Reading: Psalm 119v129-136, 2 Timothy 3v14-17
I used to read a book in preference
to a news paper on the train to work. It’s easier to manage and
more entertaining, but you do have to be a bit careful if the book is
very funny. Laughing out loud just outside Barking is not a good
move. I kept up with the news and current affairs by listening to
the radio.
Books I’ve read
I’ve read quite a lot of books, I
suppose. For example, the entire Sherlock Holmes series and The Lost
World by Arthur Conan Doyle, many of Agatha Christie’s Poirot
books, Terry Pratchet’s Disk World series, and lots of science
fiction – from Jules Verne to Isaac Asimov, and all the James Bond
books. I also enjoy reading books in the cottages we visit on
holiday, it was on one of those occasions that I read Pride and
Prejudice and on another I discovered Dr. Thorndyke by R. Austin
Freeman. Dr Thorndyde is a Victorian detective and what we would now
call a forensic scientist. There’s lots more besides those, and
I’m not going to spend the morning listing books.
Encounter with a book
Every book that I have read, has had
some effect on me, but reading Sherlock Holmes has not turned me into
a great detective, although I’m sure the children would have got
away with a lot more if those stories hadn’t encouraged me to look
closely at the evidence. And reading the Poirot stories has not
turned me into a Belgian.
Stories
Stories, even fictional ones, have an
effect on our thinking and therefore on the way we live our lives.
We are fortunate to live in a culture where so much literature is so
easily available and where we have been given the skills to interact
with it.
Reference Books
Of course, I’ve also spent a lot of
time reading reference books. I remember many Saturday mornings in
the local library with my head in various encyclopedias madly
scribbling notes for some homework assignment. That was some very
reluctant reading, but it has served me well. Later, at work, before
the internet there was always a library of reference books that I had
to know my way around, and dip in and out of as was required. It you
couldn’t figure it out from the book, you couldn’t figure it out.
Bible
There is one book that I encountered
that had a role in changing my life though – its not really a book,
but a collection of books – the Bible. In many ways it is the
strangest book I have ever engaged with. We say that it has all the
answers, that it tells us how God wants us to live, and it does. But
you can’t go to the index and look up Sin, then reference all the
entries to find out what you’re not supposed to do. And yet that
is how we use it a lot of the time. I remember sitting in the Coach
and Horses discussing all sorts of things and Jim flicking through
his Bible like some great encyclopedia, and finding and reading short
passages. Even they needed explanation! It was far from straight
forward.
Bible’s story
The Bible’s books tell the story of
God’s people through three important events. The first is their
rescue from slavery in Egypt and their arrival in the promised land.
The second is their exile from the promised land at the hands of the
Babylonians and the promise of a saviour. The third is the arrival
of the saviour – Jesus, and his death and resurrection.
Each of these events is recorded and
reflected on as the people try to understand what is happening to
them and how God is guiding them.
Exile
It was the exile that led to the
creation of the books in the first place. The people were in fear
that they would lose touch with their God in a foreign land so the
memories from the oral tradition were finally recorded.
Nothing, absolutely nothing was left
out. No attempt was made to gloss over their failings, they were
happy to admit them and record them, from their wilful disobedience
to their love of the Lord. Everything.
Over the period of a couple of
centuries following the exile the word Torah changes from meaning
‘teachings’ to meaning ‘the writings’i,
and the Jews have become the people of the book.
Ps 119
We get a small snippet of their love
and desire for their God in the verse of Psalm 119 that was read
today:
Your statutes are wonderful;
therefore I obey them.
The unfolding of your words
gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.
I open my mouth and pant,
longing for your commands.
Turn to me and have mercy on
me, as you always do to those who love your name.
Direct my footsteps
according to your word; let no sin rule over me.
Redeem me from the
oppression of men, that I may obey your precepts.
Make your face shine upon
your servant and teach me your decrees.
Streams of tears flow from
my eyes, for your law is not obeyed.
Torah – God’s word.
The Torah, or Pentateuch are the
words that the psalmist is referring to. These words carry a power
which is far greater than the simple text, because these words are
the words of God.
2 Tim
In our new testament reading the holy
Scriptures that Paul refers to is much more similar to our Old
Testament. Paul says that the scriptures make you wise for salvation
through faith in Jesus. All Scripture, he says (and we would now
include his letters and the rest of the New Testament in all
Scripture), is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training
in righteousness.
Rebuking
Teaching is fairly obvious, I think,
but perhaps rebuking is less so. When did you last receive a rebuke
from Scripture? It simply means that something you read made you
realise that you had sinned – gone against God’s word, and that
you need to repent. An old meaning of rebuke is something that
makes you turn back. Repentance would set you back on the right
path.
God-breathed
Paul says that Scripture is
God-breathed. It is God’s words, not man’s. That doesn’t mean
that it was dictated by God as some would have us believed, the
process is more sophisticated than that. 2 Peter 1:21 gives us a
clue: “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but
prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by
the Holy Spirit.”
Inspired
You may be thinking we should use the
word ‘Inspired’ rather that God-breathed, although that is the
literal translation. Tom Wright in his commentary say there is a
problem with our understanding of the word ‘Inspired’. Sometimes
it simply means exceptional, as in ‘an inspired performance’.
Sometimes it implies some sort of spiritual force took over, for
example when we talk about inspired poetry. This just takes us back
to the dictation approach that I mentioned earlier. The authors of
Scripture were not “God’s typewriter”. Sometimes ‘it’s
inspired’ means that it fits my theology perfectly, and therefore I
can claim something for my theology that is not Biblical.
God-breathed, on the other hand, does
not imply any of these things, it only implies that the message comes
from God.
Correcting and training
Correcting and training in
righteousness are also, I think, quite obvious. After my many
discussions in the pub, I eventually became a follower of Jesus.
From that point on I have often needed my world view corrected by the
Bible.
Effect of reading Scripture
In 2011 Christianity Today reported
on a study of the effect of reading scriptureii.
Here’s a very quick summary:
- Those who read scripture more often are more likely to:
- say it is important to actively seek social and economic justice
- say it is important to consume fewer goods
- see less of a conflict between science and religion
- dis-approve of same-sex marriages
That helps me to understand Hebrews
4:12:
For the word of God is
living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the
division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and
discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Read more
The implication is that we should
read our bibles more often and for longer. There are several ways to
do this, there are plenty of Bible reading plans available, some in
paper form and some available electronically, and you will need a
good Bible, of course.
Which Bible
Premier Christian Radio had a
Facebook poll recently that asked whether it is important which
version of the Bible you read. I don’t remember the figures for
the result, except that I was in the minority, in that I think it is
very important.
Now, I don’t much care which
version you read, so long as it’s one that you can understand
easily. I didn’t like the trend a few years ago to return to the
Authorised Version. The language is far too out of date, and while
it is undoubtedly beautifully put together, it is too difficult for
day-to-day use 400 years on. So pick a recent(ish) modern
translation, or something that is close to it, so that you can
understand easily what you read. That’s the most important thing,
then you will have no excuse for not obeying it’s commands.
Home Groups
We can, and should read the Bible in
private and in Public. I spent 3 years reading from cover to cover
on the train many years ago. We should also read in small groups,
where we can study it a little more deeply. At Christ Church, we
call these Home Groups. I’ve been in a Home Group for most of my
time here and in that time we’ve covered many books, including
Revelation, and recently we’ve just finished Isaiah. Both of those
were quite challenging, quite though provoking and well worth the
effort.
Conclusion
So as I wrap up this Bible Sunday
sermon, I will tell you that the most influential book of all time,
has also been the most influential book I have encountered so far.
If you’d like to know more, I’d
love to hear from you.
Let me leave you with two Bible verses:
Isaiah 40:8
The grass withers and the flowers
fall, but the word of our God endures forever.
Romans 15:4
For everything that was written in
the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance
taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might
have hope.
i https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/when-was-the-hebrew-bible-written/
ii https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2011/july/effects-of-reading-scripture.html
References
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/when-was-the-hebrew-bible-written/
https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2011/july/effects-of-reading-scripture.html
https://www.openbible.info/topics/itself
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/origins-written-bible/
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/canon
References
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/when-was-the-hebrew-bible-written/
https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2011/july/effects-of-reading-scripture.html
https://www.openbible.info/topics/itself
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/origins-written-bible/
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/canon
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