Thursday morning, I was teaching late last night. Well, I was talking late, the Bible Study/ discussion I was leading finished formally around 9 P.M. but that’s usually just the beginning. It was well after midnight before I got home.
I arrived on time at the Daily Grind to find Mark already waiting for me. I waved and made my way to the counter. It’s always fun when a new person helps me and the Sarah or Kim or Daniel yell from the back, “Robert’ll have a double Breakfast tea in a porcelain bowl.” The new person makes a mental note – Robert, little blonde guy, breakfast tea, I can see the wheels turning.
The word of the day was monomaniacal: Pathological obsession with one idea or subject. I seriously hope that will not be the case for either Mark or I this morning.
I could tell that Mark was not in good mood. He started in as soon as I walked up to the table.
Mark: I hate my life.
Robert: Me too, let’s make a suicide pact.
{I think my sarcasm was poorly timed. I should have seen it in his face. I’d been down a little myself at the time. Things hadn’t been going well for me and I let it effect me too much sometimes, you would think I would be better that, being a professional and all.}
I had desired to speak about the Bible this morning, didn’t know where Mark would be on that. This is one of favorite topics when I’m down I am so grateful that God has given to us a stable, consistent story when mine is anything but. The Bible has become for me a source of lasting joy, as Pastor John Piper has called it, daily pointing me away from myself and my self pity to Jesus, to compassion and to a whole world of precious human beings around me}
Sorry about the joke. What’s up?
Mark: I just had a terrible night that’s all. My roommates’ dog barked all night long. I have enough trouble trying to breath in that house with all the hair everywhere. I swear the place hasn’t been vacuumed since ’73. I’m tired, I’m mad. I wish I dint have to live there, but its not like I can afford to buy a house in Southern California.
Robert: Do you want to forget it, just hang out and…
Mark: No, I’ve been lying in bed since 4 A.M. being pissed off. When the sun started to come up about 5:45 I saw my Bible on the night stand – a lot of comfort that is, I started to think…
That’s when it hit me. How can I be mad at God about the Bible not helping me if I’ve never learned what’s in it?
{Shock was evident on my face, I know. Why? I don’t know. This kind of divine encounter is fully in line with the God I believe in, one who is involved in every aspect of His creation and who cares for His Children like a Father. So God was preparing both Mark and I for this discussion this morning.
The shock was more about Mark than about God. I’ve talked with probably hundreds of people who had questions about the Bible, most of them quite critical. But I’ve only encountered one person who I felt knew enough about the Bible to question it He was a Bible professor at a nominally Christian school.
Mark’s conclusion was mind blowing to me. It showed an honesty so deep, that I was moved to look back into my own heart}
Robert: hmmm.
Mark: Wait, before you start. I WANT to know what the Bible has to say, but I HATE learning. I’m not interested in packing my head with rules and scattered info, even about God. That may be wrong, but it’s who I am. I’m not the Bible professor you told me about and you don’t have to convince me it’s important to know the Bible. But tell me why, help me with how.
Robert: Mark, you have to learn if you want to know. I can’t just magically make things arrive in your head.
There are some things that you simply must learn for yourself. I’ll help you to learn but I want you to know Jesus, not just know what the Bible says.
Mark: That’s what I’m talking about. But I’m not a student Robert. Seriously, I can’t do the classroom thing. Cut me some slack here. There has to be another way.
Robert: Do you think you’re learning from these conversations?
Mark: Yea, but that’s different.
Robert: Not really, it’s just a different manner of learning. I can’t teach you the whole Bible this way; you will have to read it for yourself at some point, or more like a thousand points, little bit at a time. You can listen to it on CD if you want. It has to get into your head and your heart somehow.
Learning the content of the Christian Scriptures is the pre-marital counseling for your relationship with Christ, it’s where you learn to know who He really is. It’s when you can make a thoughtful decision to follow Him or not. There is no way that you can do that without being fully informed.
Mark: Where do we begin?
Robert: We began by learning the gospel, the message of salvation. Then we talked about what Christianity means from the creeds. Now you want to talk about the Bible, I’d say we were on a great track so far.
Mark: If I believe the Gospel, then I figure that I already trust the Bible. I mean, how would I have known the gospel if not from the Bible?
Robert: You believed because you heard the gospel message, which, you’re right, is found in the New Testament. You may not have heard it read straight out of the book, you might have heard from me for the first time a few weeks ago. But without having the knowledge of the Christian scriptures, you would not be saved. All knowledge must have a source. The Bible is our only source of knowledge about God.
Mark: What do you mean by that?
Robert: Well, we can only know God because God has made himself known.
He has done this, to a limited degree, through creation. We can look at the stars and know that there is a creator. We can test the law of gravity and learn that the creator made things orderly so that gravity works every time. But creation still needs an interpreter, a role the Bible serves well.
He has given a record of His actual words time and time again in the Bible. Yet, the greatest revelation of God is in His Son Jesus, who made the Father known perfectly. He could say, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”We do not walk with Jesus on the hills of Galilee, in the Bible we have the testimony of those who did.
Mark: Slow down. We have God’s actual words in the Bible.
Robert: Yes, the Old Testament claims some 2000 times to be recording the very words of God. Sometimes the prophets used phrases like, “Thus says the Lord…” In the New Testament, the phrase that recurs some forty times is, “Word of God.” The Bible claims to be exactly that.
Mark: What I read is the written form of those direct messages given to prophets and other people?
Robert: Right. With this message in written form, delivered once for all, it has been stabilized. It does not change anymore. Why is that? It does not need to. We have a completed revelation from God. When we read it, we gain incomparable knowledge of who He is and what He is like. You can know your God.
Mark: You’re assuming that I trust the people who “received” the words from God. AND you’re assuming that I think they are better at understanding God than I am.
Robert: Well, yes and no, Mark. I’m not really talking about you and them at all. I’m assuming that you trust God and His ability to communicate to His people. AND I’m assuming that you will let God choose how and to whom He communicates without arrogantly thinking that if Moses heard from God on a mountain than you should too.
Mark: Does God have favorites? Is Moses better than I am?
Robert: You’re missing the point. Let me say it again, it…is…not…about…you. It’s about God giving you a trustworthy description of Himself in the Bible.
Mark: How do you know the Bible is from God?
Robert: Jesus loves me, this I know…
Mark: What?
Robert: For the Bible tells me so.
Mark: You believe the Bible because the Bible says to believe the Bible.
Robert: Not exactly. I believe the Bible because God says to believe the Bible.
Mark: How has God told you that?
Robert: In the Bible.
Mark: There you go again.
Robert: You are understanding me, Mark. I start with God and let Him speak. You are beginning with you and demanding that God perform.
Mark: Ouch! I never thought about it like that.
Robert: The work of Holy Spirit in the writing of the Bible ensures that it tells the truth in everything it says and in all areas it addresses.
Here’s the train of thought, Mark. We know that God is wise, powerful, has all knowledge – if that is true about who God is and the Spirit was involved to insure that the human authors did not overrule God’s ability, then we necessarily have a Bible that is without error. Why is this important? If the Bible has error, then we have no source of truth. We do not know what is true and what is false within the Bible. If the Bible has error, then we have no source of morality. God himself would be teaching us that the ends justify the means. It’s OK to use a lie to get across a good point. If the Bible has error, then we don’t know how to be saved and we are still dead in our sins. If I cannot believe what God said about the sun, the how can I know that He is right about His Son?
The Bible provides knowledge, but not as an end. The Bible’s knowledge is intended to bring you into a living relationship with Jesus.
Mark: You said last week that the Bible provides life. New life, which you call conversion and it tells me how to live day to day.
Robert: That’s what this is all about.
God rules your life, as a believer, He is your Lord and master as well the savior of your soul. It cannot be otherwise. How does God rule your life? Does He rule your life by a big hand coming out of the sky and says, “Go that way.” If He does that for you, don’t tell anybody, I’d just keep that one a little secret. God rules you by the Holy Spirit via His word. God governs His people and His world by means of the scriptures. Nothing else can do this for us. The Bible alone is correct in all areas – you and I are not. We are never admonished to “listen to your heart to show yourselves approved unto God.” What does God say to do? Study! As your governing, as the rule for your life, the Bible is enough; you don’t need any more information.
Mark: Okay. I’m an artist. Are you telling me that I can learn all that I need to know about art from the Bible?
Robert: Yea, but…
Mark: I’m not finished. I have a job. The Bible will tell me about how to do that too? When I worked at Starbucks they had a thick notebook of how to make coffee and how to smile at idiots when their yelling at you. The CEO’s a fool if all he had to do was give me a Bible. He could have saved millions in printing costs.
Robert: You done? That was a brilliant rant. But you don’t quite get my point.
Listen. I’m not saying that you can find techniques on color use in the Bible or the amount of time a pot of coffee should be on before you throw it out. Though there is most certainly a standard for those things too. We’ll have to talk aboutart and creativity sometime. What I am saying is that the moral qualities of art are most certainly found in the Bible as well as the responsibilities of the artist to his audience.
Mark: I’m going to disagree with you here. I don’t believe there are any morals in art.
Robert: Yes, then we very much disagree. But, honestly, we need a whole morning to talk about that and I think that my Christian vantage point will only make since to you as you understand better the system that I am coming from, the system that God gives in the Bible. And it has all we need to live in God’s world.
Mark: Alright, I get it now. Is this your idea or do others think this way too. The other day, you made a big deal what the church has believed in the past. Is this what the Church has believed? It seems that somebody had to hear from God personally.
Robert: Sure, that’s what we call prophets. And they absolutely heard from God in a very clear and audible voice, no hints or inner impressions. It was unmistakable every time it happened. They are the ones who wrote what we have in the Bible. We take advantage of what God did in them, but there’s only been one Moses, one Peter, one Paul.
The Church in history knows of no other sufficient source of training and guidance for life.
I belong to the Evangelical Free Church of America. Point one of our doctrinal statement confirms the Bible in this place.
We believe the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, to be the inspired Word of God, without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for the salvation of men and the Divine and final authority for Christian faith and life.
Article VI of the Church of England, written over 300 years earlier says the same thing:
‘Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.‘
They all believed that you do not need to know anything beyond the scriptures in order to live a full Christian life. It sets the boundaries and it tells us what God is up to.
Mark: Why do you have to say what God is up to? Why do you need to delineate and define? Why do you have to be right and someone else be wrong?
Robert: I hope I haven’t come across that way, Mark. I’m sorry if that’s how it sounded. But I have to come to a conviction of what God has said. My only question is then, is this what the Bible says or not.
Mark: What’s personal about that? You said God was personal and my relationship with Him is personal.
Robert: How did we define personal? God is a person. There is no place in the Bible that suggests you should expect individual information from God. Go this way…take that job.
If you think that I am replacing the personal encounter of the Spirit of God with the Bible, then you misunderstand both me and the Holy Spirit. I attribute no power to words on paper. It is the Holy Spirit who inspired these words who makes them effective. The Spirit always works through his word. If it’s for our salvation, for the conviction of sin, or for guidance in day to day living, the Spirit uses His word. So you must learn it like you believe that.
{Mark pauses for a minute, I can tell he’s thinking about something}
Mark: I put so much effort into learning other things. How many hours do I spend each week learning things that are not the Word of God, that are not true, that are not providing all I need for life? Fast forward to the how for me.
Robert: When people ask me if I have a plan to memorize the Bible, I say, “Yes, I read it… a lot. I try to read the Old Testament once and the New Testament three times each year. To be honest, I haven’t pulled it off this year. Life has gotten bigger than my plans can handle.
Mark: I can’t read like that.
Robert: How much isn’t that important, but you have to do it rightly.
I keep five principles in mind that help me keep me from making the Bible a reflection of my own thinking.
{Mark spreads out a napkin and borrows my pen, it’s a Monte Blanc. I’m not a snob, really. It was given to me as a gift for a wedding that I did for some wonderful friends. I’m the kind of guy who writes on recycled paper with a $100 pen. Go figure.}
Mark: Alright, Number 1.
Robert: Ha, who’s making this a class now? Okay, number 1. Give the Bible the benefit of the doubt. We probably give more credibility to the Weekly World News than we do the Bible. We assume that we know better. For example, many assume that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are contradictory, because they tell differing versions of the same story. These two passages look a little different in their telling of the creation story. Do you think that the author did not know that? We would have to assume that the author was a complete moron not to notice it. Or else we do not understand. It is appropriate to question all you want, but there is a difference between questioning and judging. Honesty demands that we question with the supposition that I don’t understand. Honesty demands that we read all things this way, especially Bible. I cannot judge an author’s writing until I understand the author’s writing.
Mark: We’ve already talked about that. You slammed for demanding God to perform for me.
Robert: Right. See, you learned something about studying that Bible without a lecture and a classroom. I find a simple phrase easier to remember. But that’s why I have to give the Bible the benefit of the doubt. If I don’t then I set myself up as the authority.
Mark: Number 2?
Robert: Ready to go on? Number 2, Know your basic grammar. I mean the kind of stuff you were supposed to learn in Junior High School.
Grammar is essential for understanding writings in any language. Basic grammar will help you recognize the words that introduce metaphor like, as so that you don’t try to take them too literally.
Know that when a passage addresses says “you,” it probably doesn’t mean you. Look at what is happening and who is being spoken to. There most likely is a principal that will apply to your life as a fellow believer.
These are not magical principles; they are simple seventh grade English grammar but are vital for understanding the Bible.
Mark: Man, I don’t know. Grammar?
Robert: Come on, you speak English. You might not remember all the details of what you learned but you do most of it everyday. Use your common sense and when you’re unsure, do your homework. It can’t be all handed to on a silver platter.
Mark: Will you help me?
Robert: You know I will. Look, just about any Pastor will be thrilled to help you with this kind of stuff.
Actually, that’s a good test. If you ask the Pastor of your church some questions about the grammar of the Bible and he cant or wont do it, get the heck out of there fast.
Number 3, are you ready? Determine what it says. Always seek to understand first. Until you know what it says, you cannot know what it means. What do you think about this verse?
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. John 16:13
Mark: I think that it’s a promise that God will guide me as I need it.
Robert: Taken on its own, spoken to you its sounds that way. But lets back up a little bit.
Remember that we are reading from the Gospel of John. A writing that reveals its own purpose as giving enough information about who Jesus was and what He did that we might believe in Him as the Jewish Messiah, as our personal savior.
It fits into the section of chapters 14-17 in which Jesus delivers His last teaching to the disciples just before He is about to die. They are at the last supper and then walking to the garden of Gethsemane.
This chapter speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit with the Disciples once Jesus goes away. Jesus will send the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God will convict the World of its sin. The Spirit of God will teach the disciples (the you of the passage) Jesus’ words. Then, most importantly, the Spirit of God will bring glory to Jesus.
Now we are prepared to ask some basic questions of the passage.
Who is speaking?
Mark: Jesus.
Robert: Who is being spoken to?
Mark: The disciples.
Robert: What is He talking about to them?
Mark: The way that the Spirit will explain things to them.
Robert: When will the Spirit do this?
Mark: After Jesus dies.
Robert: You’re just gathering information at this point.
Mark: You see, this all seems so impersonal. What does any of it have to do with me?
Robert: Honestly Mark, you are irrelevant up to this point. Any person using common sense can see what the Bible says. But you have to do this work, even of it seems like drudgery before you can, determine what it means. That’s number 4. I did not say, “Determine what is means to you.”
What is Jesus trying to get the Apostles to do? He want them to be comforted in that He was going away, He was going to die. Next He wants them to realize that they still didn’t get it. I have much more to say to you guys, more than you can bear right now. They were to understand that the Spirit of God will guide them to a proper understanding of the significance of all that Jesus said and did.
They were to know that they were to carry on this message. This passage teaches that the Spirit of God will finish Jesus’ teaching to and through the apostles.
Mark: So it has nothing to do with me at all.
Robert: It has everything to do with you, just not the way you are thinking. What are we talking about?
Mark: How to read and understand the Bible so we can walk with Jesus.
Robert: Is it important to you, then, that God the Holy Spirit was ensuring that the disciples recorded Jesus’ words and life accurately?
Mark: That’s good, thanks. Now give me number 5 and let me get going. I’ve to work in a couple hours and I need to run some errands first.
Robert: Only after you discover what a passage means can you ask what you ought to do about it. Now I can determine how it applies. If I read myself into this passage I would have interpreted it wrongly. At this point I ask questions like: What belief or behavior of mine ought to change? What difference does it make to me that the disciples will be supernaturally guided to remember and understand Jesus’ teaching?
Mark: I have a true picture of Jesus.
Robert: Therefore, learn the Christian scriptures.
Mark: The Bible is my only true, authoritative, and complete source of knowledge about God, salvation and Christian living.
Robert: Are you reading my notes? That was beautiful. This is Christian kindergarten. You must have a working knowledge of the Bible. Don’t be too intent on skipping a grade –realize how important crawling is for your development.
We walked out together today. I left determined to get work myself. Sometimes I think I fall into bad habits because I “know” so many parts of the Bible and can talk about most of it because of my education. There is a story of a famous English preacher who soaked himself in the Sacred Writings day in and day out. It was said that if you pricked him, he would bleed the Bible. Of course, what else would I want to saturate me but the words that God has determined to use to bring life, power and salvation to myself, to Mark and to any who would hear and believe? In so many ways I’m still in Kindergarten.
{The Bible is your only true, authoritative, and complete source of knowledge about God, salvation and Christian living. This really is Christian kindergarten. Now obey it. We have already said that knowledge that does not lead to character is still little Christianity, which applies here.
Let James words be an admonition to you: Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
And you will become less dangerous.}
