The Bible Matters

Excerpted from Doxa: What You Believe Matters

There once was a seven-year-old boy who liked to help his mom in the kitchen. He’d come home after school, while she was baking, and he’d learn how to cook. His mom would write down recipes and put them in a cookbook so he could remember them. His mother had a knack for cooking, and because of his affection for her, the boy always wanted to go back and read her notes on how to make a great meal.

Now, over time the boy grew up and became a master chef. He became very confident in his ability to create a great meal, and so he stopped reading this old cookbook. He became more and more convinced of his ability to present something independent of all his experiences with his mom.

After a while, his enjoyment of cooking (even as a master chef) began to diminish. He didn’t find that he liked his recipes as much any more. He noticed that he wasn’t receiving the same number of compliments. He didn’t feel the same sense of connection with his mother that he did when he was a little boy and used to do these things.

Then, in the middle of his career, this fellow walked away from cooking. He didn’t use the cookbook anymore, and he didn’t really feel connected in the same way to his mom. He stopped cooking entirely, finding that he no longer enjoyed being in the kitchen or even remembering his childhood culinary adventures.

This story was relayed to me as a young boy, about the importance of learning and internalizing the Bible. There were a few key points here – that the Bible is meant to guide us, that it is a resource of instruction and history, etc – but mostly what stuck with me was the sadness of losing that connection with God. If for no other reason, we engage scripture primarily to stay connected with our Creator.

Mission

Excerpted from Seasons of Christian Spirituality: Kingdomtide

I am the living bread which came down from Heaven: if any man eat of this

bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will

give for the life of the world.

John 6.51

King Abgar Ouchama V of Edessa was one of the first Christian kings in history. But his

conversion story is weird. Many Eastern Orthodox believers consider some version of the story to be gospel truth. Many of the details have been historically verified and all persons involved were actually alive and gave testimony to the events. But I’m not yet ready to nominate this one for the solid gold integrity award. For now, let’s continue to call it a fanciful Christian legend, useful in illustrating a point.

Abgar lived and ruled in Syria during the public ministry of Jesus. He had heard of Christ’s miraculous powers and his claims to divinity and was quickly convinced of both, despite being separated from Jesus by several hundred miles. Abgar got mysteriously ill about the time that Christ’s persecution by the Jewish religious leaders was heating up and getting violent, so the king wrote to the King of Kings and offered him political asylum in exchange for a prayer of healing.

Abgar had his court archivist, Hannan, visit Christ and deliver the message in person. Jesus declined, but when Hannan returned to Edessa he carried with him a portrait of

Jesus that he claimed was not made by human hands. According to Doctrine of Addai (4^th part two: how to lead a mission 717 century AD) this portrait was crafted by God Himself, and when the archivist placed it in front of King Abgar, it spoke these words:

Happy are those who believe in me, but have not seen me…When I have ascended to my Father I will send you one of My disciples. He will heal all your sufferings and your city will be forever blessed because of your faith.

Some time passed before anything else happened, and Abgar’s condition continued to

worsen. After the ascension of Christ Thomas the Apostle sent Thaddeus (one of the 70

followers of Christ, from Luke 10) to Abgar. Abgar was promised in a vision that salvation was coming, and when Thaddeus entered into the royal court Abgar fell on his knees and cried out, ”Are you really one of the disciples of Christ?” To which Thomas replied, “All your desires will be fulfilled if you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

“I have come to believe,” Abgar said, and was healed instantly.

After this, Thaddeus worked his way through Edessa putting his hands on people, blessing and healing them in the name of Christ. Pagan temples and brothels alike were closed or put out of business. And although no one was forced to convert, many thousands accepted Christ that day and each day after.

It’s a cool story, and very old which, if nothing else, demonstrates that the purpose of the church is to go out and actually make a difference in the lives of real people. We have been called and commissioned to heal the sick, to cure disease, to fight the power of evil, and to bring the good news of the gospel into every corner of the world.

Somehow our contemporary church has overlooked all of that.

Maybe it’s because we find the supernatural bits of the Bible difficult to rationalize.

Or, maybe it’s because telling others about the gospel seems somehow colonial,

intolerant, or pushy.

Or maybe it’s because we have no real control over the outcomes of the kind of

encounters and that kind of risk is uncomfortable we have gotten away from the

fact that the gospel works in two directions – Heaven later on, but also Heaven-

on-earth now.

In this life, not just the next.

Abgar didn't call out to Christ to gain entrance into Heaven. He called out to Christ

because he was sick and miserable and wanted life to be better and to live well.

We need to reacquaint ourselves with the gospel priority of telling others about

Jesus Christ and what he can do for them and through them and in them and with them.

I understand why we’re reluctant to promise healing, a better life, or better circumstances.

We don’t want to pander to people’s base desires for material comforts or sell the lie of

easy living. Neither do we want to mislead them into thinking that everything will be

better once they become Christians. But to leave out the promise of the gospel to make

a difference in real life – to fix our relationships, to empower us to overcome adversity,

to bolster us to withstand temptation and persecution and trial and misery, to heal our

bodies and restore our flagging spirits – is to leave out the good news.

The church is an agency of healing, working to reconcile us to God, to others, to our true selves, and to the world. Healing the world is comprised of three key facets:

Charity – our service to the world, which is called diakonia in the Second Testament.

Hospitality – our community in (but not of) the world, called koinonia.

Storytelling – our proclamation to the world, called kerygma.

I encourage you to take some time to confess

your reluctance to share the gospel

your insecurities about how people will respond

your fears about whether or not you’ll tell it well.

Come before God with a humble heart and repent for narrowing the scope of the gospel to something purely about life after death, for narrowing the scope of the gospel to something purely about the quality of earthly life.

And then turn around and tell everyone you see the good news that God isn't just trying to give you metaphysical fire insurance, but abundant life in the here and now, that God isn't looking to punish you, but to reward you with something better than what you've been able to provide for yourself, that God’s plans aren't just limited to a few special people, but include the redemption of the world, every culture, tribe, nation, language, city, country, and ethnicity, that God’s plans are not merely His, but ours, too, as we participate with Him in healing the world.

Listening To Scripture

An excerpt from Shadowing God.

Reading the Bible should not be reduced to some kind of requirement for good standing with God or the church. On the contrary, our relationship with scripture is more romance than rote – it actually makes a
difference in our lives, teaching, correcting, and training us how God wants us to live (see 2 Timothy 3.16-17). The Bible is pure, true, flawless, perfect, effective, precious, and powerful (Psalm 119.2). Nothing is to be taken from or added to it (see Deuteronomy 4.2), except (apparently) some maps.

For everyone who claims to know and love Jesus, the Bible must be the standard against which we measure every impulse, decision, and desire. All efforts to shadow God must begin with a sound understanding of scripture. The Bible presents to us God’s will, purposes, and designs for this world and anything that contradicts the clear teaching of scripture can be immediately identified as spiritually erroneous.

Don’t read the Bible for information,
read it for transformation.

That is, don’t pick up the Bible and flip through it looking for an answer to life’s particulars – should I marry this person, should I accept this new position at work, should I go on this adventure, etc. – because in all likelihood one of three bad things will happen:
You will likely not find an answer to your particular problem in that moment and so you will despair of there being any answers, wisdom, or worth to be found in the scripture.
You may find an answer, but it might not be a good answer. For example, you might find a scripture that seems to indicate you should marry this person instead of that person, only to discover later on that you don’t really love them and weren't really ready for marriage. In that moment, the natural human tendency would be to blame the Bible and blame God instead of acknowledging that there was something misguided about how you came to that answer in the first place.
Finally, you may find an answer and it might be a good one, leading you to believe that any time you need such answers you should just open the scriptures and see what’s there which will – eventually, if not immediately – lead you back into either of the first two problems.

I might remind us all at this point that the Bible is complex, written several thousand years ago by several dozen contributors under the inspiration of the Spirit; and, in order for us to find answers, we must take a more well-reasoned approach to looking for those answers--weighing in all the appropriate texts, reading commentary and studying context, etc.

How, then, should we read the Bible?

My favorite image for reading and studying the Bible comes from Columbia professor Walter Brueggemann, who suggests we treat the Bible as compost. In Brueggemann’s analogy we are asked to remember that the Bible is not the place of new spiritual insights. The Bible is thousands of years old and the canon of
scripture has been “closed” for some time.

Like a compost, the Bible is the repository of old growth, nutrients, and life. The best way for us to read the Bible is to mix it in to daily living by
memorizing it,
talking about it,
telling the stories from within the scriptures to our children
or our neighbors,
paraphrasing,
performing,
and playing,
so that the life of the scriptures fertilizes our everyday lives in an ongoing manner.

There are, incidentally, two kinds of composting: active and passive. Active composting, in which the conditions are more highly controlled, rapidly produces basic fertilizer. To continue our metaphor of the Bible-as-compost, when we memorize scripture (or spend time regularly reading scripture) we quickly gain a working knowledge of the Bible and a good understanding of who God is and what he’s like.
Passive composting lets nature take its course in a more leisurely manner, but often produces richer fertilizer. In spiritual terms, the more we let scripture pop up in our everyday lives, especially in storied ways –
like rehearsing episodes of Daniel off the top of our heads, or paraphrasing the parables of Jesus to friends over coffee, discussing what he really meant – the more saturated we become with the grand Story of God and the World.

For my part, I like to tease out complex theological problems with people who aren't Christians. I think of it as a good way to whet their appetite for the Story of God, and to get fresh perspective on whatever the issue happens to be.

I also like to tell my kids Bible stories, connecting the dots for them between the prophets and Jesus, or between different Old Testament episodes that occur around the same time. It fires their imaginations, and it helps anchor our home in the reality that we are part of this same story. One night, my daughter kept waking up with these horrible nightmares and so, finally, I climbed into bed with her and began to tell her a story. I felt nudged to tell her the story of one famous dreamer in the Bible, Daniel, and about his dreams in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar. I asked her if she had ever heard of Daniel and she had – knowing the story of the lion’s den by heart – and so we prayed and sang and talked about the fact that the same God who controlled
Daniel’s dreams was the same God who rescued Daniel from the lion’s den, and is also the same God to whom we now pray and believe that he is Lord over Anna’s dreams and will protect her like he protected Daniel. She laughed, snuggled, and fell fast asleep with no further interruptions from any monsters under the bed, glowing eyes in the woods, or creatures from the deep places of the earth.

That’s what I mean by using the scripture as compost. Let it fertilize life. That, too, is how we shadow God. In that moment with my daughter, I knew, based on my understanding of the scripture, and my longevity as a Christ-follower, that what God wanted in that moment was to reintroduce himself to Anna in such a way so she would be affirmed and grow, that she would have confidence that he is watching over her, and that her daddy is there bathing her with prayers, blessings, thanksgiving, and faith. God wanted to be there for Anna, and so I was there for Anna, reminding her of God – like a shadow. She can’t see Christ, but she can see Christ-in-me.

Don’t treat the Bible like a recipe book, a manual, or a self-help guide. Don’t read it like homework, or a contract, or legislation. Do read the Bible like a Grand Story, like an epic, an adventure, a romance. Do
treat it reverently, but play with it, sing it, perform it, and keep bringing it up in all those magical moments throughout each day when a little fertilizer is needed.

Let the scriptures marinate you. Let them penetrate you. Let them weave in and out of your thoughts and conversations. Once the Bible becomes a constant source of nutrition in your life, you will find that shadowing God comes more naturally. You’ll know the kinds of things God wants, just as you’ll know the kinds of things God does. You will be able to recognize godliness when you see it, just as you will be more willing to participate in godliness when you’re needed.