Reading the Bible in 2014: Day 28 - The Bible...points to God

What if reading the Bible was like the burning bush scene in Moses?  And instead of a coffee cup, a robe, and a pen, my reading involved a terrifying voice, a mountain top, and real flames?

Reading Scripture surrounded by four walls as opposed to whipping mountainous winds can’t hedge us off from God.  The power is in God’s Word.  God’s words are powerful.  Some people hear them and can’t get enough.  Others hear them and say “enough!”  One way or another, God’s words stir things up.

The Bible is obviously a very old book.  Why do we read it?  One of the most refreshing things we can do is to stop reading and take a few minutes to ask God to speak.  There is nothing more important than that. 

Isn’t the Bible the “word of God”?  Why should we ask God to speak to us if the Bible already does?

The best part of the Bible is not the Bible itself.  The best parts are the eternal God, all powerful and glorious, and his amazing plans for people like us who really have no idea who he is and have no idea who we are.  Without God, it doesn’t matter how many times we read the Bible, or how much Bible trivia we know.  The Bible is not our savior.  Jesus is our savior.  The Bible doesn’t talk about itself much.  It is focused on God.

Chris Webb puts it well: “Moses was not changed by a text.  He was utterly transformed by a direct encounter with God…When Moses heard the voice of God, he shook with terror and hid his face in the folds of his robe?  Why?  Because he was about to receive a couple of chapters of the book of Exodus?  No!  He was awestruck because the voice he heard made real and immediate the presence of the Holy One of Israel.” (The Fire of the Word, p. 21)

John Calvin tried to articulate what it is that makes Scripture the Word of God.  He used a helpful metaphor: spectacles, or glasses.  The Bible isn’t what we look at.  It is what we look through, like glasses.  Calvin taught that, without our glasses, the world looks fuzzy.  Sinful humans look at the beauty of creation, and they don’t ascribe its beauty to God, nor do they worship him.  Through God’s gift of the Holy Scriptures, we are given the gift of glasses.  This helps us see God.  But notice what else it does.  It helps us see the world!  The Bible teaches us that all of creation points to God.  We learn to love people, birds, trees, water, caterpillars, and sunshine even more because God made them.  As C.S. Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”  We don’t look at Scripture.  We look through it.

When we look through it, we are led into an encounter with an amazing God – so near to us that we could easily be distracted from his presence in the burning bush, and yet so holy that he claims to be the only God.  The Scriptures point to God.  Jesus himself learned from these Scriptures.  In Colossians, we learn that everything “is created through him and for him.”  In Luke 24:27, we learn that the Old Testament speaks to us of him.  The Scriptures are trustworthy because they lead us to Jesus for everything we need.

If your reading feels dry, ask God to focus your heart on responding to him, and not on your “Bible-reading plan.”  There is no hurry.  As we venture into a few reflection days at the end of January, I’ll post again about where we’ve been so far.  Feel free to comment or to send any questions you have.