USE THE WORD WITH OTHERS
If we accept the Bible to be inspired by God,
we will read, preach and study it with a zest no other piece of writing can
command. The wonder of the fact that this book really is the words of God
Himself needs repeated meditation. Out of Heaven, Israel heard the voice of
God Himself (Dt. 4:36)- a God so infinitely far away, spoke to men. And
those words have been recorded. When we read His word, we hear His voice. 1
Kings 13:21 speaks of us hearing " the mouth of God" . Jeremiah spoke " from
the mouth of the Lord" (2 Chron. 36:12). His word brings Him that near to
us, if we will perceive it for what it is. Our attitude to God is our
attitude to His word. Because the word is so pure, therefore we love it (Ps.
119:140). John Carter rightly observed: " Upon our understanding of what the
Bible is, our attitude to it will be determined" (1).
A comparison
of 2 Tim. 3:16 with 4:2,3 makes it clear that because the inspired word is
profitable:
for doctrine therefore
preach the word; be instant in
season, out of season (i.e. whether you naturally feel in the preaching mood
or not)
for reproof therefore
reprove
for correction therefore
rebuke
for instruction in righteousness therefore
exhort with all
patience and doctrine.
OBEDIENCE
" You have seen that I have talked
with you from heaven [therefore] you shall not make with me gods of silver"
(Ex. 20:22,23). Because of the wonder of having heard God's voice, therefore
idolatry of any form will be meaningless for us. One can sense how much Paul
felt the passion of God's word. It wasn't just black print on white paper to
him. Thus he speaks of how " Isaiah is very bold, and says...Isaiah also
cries concerning Israel..." (Rom. 9:27; 10:20). Paul had meditated deeply
upon Isaiah's words, even to the point of considering the tone of voice in
which he first spoke them. It was because the rulers of Israel " knew
not...the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day" (Acts
13:27) that they crucified the Lord. He speaks of their " voices" rather
than merely their words. They had heard the words, but not felt and
perceived that these were the actual voices of men who being dead yet speak.
They didn't feel the wonder of inspiration in their attitude to Bible study-
even though they would have devoutly upheld the position that the Bible
texts were inspired. And here we have a lesson for ourselves. The Lord
brought this out in Jn. 5:39, in saying that " You search the Scriptures,
because you think that in them you have eternal life…and you will not come
to me, that you may have life" (RV). Their Bible study did not lead them to
Him. And is just as possible that we too can be Bible-centred and not
Christ-centred. For to academically study a document and perceive its
connections and intellectual purity does not require the living,
transforming, demanding relationship which knowing Jesus does.
There is
a power in the inspired word, whereby one mind- God's- can penetrate another
with no intermediary but a piece of flattened wood pulp, black print on
white paper. It's an amazing phenomena to be part of. Leo Tolstoy in his
spiritual autobiography A Confession tells in gripping manner how he read
the words of Jesus " Sell everything you have and give to the poor" and then
finally overcame all the restraints of his nature to do just that. He freed
his serfs, gave away the copyrights to his writings and began to dispose of
his huge estate. Words on paper must likewise lead to action in us. The more
familiar we become with the text of Scripture by daily reading, the stronger
is the temptation to become blasé, and not read the word expecting to be
taught something new, expecting to be challenged to change.
Speaking of
the witness of Jesus to the words of God Himself, John comments: “He that
has received his witness has set his seal to this, that God is true” (Jn.
3:33). By accepting words to be Divinely inspired, we set or affix our seal
to them- we undertake to have them as binding upon us in daily life.
Accepting the proposition that the Bible is inspired is therefore not a
merely academic thing, assenting to a true proposition. It has to affect our
lives. And note the humility of God here- that human beings can affix the
seal of validation to the truth of God’s word. This works out in the way in
which lives of obedience to God’s word are actually an affixed seal and
testament to the truth of those words. Thus it becomes our lives which are
the greatest proof of Biblical inspiration.
PERSONAL RESPONSE TO THE
WORD: FEELING THE WORD SPEAKING TO US
Although we would all agree that
the Bible is the inspired word of God, it is quite possible that we fail to
feel this as we might when we read it. The people " verily held John to be a
prophet" (Mk. 11:32 RV) but they rejoiced only for a short time in the light
of his words. They rejected his most essential message- whilst still
believing he was an inspired prophet. Or, thinking they believed he was.
Moses trembled and Sinai shook and the people fled when they heard God's
word. " God's voice was heard at Sinai: the same voice spoke in the
Psalmist's words. But the appeal stands written in Scripture and therefore
Paul can say that " Today" is a time with limits, but it was yet " today"
when the Hebrews was written and Paul repeats the word of the Psalmist as
God's voice to the Hebrews of his day. It is significant that Paul
immediately adds that " the word of God is living and powerful" . The words
he quoted were no dead message but God's living voice… The exhortation " My
son, despise not the chastening of the Lord" was God speaking " unto you" ,
says Paul to the Hebrews. Is it less so to sons of any generation?" (2).
Heb. 12:5 alludes to this idea of a living word by speaking of an Old
Testament passage as 'reasoning' (R.V.) with us.
Abel, through the
account of him in Scripture, " is yet spoken of" (Heb. 11:4 AVmg.). Isaiah
was prophesying directly to the hypocrites of the first century, according
to the Lord in Mk. 7:6 RV. The passage in the scrolls that said " I am the
God of Abraham" was " spoken unto you by God" , Jesus told first century
Israel (Mt. 22:31). Note in passing how demanding He was- expecting them to
figure from that statement and usage of the present tense that God
considered Abraham effectively still alive, although he was dead, and would
therefore resurrect him. Although God spoke to Moses alone in the mount,
Moses stresses that actually God " spake unto you in the mount out of the
midst of the fire" . The word of God to His scribes really is, to the same
gripping, terrifying degree, His direct word to us (Dt. 4:36; 5:45; 10:4).
This explains why David repeatedly refers to the miracle at the Red Sea as
if this had affected him personally, to the extent that he could
ecstatically rejoice because of it. When Dt. 11:4 speaks of how " the Lord
has destroyed [the Egyptians] unto this day" , it sounds as if we are to
understand each victory and achievement of God as somehow ongoing right down
to our own day and our own lives and experience. Thus Ps. 114:5,6 RV
describes the Red Sea as even now fleeing before God’s people. And thus
because of the records of God's past activities, we should be motivated in
our decisions now. Josh. 24:13,14 reminds Israel of the record of their past
history with God, and then on this basis exhorts them: " Now therefore fear
the Lord and serve him..." .
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
"
Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words
of my mouth" (Hos. 6:5). This was and is the power behind the black print on
white pages in our Bibles. Yet we can fail to perceive that God's word is
His voice to us personally. Like David hearing Nathan's parable, we can get
so caught up in the Bible story that we fail to perceive the message for us
personally. Thomas Merton observed: " We manage to get so used to it that we
make it comfortable for ourselves…Have we ceased to question the book and be
questioned by it?…the understanding of the Bible is, and should be, a
struggle: not merely to find meanings that can be looked up in books of
reference [including, we might add, the writings of our own brethren], but
to come to terms personally with the stark scandal and contradiction in the
Bible itself…let us not be too sure we know the Bible just because we have
learned not to be astonished at it, just because we have learned not to have
problems with it" (3). Of course the Bible does not ultimately contradict
itself; and yet the paradoxes presented there to challenge us can appear
like this on a surface level.
OUR SPEECH
The majority of words we
hear lack power. We have got used to not paying deep attention to words. The
Christian who hears a Sunday morning sermon every week for 40 years will
have heard about 9 million words. 50,000 new books will appear this year
alone. Those words, as my words, are coloured by the dysfunctions,
background, experience, limited perception of the writer or speaker. And so
we skim read, we listen with only half an ear to conversations. Rarely are
we transfixed by a speaker or writer. And sadly we can tend to feed this
attitude back into the words of God. We aren't used to reading inspired
words. Words which have meaning and relevance and power. If we truly believe
the Bible to be inspired, we will come to it in quite a different frame of
mind to that which we normally have. But we need to click into this; a
moment's silence and a prayer before we begin our daily reading are surely
good disciplines. We should speak " as oracles of God" ; not in that we are
infallible, but in that our words should have real weight and intention. As
God's word signals to the world that He is both real and credible, so should
ours. We should be putting meaning into our words. And yet the confessions
of one-time journalist Malcolm Muggeridge surely resonate with our own
consciences: " It is painful to me now to reflect, the ease with which I got
into the way of using this non-language; these drooling non-sentences
conveying non-thoughts, propounding non-fears and offering non-hopes" (4).
Our words are so easily empty and meaningless and pointless. All this is why
we simply must read the word of God daily; for it is designed for " the
reformation of manners" (2 Tim. 3:16 NEB), it is able to change habits and
reconstruct our daily human personality.
MATERIALISM
The Bible
has so much to say against this, the pervading evil of human societies down
the ages. Ezekiel's audiences loved to come and hear God's words at his
mouth- and in response to them, " with their mouth they shew much love, but
their heart goes after their gain" (Ez. 33:31 RV). Materialism stopped them
from really accepting those words, even though they theoretically assented
to their inspiration. Only in their condemnation would they know " that a
prophet has been among them" (:33). And so there is a chilling choice: to
really accept the power of inspiration now; or have to learn it through the
process of condemnation when judgment comes.
TRUE SENSITIVITY
I
suspect we all tend to read the Bible subconsciously searching for more
evidence for our own pre-conceived ideas, be they doctrinal issues or
practical. Yet if the words of the Bible are truly God's words, and we feel
this, than we can actually be nothing other than truly sensitive and open
hearted to whatever He is going to teach us through them. We will not seek,
therefore, to induce our own conclusions from Scripture, but will rather
come seeking to simply be taught, whatever the cost, whatever the surprise.
Much of the knowledge which we have about life is merely the reflection of
our own ideas. Imagine looking at the Mona Lisa painting in the Louvre art
gallery in Paris, protected as it is behind glass casing. You look into her
eyes, asking the usual questions as to what that look of hers is really
saying, or whether it's just your own worldview which suggests to you what
meaning there might be in her eyes. But then you see that your own eyes, and
those of the other viewers, are being reflected back to you from the glass
casing. To come to true knowledge is so hard. We need to clear our minds as
far as we can before we begin our Bible reading, and pray earnestly that
what we read there will be for us " the truth" ; that we will not read those
words to just find our own preconceived ideas there. We are up against this
problem continually, when we ask, e.g., a Catholic to read the Biblical
record about Mary with a clean, child-like mind, with no expectations as to
what we expect to find there. And actually it's still just as hard for us to
read Scripture with that same pure mind, as the years pass by after our
baptism. Israel 'heard' the word, and yet they did not ''hearken" to it
(Rom. 10:16,18)- we can hear but not hear. Yet if we really believed that
Scripture is inspired, we wouldn't be like this. It is awesome to reflect
how those Hebrew letters, those Greek ciphers written on parchment 1950
years ago, were actually the very words of God Almighty. But this is the
real import of our understanding of inspiration. Israel literally 'heard'
the words of Ezekiel, knowing that a prophet had been among them- but they
weren't obedient. We too can pay such lip service to the doctrine of
inspiration- and yet not be truly obedient to the word we know to be
inspired.
SELF EXAMINATION
James 1:24,25 parallel looking at
ourselves, and looking into the perfect law of liberty. To read Scripture as
God really intended, not as mere words on paper, is to find ourselves
engaged in an inevitable self-examination. Reflect a while on two
consecutive verses in Ez. 8:18; 9:1: “Though they [Israel] cry in my ears
with a loud voice [when they are under judgment for their actions, which I
now ask them to repent of], yet will I not hear them. He [God] cried also in
my[Ezekiel’s] ears with a loud voice, saying…”. Do you see the connection?
As we read and hear God’s word today, He is passionately crying in our ears
with a loud voice. Just imagine someone literally doing this to you! If we
refuse to hear it, then we will cry in His ears with a loud voice in the
last and final day of condemnation. The intensity of His appeal to us now
will be the intensity with which the rejected plead for Him to change His
verdict upon them; and God, like them in this life, will refuse to hear.
What arises from this is a simple fact: as we read and hear the pages of
Scripture, as we turn the leaves in our Bibles, God is crying in our ears
with a loud voice. Our response to Him is a foretaste of our acceptance or
rejection at the day of judgment.
BIBLE READING
Knowing that the
Bible is God's inspired word means that of course we will read it in a way
that we do not read any other literature. This may seem obvious, but we need
to consciously reflect upon the reality of inspiration before we settle down
to any protracted Bible reading or study. Here we have the very word of God.
" Recent research has indicated that the average individual listens for only
seventeen seconds before interrupting and interjecting his own ideas" (5).
This happens, of course, when we read the Bible, and hear God's voice. 'Our'
voice is there in conflict with God's; but the reality of inspiration should
mean that we bring ourselves back to His voice, the words of God rather than
those of men or ourselves.
Notes
(1) John Carter, in Dare We
Believe?
(2) John Carter, Delight In God's Law, pp. 232,233
(3) Thomas
Merton, Opening The Bible (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1986 ed.)
(4) Malcolm Muggeridge, Chronicles Of Wasted Time (London: Collins, 1972) p.
171.
(5) Cited in Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages (Chicago:
Northfield, 1995) p. 64.