Most of us have probably either heard it or said it about a fellow Christian: "Boy, he really knows his Bible." Sometimes an extra line is added, "He knows the Bible better than most preachers."

I suppose that extra line could make pastors a bit defensive, sort of like "them’s fightin’ words." But on this National Bible Sunday there is something much more important than arguing over who may know the Bible the best. Because there is something more important than simply knowing Bible facts or being able to quote book and verse at every turn.

Every Christian is urged to read and study the Bible. That’s the reason we have this kind of special Sunday. It’s the only reason the American Bible Society exists, to spread copies of the printed Word. But yet there is something more important.

What is most significant about the Bible is illustrated by Stephen Vincent Benet in his poem John Brown’s Body. In that poem Benet tells of the sea captain in the African slave trade who prayed regularly and piously, privately or in view of his ship’s crew. He read his Bible regularly - in great earnest. Yet he saw nothing at all wrong in buying, selling, whipping, chaining, and killing some of his human brothers.

The purpose of faithful Bible reading is to allow God’s living Word to get through and grab us and make us different. Knowing what the Bible says is necessary, but what we need is the power of God’s message that changes our behavior and our attitudes.

Students of the world’s great literature have no problem recognizing the literary value and beauty of much of the Bible. But the students of life often have big problems recognizing why the Book has been given to us. For the same reason we have trouble avoiding the hypocrisy of the captain who could read the Word and abuse God’s creation.

James speaks clearly against this one-dimensional brand of Christian faith: (read text)

It is impossible to come up with one definition of Christianity that takes in every part of its meaning. But James makes it clear that there are three dimensions to the faith we profess.

One dimension is personal - keep yourself unstained from the world. That dimension can be easily understood.

As a child I carried the misconception that the true essence of being Christian consisted in having pure, clean thoughts. Consequently, I spent a good part of my waking time trying to make absolutely sure I was always Mr. Clean in my head.

I had little lines made up to convert any nasty idea or unacceptable word into a "good thought." Whatever the foul word or idea, I had an instant conversion ready to turn it into a holy thought.

That was a nerve-wracking process. It was a waste of good time. And it was motivated by fear that either the Lord might come like a thief in the night or that my life might be ended suddenly - in either case I was afraid I would be found with some foul thought in my mind. And therefore, I would not be accepted.

What I was doing, of course, was playing my own savior. I felt compelled to save my own mind by my tricky little formulas. And I completely distorted and denied the meaning of the Gospel. I had to give the Savior a helping hand.

This gross distortion is not what James has in mind. Nor is he urging us to withdraw from the world like hermits in a cave or monks in a monastery.

Rather, remaining unstained is avoiding the attitude of the Pharisee who claims true religion is keeping all the rules and doing all the rituals, avoiding the attitude of a Pontius Pilate who washes his hands of his responsibility by a futile rationalization, avoiding the smug self-righteousness too often found in American Christianity, a self-righteousness that fails to remember all people are made in the image of God, avoiding the attitude of the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, both of whom thought it was more important to attend to their "religious duties" than to do the truly Christian thing of helping the man in need.

Remaining unstained is avoiding the notion that the principle is more important than the person, that institutions are more crucial than individual persons, that "dog eat dog" is the only practical rule for living.

The second dimension follows. That Christian faith is more than a theory, more than a set of beliefs, more than a verbal profession - it is action - the action of visiting orphans and widows as James puts it. And what James says represents all the actions that make Christian faith concrete.

The folk song asks, "How will they know we are Christian?" By the badge of your baptism? How will they see the water? By your confirmation? Will you wear your certificate on your sleeve? Your church membership? The song gives the answer: "They will know we are Christians by our love."

Bishop John Robinson in his little book Honest to God puts it this way: "The only way in which Christ can be met, either accepting him or rejecting him, is through his human brothers. Whether we have known God or not is tested by one question only: ‘How deeply have we loved? For he who does not love does not know God. God is love.’ "

Christian faith must have these two dimensions to be real: my personal relationship with God which aims at avoiding those attitudes and that behavior that hinders God’s cause and my compassion for my human brothers and sisters.

There is one other dimension that is hidden in James’ words. The dimension of power, where I receive the power to execute the other two dimensions. The source of that power is briefly illustrated in the story of a very ordinary man named Aeschines who came to learn from the great Socrates. "I am a poor man," said Aeschines, "I have nothing else to give you but myself." "Do you not see," said Socrates, "that you are giving me the most precious thing of all?"

When I can open the door to the power of the living Word, I will open it to a three-dimensional faith. Then National Bible Sunday and all my Bible study will mean something. Amen.