The Bible

A new Vicar moved into town and went out one Saturday to visit his parishioners. All went well until he came to one house. It was obvious that someone was home, but no one came to the door even after he had knocked several times. Finally, he took out his card, wrote on the back "Revelation 3:20" and stuck it in the door.

The next day, as he was counting the offering he found his card in the collection plate. Below his message was the notation "Genesis 3:10."

Revelation 3:20 reads: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me."

Genesis 3:10 reads: "And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, but I was naked, and I hid myself."

One thing that this joke reminds us of is that the Bible can literally be used in all kinds of different ways to fight and win all kinds of different arguments… Before continuing I should point out that I think it is essential for every one of us to learn more of the Bible and about the Bible – I can say that without exception because there is still plenty for everyone, whether the most inexperienced reader or the elderly theologian, to learn.

But we must also be careful never to abuse scripture – and use it, or misquote it simply for our own ends. Here is a great example. In the sixth chapter of the letter to the Ephesians it says;

“Children, obey your parents for this is right...honour your father and mother”. And that is where millions of parents stopped – and that’s understandable. Sometimes it’s good to just be able to use the line ‘because I said so, that’s why !’

Unfortunately, though, this is not the end of the paragraph. It continues; “Children, obey your parents for this is right...honour your father and mother, that it may be well with you, and you may enjoy a long life on earth (but here is where it all goes wrong) Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger….or in other translations, “do not vex your children” or “parents, never drive your children to resentment”

And so we have there the classic temptation to just use the bits of the Bible we like or understand. But tonight in Paul’s second letter to Timothy (3:10-17) Paul is offering a message of encouragement to Timothy – and he does it first by reminding him of the struggles that he has faced in his various journeys – but then goes on to remind him of the importance of the scriptures in his daily living.

The scriptures are inspired by God, useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness. And so whatever debates we may have over scripture, I think we can say that there are 3 essentials to look for as we look at our Bibles.

The first is that it is a book of history. I don’t intend to get into the areas of controversy tonight – they are for study at another time, but the Bible we can be sure, does outline a great deal of history – about the times of the Old Testament, about the life of Jesus and about the growth and development of the early Church.

The history that we read offers us lessons for today – lessons about faith, about morality, about commitment and above all lessons about the love of God.

And that leads on to the second point – the Bible is a guidebook. A kind of manual for life. Much of the Old Testament contains laws about how to live with God and with other people – Jesus came into the world and brought a new covenant, not rejecting a lot of the Old Testament scriptures, but emphasising almost for simple minds, that what the Bible is about and what God’s relationship with the world is ultimately about is love.

We are told that the most important things are to love God and to love each other. When people talk of the Bible being out of date they are listening to the bits they want to hear, usually in forms of language that they don’t want to hear, and that is why it is so important that we try to use language that people can understand and are used to using – but the Bible offers a tremendously relevant message on how to live today.

The book is about peace and about love. It is about discipline, but discipline simply to maintain civilised relationships. It is about building a community living in fellowship with God and with each other. And of course it is about the salvation of God – salvation that is open to everyone who chooses to accept it.

And thirdly the Bible is God’s living word. The bible isn’t a book about yesterday and for yesterday – the bible is a book about today and tomorrow and for today and tomorrow. As well as offering us guidance on living, the bible offers us encouragement – encouragement through the hope that every one of us has, and also encouragement as we read about the trials and temptations of Christians of the past – Christians who have come through them with the support of God.

One of my great dislikes is people who offer Christianity as the answer to every problem in life – it is ! make no mistake about that ! But it doesn’t mean everything will suddenly be easy – problems will still come, maybe they’ll be worse for a Christian – it’s important that at times we don’t just talk about good and happy things in our Churches – we need to be ready and prepared for the times when things won’t be so good and so easy.

Paul says in his second letter to Timothy (3:12), ‘all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.’ That can be quite an uncomfortable line I think for us – does it mean that if we’re not being persecuted in some way, that we are not actually doing enough for God ?

And so the Bible is about life today, life tomorrow and life for evermore – it is a living book, needing interpretation but offering an uncompromising and unchanging message for all time. It is a book that we must know in order to share God’s wonderful message with a world full of people who may not even know that they want to hear that message !

We had a wonderful couple of days last week as we had the open days in Pyle, and many people came into the Church who haven’t been there for years – we need to open the doors to a message that relevant, that is interesting, and allow God to do the rest. But there was one woman who wasn’t sure about coming in – she wanted to but when she was asked by a lady from Church she stood at the gate and said she was wearing the wrong clothes – she didn’t have on her ‘Sunday best’, and when she was told that didn’t matter, she then said that she didn’t have any money…

What impression are we giving of the Church when people think they can’t come in because they’re not wearing the right clothes, whatever they may be, or because they haven’t got any money ?!?! a look at our Bibles will find no such message from Jesus, indeed it will only find condemnation !

And just to finish I want to mention my own nephew – he is 16 and has always gone to Church reasonably happily. Like many people his age he insists on wearing a baseball cap a lot of the time – my sister (his mother) doesn’t like it all the time, but it’s not a major issue, but in Church fairly recently he was told by one of the Church officers rather sternly to take it off – strangely enough Jack hasn’t been so keen to go back ! I have a sneaking suspicion that Jesus would rather have a 16 year old as part of his Church with a hat on, rather than not have one at all !

We need the Bible, the bible as a living book, the bible as the word of God, to get ourselves in check – to make sure that we are following the message that Jesus actually came to bring, and proclaiming that message, not just the message we have grown up with or would like to hear. AMEN