During the previous two weeks, we have outlined two steps churches today should take to rekindle a New Testament appreciation of the scriptures. First, they should encourage their members to read the Bible. Secondly, they should compel their congregation to study the Bible.
The third step and final step is this: we as Christians should apply the Bible. In other words, we should use it devotionally, allowing God's Word to become a gateway to obedient service. The Bible student should let God speak within its pages so that He makes a difference in his or her daily existence. This is not merely a feeling of peace and contentment that mysteriously comes to someone who meditates on the Bible. Instead, it is more often than not a direct result of that person's faithful attention to the first two steps in our approach to the Bible. For it is by reading God's Word and studying it in its historical, textual, and literary context that we are able to appreciate why the writer of each book wrote to his particular audience and, in our mind's eye, become a part of that audience ourselves.
Yes, as we read and study the prophets, we can begin to hear the gasps of disbelief and the moans of discontent at Bethel's shrine as Amos boldly denounces the superficiality of religion. As we study the gospels, we will find ourselves sitting with the curious multitudes, feeling the wind at our faces and hearing the gentle waves brush the shoreline, as Jesus from a floating pulpit on the Sea of Galilee spins one of the kingdom parables. As we study Paul's letters, we will huddle anxiously with the Corinthian believers around the bearer of Paul's first epistle to them and hear him speak of the priority of Christian love over petty differences. Or, as we study the book of Revelation, we will sit among the frightened Christians of Asia Minor, under persecution by the Roman emperor Domitian, and hear John's encouraging words from Patmos of God's ultimate victory and Rome's inevitable defeat. And just as we have thus heard the Biblical writers speak in their own day, we will just as easily be able to transfer ourselves to the present and apply what it says to us today.
Our Biblical approach thus attempts to connect us intimately with the people within its pages, for the men and women of the Bible were really not much different from us today. They, says L. D. Johnson, "...bore a continuity with the life of mankind generally. They ate and drank, loved and hated, fought and were victorious, suffered and died like other people. They shared the limitations and prejudices of their contemporaries." We today, therefore, have the opportunity to "see ourselves in these pages, with all our passions and frailties, all our hopes and affections, our victories and defeats." Referring to the Bible as "the best of all textbooks in human nature," Bruce Barton adds, "In the Bible...we have the nature of boys and girls, of men and women, more accurately charted than in the work of any modern novelist or playwright. You can learn more about human nature by reading the Bible than by living in New York."
But we have something other than human nature, something infinitely more important, that links us to the Biblical characters. We all throughout history have worshipped the same God and Savior, the One who transcends all time and culture. It is the discovery of His voice within its pages that should always be the end result of Bible study.
In summary, the Bible is relevant today. Its message to us is as needed and applicable now as when first penned. "There is something," says Johnson, "about the the news which the Bible reports that causes men to say, 'This is for me!' For this reason, the Bible is as relevant today as when it was first recorded under the guidance of the Spirit of God. It tells of man's universal need and God's universal redemptive love." To which Barton adds: "The Bible rose the place it occupies because it deserved to rise to that place, and not because God sent anybody with a box of tricks to prove its divine authority. Its answer to man's spiritual needs made it what it is. Like the blacksmith's anvil that had worn out a hundred hammers and still stood firm, it has outworn the attacks of ten thousand enemies. What is more significant, it has lived in spite of the folly of its defenders.
I sincerely pray that all churches - conservative, moderate, and liberal - will rediscover just how relevant the Bible is. I pray that they will all reclaim it as God's Word and nothing less and that they will begin to see Him more clearly within its pages. I pray that in the light of His infinite greatness, so perceived, congregations will once again bow before Him, realizing anew that they are finite and in need of repentance. I pray that they will find His grace, proclaimed within His Word, more than sufficient to propel them from their knees to grateful service. And then, having thus experienced together the true message of the Bible, I pray that people of all churches will finally begin to fulfill their purpose within God's kingdom:
We will walk with each other,
we will walk hand in hand,
And together we'll spread the news
that God is in our land.
And they'll know we are Christians
by our love.
NEXT WEEK
Part 12: Worship
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