Freed by Scripture, we study the Bible listening to the Holy Spirit and one another with humility, honesty, and openness (Acts 17:11-12; John 8:31-32; Romans 14).
When I turned sixteen I so badly wanted to drive, particularly because my dad, a stereotypical “car guy,” had saved for me a 68 Mustang. My parents were wonderfully generous. And what did I do with this wonderful gift? I got three speeding tickets my first year and one fender bender. It wasn’t the cars fault – it was mine. I was reckless.
My children couldn’t have been more different. They weren’t reckless, far from it. No, they were wrecked before they ever even got behind the wheel preferring to have Marianne or I drive them and waiting until they were much older to get their license. They were afraid.
So let’s just get it out of the way that the Bible is an amazing, beautiful, wonderful, dangerous vehicle for getting us to God. But there’s a bit of a generational gap. Some of us were taught lovely things about Scripture only to use it poorly and recklessly leaving carnage on the spiritual roads of people’s lives, knocking over mail boxes, and running red lights carelessly. This generation, my generation and older, will need to spend some time repenting, listening, slowing down, paying attention, as we engage this lovely spiritual vehicle from God, to get to God.
For others of you – often younger – yes, the Bible has been a frightful vehicle for many bad and careless drivers. There’s been devastating road rage, red-light-running, and pollution. But, it’s also been an indispensable vehicle for getting people to work, driving meals to people in need, caring the sick to the hospital, a liberating means for great road trips, and a big party bus for bringing people together. So we need you to get behind the wheel, to trust us that it’s worth it, and to stop asking us to drive you around.
Have I challenged anyone yet? The purpose of Scripture is the purpose of Jesus – to free us with truth, to move us toward God, to redeem us – in the way of Jesus. Scripture was Jesus’ favorite vehicle for bringing people to God, talking about himself, and helping people out. So drive like Jesus. Jesus uses Scripture all the time so it can’t be the horrible weapon that so many have come to believe. Jesus uses Scripture all the time – but he does so to free people, to liberate them, to love them, not to bind them, or hate them, or harm them. So stop mowing people over with that wreckage of a phrase, “The Bible said it. I believe it. That settles it.” A couple of weeks ago I reminded you that the most often thing said by Jesus about Scripture was actually a question: “Have you not read?” So whatever path we chart forward with ourselves Jesus demands that we at the very least read it often. That’s the Berean way – “with great eagerness to examine the Scriptures every day.” But, it’s also true that Jesus won’t use all of Scripture the same way ort with the same intensity. I want to look at two instructional videos from the Jesus Driving School because our reading of Scripture, is grounded in Jesus, the Mario Andretti of Scripture.
Instructional Video #1, Matthew 12:1-8: Jesus is traveling through grainfields on the Sabbath and the disciples were hungry and picking heads of grain to eat leading the Pharisees to charge them with breaking Sabbath and disobeying Scripture. And Jesus’ first response is to quote a story from 1 Samuel 21:1-6 and disregard everything that I was taught in seminary. The problem is that 1 Samuel 21 does not concern the Sabbath at all, but tells the story of David and his men eating bread from the temple that Levitical law (24:5-9) expressly forbade them to eat. The bread was specified by God as only being for the priests yet David and his men violated this direct commandment when they ate the bread of Presence, which was a thank offering placed in the temple. Of course, David had already violated the law by entering this part of the temple not to mention that David lied to the priest that he was on a secret mission commissioned by Saul. So why would Jesus use this Scripture when the passage wasn’t connected with Sabbath at all? He connected the passages because of the awareness of human need and frailty. The only link between the two stories was that both the disciples as well as David and his men “were hungry”. By placing human need front and center Jesus reorients how to read the Bible in a freeing way. Focusing on need will lead you to Bible passages that you had not thought to use and might even help you apply them in a different way. Freed by Scripture means that we focus the good news of God’s Word on what people need.
Instructional video #2, John 8:1-11: This is the beginning of the passage from which Jesus will say, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” And this story is about such “teaching” and Jesus essentially ignoring certain Scripture. Jesus was teaching in the temple, the Bible teachers interrupt with a practical case study on how to read and practice Scripture. They bring before Jesus a woman and say, “Teacher, this was woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” And they weren’t lying. The law was clearly on their side. Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22 stated: “If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel” (Deut. 22:22). The context is important. The teachers of the law want to use Scripture as a trap, they want to employ shame, and willingly ignore the thrust of their own reading by failing to bring the man with her. How does Jesus use Scripture? First, he pauses. Well, he writes in the dirt. But, whatever he writes, he doesn’t speak right away. Friends, if you want to read Scripture in a freeing way learn to not speak right away. Pause. Pray. Write in the dirt. Ignore the ones who badger you for an immediate answer. Don’t drive recklessly. Second, he places the brokenness of sin on the readers first. If we want to read the Bible in a freeing way we should read everything in this book as if we are the chief of sinners. What’s funny about that is that when we do that we often find a greater sense of kindness and compassion. We drive slower. Third, he took other’s misery to heart. We are all frail and fragile. Augustine commenting on vs. 9 of John 8 says, “There remained two, the one is misery [miseria] and the one in mercy [misericordia, which literally means “misery in the heart”]. To read Scripture in a freeing way might lead you to not follow parts of it out of misericordia and we must acknowledge that Jesus does that on more than one occasion. That’s part of his teaching that leads to freedom. Read with mercy first. Finally, always let your reading of Scripture place everyone in front of the savior who doesn’t condemn.
So what are some principles that fuel our liberating Jesus way of reading? What are the values inherent in a community that is freed by Scripture? That leads us to the next part of our value – “listening to the Holy Spirit and one another with humility, honesty, and openness.”
We study the Bible Bereanly. Like our sister synagogue in the book of Acts, we engage Bible study eagerly and often. We care about historical context, genre, and word choices. We remain unafraid to vigorously engage Scripture with our minds believing that our critical thinking skills are another way to love God remembering that Jesus said we love God with it. We will ask challenging question, dive into difficult topics, and consult thoughtful experts. We don’t do this pedantically. We’re not trying to show off. We do it because we are in love with God. By the way, you can’t skip this step. You can’t be in love ignorantly. Can you imagine me telling you I love my wife but don’t know anything about her: where she was born, what foods she likes, or stories from her childhood?
We study the Bible as an act of prayer. To listen to the Spirit means that Bible study is more than careful reading. Bible study happens in a context in which we believe God’s Spirit is at work within and alongside the text leading us, shaping us, and forming us. And to recognize the Spirit is cultivated in prayer. We are also learning as a church that the Bible is often best heard when we pray its words rather than merely say its words (Lectio Divina). None of the great moments of Biblical interpretation happened because people woke up and simply changed their mind. No, it was because people, steeped in prayer, encountered God at work in ways that fundamentally determined how the text was read. The church didn’t wake up one morning and decide that Gentiles could be fully included without circumcision simply by reading Scripture. No, they determined this by prayerfully finding the living God at work interpreting the text in a new way.
We study the Bible together. To listen to the Spirit is also to listen to one another. These elements work together because that’s where the Spirit works – in people’s lives. It’s people’s stories and evidences of fruit of the Spirit that help us take note of God at work. We study the Bible together because it speaks to us as a subject far more than it ever speaks to me. We study the Bible together because it’s our book and not merely “my” book.
We study the Bible with Christ-like attitudes: humility, honesty, and openness. These three traits will help us read better and soften us when we read it incorrectly. Because we will read it incorrectly! We read it humbly acknowledging that Bible reading can be difficult is fraught by historical distance, personal sin, cultural baggage, and personal fragility. We read it honestly because we believe in truth and aren’t afraid of wrestling with what is real. Finally, we read it with openness. Acts 17:11 speaks of the Berean Jews reading eugenesteroi. Originally, it meant "wellborn" and implied nobility. Later, it described those of a generous spirit, who are open-minded toward truth, not prejudiced, hostile, or suspicious of others, but give others a fair hearing. Friends, never forget that the Bereans studied Scripture thoroughly with open minds and then changed their beliefs and followed Jesus.
Friends, do you want to encounter the living God. Do you want to learn about God? Do you want to love God? Then hop in, check your mirrors, think of others, travel the speed limit, and drive – free.
No comments:
Post a Comment