chapter eight THE USE OF THE BIBLE
chapter eight
THE USE OF THE BIBLE
What are the marks of a “doer of the Word”?
Basic to our Christian faith is the conviction that our God, far from being dead and dumb, is living and vocal. He has spoken a precise message in precise historical and geographical contexts, and has caused it to be written and preserved in the Bible. Moreover, as we have considered, there are sound reasons for accepting the Bible’s authority and sound principles to guide us in its interpretation.
So what? Why have we spent so much time on these matters? For one reason only, that God still speaks through what he has spoken. What he said centuries ago has a vital relevance to contemporary men and women. The Bible is not an antique piece whose proper home is a museum. On the contrary, it is a “lamp” to our feet and a “light” to our path (Ps. 119:105; cf. 2 Pet. 1:19). God’s words can be our “counselors” in all the perplexities of modern life. They give wisdom and understanding to the simple (Pss. 119:24, 34;19:7).
But whether we derive any benefit from Scripture depends on how we use it, on what response we make to its message. One of God’s recurring complaints in the biblical record itself is that his people continually turned a deaf ear to his Word. His messengers had to keep pleading with Israel:
There are in the end only two possible attitudes to God’s Word, to receive it or to reject it. Those who are receptive to it are portrayed with vivid figures of speech. They are said to “tremble” at it, just because it is the word of the great God himself (Isa. 66:2, 5; Ezra 9:4). They prize it like gold and relish it like honey (Pss. 19:10; 119:103, 127). They rejoice over it “like one who finds great spoil.” They thirst for it with the ardor of a suckled child (Ps. 119:162; 1 Pet. 2:2). On the other hand, those who reject it are said to have closed their ears and refused to listen; they are “stiffnecked” and follow “the stubbornness of [their] evil heart” (for example, Jer. 17:23; 18:12; 19:15). Of such there is no more notorious example than King Jehoiakim, who, as the scroll of God’s words through Jeremiah was read to him, first used a penknife to cut it into pieces and then threw the pieces into the fire until the whole scroll had been burned (Jer. 36:21–23).
Jesus similarly warned his contemporaries about their response to his teaching. In the parable of the sower the different soils into which the seed fell were intended to exemplify the varying reception which people give God’s Word. Jesus solemnly insisted that we shall be judged on the last day by the word he has spoken (John 12:47–48). All of us are building our life on some foundation. Those who build on rock, whose house will survive the storms of adversity and of judgment, are those who listen to Christ’s teaching and put it into practice (Matt. 7:24–27).
To begin with, to listen involves time. Do we really believe that God has spoken, that God’s words are recorded in Scripture, and that as we read it we may hear God’s voice addressing us? Then we shall not grudge the time to listen. Instead, we shall want to register our protest against the rat-race of twentieth-century life and strive to recover the lost art of meditation. It is not a casual, superficial acquaintance with Scripture that the modern church needs, but rather to heed our Master’s exhortation: “Let these words sink into your ears” (Luke 9:44 RSV).
There is no particular secret about how to do it. It just takes time, purposefully redeemed from our busy lives, in which to turn Scripture over and over in our minds until it sinks into our hearts and so regulates everything we think and do. It is those who thus “meditate day and night” in God’s Word whom he pronounces “blessed” (Pss. 1:1–2;119:97; Josh. 1:8).
If there is no single secret, there are no hard and fast rules either. For example, the practice of the daily “Quiet Time” of Bible reading and prayer, preferably first thing in the morning and last thing at night, is not an inviolable tradition. It has certainly stood the test of time and brought untold profit to many generations of Christians. I am myself old-fashioned enough to retain confidence in it as an extremely valuable discipline. But it is still only a tradition; it has not been laid down in Scripture. So we have no liberty to add it to the Decalogue as a kind of eleventh commandment. Nor was such a practice possible before the invention of printing and the availability of cheap Bibles for all. To insist on it as indispensable to Christian living would be to disqualify the millions of Christians who lived in the first fifteen centuries, and many more millions in our day who cannot read.
The great value of some Scripture meditation and prayer (however brief) at the beginning of each day is that it prepares us to bear the day’s responsibilities and face the day’s temptations. It seems unwise, to say the least, to go into the conflict unarmed. Nevertheless, the mother who has to cook the breakfast, and then get husband off to work and children off to school, may have to postpone her time with God until later in the morning, while the breadwinner who leaves home very early may prefer to requisition a little time from his (or her) lunch break.
However busy one’s daily timetable may be, the increasing numbers who work a five-day week should be able to devote a longer time to Bible reading and prayer over the weekend. Sunday afternoon has obvious possibilities, or even Sunday evening since there is nothing in Scripture requiring Christians to attend church twice every Sunday! Further, if daily family prayers are impossible from Monday to Friday because work and school demand staggered mealtimes, a weekly time when the family honors God together in their home, whatever form it takes, should be possible during the weekend.
It is not only by personal or family Bible reading that we can hear God’s Word, however. It is also through group Bible studies, whether organized by the local church or a Christian parachurch organization or by ourselves in our own home, and (above all) through the public exposition of Scripture in church. I wish modern Christians took this more seriously. It is easy to blame the pulpit, but very often the pew gets the kind of pulpit ministry it wants. God said to Jeremiah:
A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. (Jer. 5:30–31)
Congregations have far more responsibility than they commonly recognize for the kind of ministry they receive. They should encourage their minister to expound Scripture. They should come to church in a receptive and expectant mood, preferably bringing their Bible with them, hungry to hear what the Lord God may have to say to them through the lessons and the sermon. It may also be wise to take some steps to retain the message in the memory, perhaps by writing the text on a card and then meditating on it during the rest of the week. And if the church we attend is not blessed with a ministry of biblical exposition, the modern cassette recorder has brought the ministry of other Bible teachers within reach of many people, for personal or group listening.
Precisely how the individual Christian or the Christian family seeks to receive the message of the Bible is not the most important question. What is vital is that in some way at some time, and that regularly, we learn to listen to God’s Word and to feed upon it in our hearts.
This listening to God’s voice in and through his Word is only the beginning, however. It is not enough to “know these things,” Jesus said; we shall be blessed only if we “do them” (John 13:17). For according to the New Testament the truth is something to be “done,” not merely “known” (for example, 1 John 1:6, literally). Perhaps no apostle put this more clearly than James, the Lord’s brother, who wrote:
To “do” the truth is to practice what it teaches, to translate its message into action. This sounds simple, but it has far-reaching implications simply because the truth we have to “do” is so rich. Let me give five facets of the lifestyle of a “doer of the word.”