Do you love it? Wear it? Walk it? The Centrality of the Word of God (Covenant Affirmations)

 

Covenant Affirmation: The centrality of the Word of God

I want to invite you to take out your sheet that you received before worship. Our passage today comes from Deuteronomy 6:4-9. It is the quintessential passage for how Jews and Christians approach God’s Word. As you listen to the passage read slowly and carefully – notice what grabs your heart or captures your attention. You can close your eyes and just listen. You are also free to follow along and circle or highlight words and phrases that jump off the page. If you like, you can even copy down the verses below by your own hand. Whichever activity you choose, ask yourself, “What is God saying to me about the Scriptures?”

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. ~ Deut. 6:4-9

Pause 2 minutes for reflection

In the Covenant, we believe that to say the Bible is central means to confess that you love it. Does that sound strange? Our passage imagines that love by marking our children with it, talking about it with others, dreaming about it, wrapping it around our bodies, and even writing it on our houses. It suggests a lively and animated discussion that involves head, heart, hands, young and old, journey and stability. As you listen again, where do you wish to impress it, tie it, or wrap it? Perhaps, you need God’s Word to be a bandage, or something beautiful to wear? Perhaps, you desire something to keep you warm or a puzzle to talk about and question with friends? As I read the text again, ask God, “What do I need from Scripture today?”

Read Deuteronomy 6:4-9 again, slowly and carefully / Pause 2 min.

Now, I want to invite you to turn your sheet over and read the quotes about Scripture that either come from someone in our denomination or which reflect the sentiment we bring to the Bible. Our passage reminds us that we are to encounter the Bible with others. Which of these quotes best helps you approach Scripture and read it lovingly, carefully, and humbly?

Pause 2 min.

Quotes:

“Go to the Bible with an eye for only for error and contradiction, grammatical anomalies, historical errors, mistaken data and numbers, and the Bible is big enough for a scholarship only of those things. But go to it with an eye for the life that billows forth in mighty waves in the water course, burst here and there, and you will be rewarded infinitely more. The Bible is a world that should be studied with a telescope rather than a microscope. What a loss it would be to study the stars or the northern lights with magnifying glass.” ~ David Nyvall, North Park’s first President, 1898.

“It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him. We must not use the Bible as a sort of encyclopedia out of which texts can be taken for use as weapons.”  ~ C.S. Lewis

“Mine is a heritage that believes that matters of faith, doctrine, and conduct are fully discerned in the context of transformed people thinking with one another. Hearts and minds go together, and both must wrestle around matters of faith. David Nyvall — the founder of our denomination’s university, North Park — hoped for great minds to be warmed by great hearts and for great hearts to be enlightened by great minds. When we are in over our hearts and over our heads, the habit of befriending and the exercise of freedom around God’s word can only take us where the Spirit leads — toward renewal.” ~ Michelle Clifton-Soderstrom, ECC Theologian

“The act of Reading the Bible is more than a human endeavor. Reading Scripture is a means through which God does something to the readers, transforms his creatures, and mediates his grace. When we ask, ‘Who should we become?’ in large part, the answer lies in the discipline of reading Scripture often and reading Scripture together. As we reflect on God’s living and active word (Hebrews 4:12), we can be sure that the Spirit of God will free us to interpret the word and to love one another in unexpected, revolutionary, and concrete ways.” ~ Living Faith: Reflections on Covenant Affirmations, Max Lee and Michelle Clifton Soderstrom, pg. 182.

Finally, as you gather all of these thoughts, take a moment and offer a prayer back to God for what the Spirit has revealed to you.

Pause 1 min.

Read Deuteronomy 6:4-9 again, slowly and carefully

Reflect on the song: Word of God Speak

After the invitation to communion: You were reminded in worship to cover yourself, your loved ones, and even your homes in Scripture. We would like to invite you to such a practice today – to take a verse of Scripture and write it on the sticky note that we gave you and then place that on our Sanctuary doors as you leave worship today. We will keep these up during our series as a reminder that love for God’s Word is central to who we are as Covenant people. If you need help, there are brown Bibles located in the pew racks in front of you. If you need even more help, I have supplied a few Scriptures that you might consider on your sheet of paper. Feel free to look them up and choose any one of them to write on your sticky note and place on the door. If you are at home, you can email your Scripture to Gail and we will make a sticky note for you.

Don’t know the Bible so well? That’s okay. Consider a few of these verses from the brown Bible in the pew rack in front of you:

 

Luke 24:32                Galatians 5:14                     Proverbs 30:5

John 13:34               James 1:22