November 25
November 25
Everything that has been recorded and preserved in the Bible has been placed there by our Lord for our good.
When reading the Bible, you might be tempted to skip over things that don’t interest you or that seem to have no connection to your life. Perhaps you wonder why you need to read all those laws in Leviticus or the chapters that record the numbering of the tribes of Israel or yet another genealogy. Perhaps you’ve wondered why you need to know all that Old Testament history. But God’s word was recorded, preserved, and delivered to us for his glory and our good. He guided every part of it so that we would know him, ourselves, the depth of our struggle with sin, the solution to sin’s disease in the person and work of Jesus, the realities of life in a fallen world, what it means to live as God intended, the assurance of our future hope, and more. Every part of God’s word is loaded with loving, redemptive intention.
Consider this passage from 1 Corinthians 10:
These things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. (1 Cor. 10:6–12)
The Bible we hold in our hands is physical proof of how much God loves us. In an act of sovereign love, God preserved the history of his people, which serves as an example to us. He did so to protect us from the temptations that captured his people in the Old Testament. All of this has been recorded because the Lord who created you also knows you. He knows the world you live in and the temptations you face, and he uses the history of his people to warn and remind you that true life is found only in him.
Paul ends his discussion of the value of the history of God’s word in this way: “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” We must not avoid any part of God’s word or tell ourselves that we don’t need it. We must not think that we know what we need better than God knows. We must humbly accept that we are capable of falling prey to all the sinful things that captured those who came before us, and that we need everything God has given us in his word.