollsters asked people whether or not they believed the Bible to be the “revealed Word of God” or merely a “great piece of literature.” Over 80% of them said they believed it to be the “revealed Word of God” - yet more than half of them could not name even one book in the New Testament.
That reminds me of one of my most embarrassing moment. A few years ago I was coming from a trip overseas back into the United States through Chicago. I think it was the only time I’ve ever been through customs in Chicago. And, I think Chicago is the worst place in the nation to go through customs. As is always the case, I was happy to get back into this country, and anxious to move through customs. On that particular trip, I had a very close schedule with a place that would take me to Nashville. So I needed to get through customs as rapidly as possible.
The customs officer obviously sensed my anxiety, and I guess she was trying to do as much as she could to facilitate the process. So, after I had told her about my close plane connection, she asked, “What is your vocation?” Now I don’t know what that had to do with it - but that was the question she asked.
Without hesitation, I said, “I’m a preacher.” Without hesitation, she said, “Name the first five books of the Old Testament.”
Now you may find this hard to believe, and I’m really embarrassed to tell you this - I went totally blank. Genesis, Exodus - and I couldn’t get any further. I went totally blank.
I share that to make a point. The point is in a question: Is there any merit in being able to name the books of the Bible or in being the 80% of our nation who believe that the Bible is the “revealed word of God” if we are not making that Word “the whole and sole rule of our Christian faith and practice.”?
So let me go on with my theme: The Bible is more than a book. Get a part of our scripture lesson firmly in mind, verses 14-17:
“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 instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
The Bible is more than a book, it is a revelation and an encounter the Living God. There are many gods, but in the Bible we encounter the Living God, the God of creation (Gen. 1:1-31) the God of covenant (Gen 12:1-14), the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus 3:1-6), the God of deliverance (Exodus 9:1-7), the God of compassion who binds us in love (Hosea 11:-4), the God of justice and mercy (Amos 6:6-8), the God of pursuant love who seeks us in love even to his own death in Jesus on the Cross.
We serve many gods: wealth, materialism, greed, money, but the Bible says, “For what does it profits a man, to gain the whole world and lose his very soul?” (Mark 8:36). That’s the reason the Bible commands us to tithe – to give of our income to the Church – it helps us know who the eternal God is.
We worship the god of sex and pleasure, but the Bible says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy spirit with you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” “(I Corinthians 6;19-20).
We are tempted to serve the God of power, prestige, worldly influence, but the Bible says, “But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first (Mark 10:31).
Some even serve the god of harrow, selfish, nationalism, but the Bible says, “God made me one every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth.” (Acts 17:26).
I
Note first that more than a book, the Bible is a revelation of and an encounter with the Living God. Moses experienced that encounter when confronted by the burning bush that was not consumed, and out of that bush heard the voice of God.
The encounter came to Elijah when fleeing Jezebel – he was caught in the tumultuous upheavals of nature. But God was not in the shattering earthquake or the torrents of rain or the blistering winds – But he heard God in the still small voice that thundered in his soul.
Isaiah met God in the temple – mourning the death of King Uzziah – he experienced God in the setting of the worship and God confronted him with this eternal call – “whom will I send and who will go for us?”
John the Baptist, in his heart of hearts had experienced the revelation. Flocks of people came out of the desert and Galilian hills to be baptized by him in the Jordan. But no messages overcame John as it does too many of religious leaders. He had been confronted by the eternal God who had an ultimate plan, so he could humbly say, “I baptize with water unto repentance, but he that is coming after me is mightier than I; He will baptize with the Holy Spirit with power.”
More than a book, a Bible is a revelation and encounter.
No wonder Paul urged Timothy to stay in touch with his roots in the Word, “Continue in what you have learned - from childhood you have been acquainted with sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.” In the Bible we meet the living God and that leads to a second point: that in the Bible they will meet the Living God who will lay his claims upon their lives. That leads to my next point: More than a book the Bible is an Invitation – an invitation to life.
The great events in the Old Testament: Creation, covenant and Exodus all reflect gospel. The movement of God is a movement of love toward us. The big story of the Bible is the story of God staying with us – through his grace, wooing us, loving us, seeking to restore us to our created image, and bring us back into fellowship. The last verse of the 23rd Psalm says it so well: “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
If we miss that invitation in the Old Testament, we can’t miss it in the new. It is an engraved personal invitation, personally delivered by Jesus Christ. He taught about it, preached it. He pictured it with pristine clarity for us in a series of parables: The Lost Coin, The Lost Sheep, and The Lost Sons, one of the most beloved chapters in the Bible. This chapter has been called the “Gospel in the Gospel,” because it contains the distilled essence of the Good News.
It’s the ultimate in Jesus’ teaching of a seeking forgiving God who gives everything, goes to the limits to extend his invitation of love.
And if you miss the invitation in Jesus’ teaching, you can miss it in what he does. He writes the invitation in his own blood. He goes to the Cross, bleeds to death for our sin, every drop of blood an expression of sacrificial love. Now that’s herd to comprehend - that Jesus would voluntarily, willingly, love us so much that he would die for us - here’s a hint of it. Sometime ago Reader’s Digest carried a story of a family in the mid-West. It was a beautiful story of love and devotion, but it was far more than that. A girl in the family had to have blood because of an emergency surgery. It was a rare form of blood and her little brother was the only one whose blood would match, and would be readily available. They talked to the little boy about it and he agreed to give his blood to his sister. When he was on the table, and they were extracting the blood, after a little while, the little boy looked up at his mother and the nurse who was taking the blood, and asked, “When am I going to die?”
Do you see the point of that? Somehow the little boy had gotten the idea that giving blood to his sister for her to live meant that he was to die. Still he had made the decision to give his blood, to die so that his sister might live. It’s a faint picture of what Jesus did for us on the Cross.
The Bible is more than a book. It is an invitation to and a gift of Life.
II
MORE THAN BOOK, THE BIBLE IS A BLUEPRINT FOR LIVING
An encounter and an invitation, but more, the Bible is a blueprint for living. Listen to Paul again:
“All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (vs. 16, 17).
See the words there: teaching, reproof, correction, training - and for what purpose? “That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
I want to speak a special word to parents here, especially parents of little children. In verse 14, Paul reminds Timothy to “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 instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
Note the phrase “knowing from whom received it.”
On his mother’s side Timothy was a Jew, although his father had been a Greek (Acts 16:1). And it is clear that it was his mother who had the bringing up of Timothy. It was the glory of the Jews that their children from their earliest days were taught and trained in the Law. The Jews claimed that their children learned the Law even from their swaddling clothes, and they drank it in with their mother’s milk. They claimed that the Law was so imprinted on the heart and mind of the Jewish child that he would sooner forget his own name than he would forget the Law. So from his earliest childhood Timothy had known the Word of God. (William Barclay, The Letters of Timothy, Titus, Philemon, The Daily Bible Study, pp. 228—29)
It is your responsibility, parents. The church can help, and the Lord knows we try, but ultimately the responsibility is yours. To in scripture, to let it be a blueprint for your life, and to so teach your children that it will be a blueprint for them. Do you remember Psalm 119? Listen to part of it:
“How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to thy word.”
No greater resolve can come from any person than that. Then there is the word of the psalmist, “I have laid up thy Word in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.” To have our children say that having learned it from us, would be the greatest reward as parents.
More than a book, the Bible is an encounter with the Living God, an invitation from the living Christ, and a blueprint for living that brings us to wholeness and salvation, equipping us for every good work.
I close by recalling the testimony of John Wesley which I shared in the Courier this week.
“I want to know one thing - the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end he came from heaven. He had written it down in a book. 0, give me that book! At any price, give me that book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be “a man of one book”. Here then I am, far from the busy ways of man. I sit down alone: only God is here. In his presence I open, I read his book; for this end, to find the way to heaven.” (Sermons, I, 31—32)