What’s The Point | What Is The Bible? - Hebrews 4:12-13 | August 18
INTRO
Hey family!
Let’s see if I still remember how to do this. It’s been a minute.
I hoped you enjoyed the last several weeks, as different voices came together to proclaim the truth of God’s mission. This is what we’re here for. This is what we have been created for. This is what we are setting our hearts to as a family – as a community. It’s not what I’m calling you to, but it’s what we have all been called to. So I hope you have been challenged as we set out to make purposeful movements toward the mission of God.
This mission is something we’re going to constantly be reminding each other of over the weeks and months and years to come because this is what our life is all about and we so easily forget it. So just know, as we talk about becoming real people, as we talk about becoming a real family, as we talk about worshiping the real God, what we’re talking about is this mission.
To be a place where Heaven meets Earth by proclaiming the universal reign of God, embodying Jesus to our communities, and inviting our neighbors to join us in becoming real people, who are part of a real family, and who worship the real God.
Because as we talked about our mission and as we talk about our mission, what we’re talking about is purposeful movement. This is not just something we learn – not just something we commit to memory. These are steps that we take, to be changed, to reflect God’s image and glory into the world, to become who God wants us to be. Real people, a new creation filled to overflowing with His life-giving Spirit.
Today we are turning our attention to the Bible - not that we don’t turn to the Bible every week, every day perhaps - maybe not, I don’t want to presume.
But today, we are starting a brief series about the Bible. We are talking about what the Bible is, what the Bible is not, how to read it, and some other topics as well.
I know that might sound funny. Aren’t all of the teaching serieses we do about the Bible? Maybe. Not necessarily about the Bible so much as poured out from the word of God.
So why start this series?
The short answer is that it’s really going to set us up well to understand some of the more challenging parts of the Bible – let’s say the book of Daniel which is coming up next. Perhaps a more challenging answer is that we are reading our Bibles wrong. All of us have ways in which we approach the word of God in a less than an ideal manner.
As we read the Bible, there are sort of four voices we have competing for our attention at any given moment in time, even as we read the Bible. Three of them are not very helpful and most of the time pretty darn harmful.
There’s our voice, the voice of the flesh. It’s alright. Usually it’s concerned with self care and comfort and generally pretty me-centered. But it has its moments.
There’s the voice of the world, our culture. It’s not necessarily evil, but the Bible does spend much of its words calling us to live counter to the culture. We saw this time after time in Corinthians. Paul’s instructions to the Corinthian Church all revolve around how the Corinthians looked a bit too much like the world and too little like Jesus.
The third voice is the voice of the enemy, the accuser which serves only as a voice of opposition to God. But it can be very deceptive. It can sound so close to truth if we’re not careful. As we know from the garden all it takes is twisting truth just the slightest amount. The devil is very clever at imitating truth.
Finally is the voice of God, the Holy Spirit in us. I was recently reading Psalm 103, which says in verse 20, “20 Bless the Lord, O you His angels, you mighty ones who do His word, obeying the voice of His word!”
Oh to be counted among the host of Heaven, obeying the voice of His word.
And these are the four voices conversing within us all the time.
But how do you distinguish them from one another?
So there’s also, of course, an even deeper reason we’re endeavoring to understand the depths of the Bible, and that is because through the Bible, the written word of God we experience Jesus, the living Word. We observe the Word and we learn to listen for the voice of truth.
“We want to make sure that what we are hearing from the Holy Spirit, what He is saying to us through this book, is somehow connected to what the original authors were trying to communicate so that our whole life of reading the Bible doesn't become an exercise in hearing our own voices echoed back to us. Let us push back against remaking the Biblical narrative in our own image.
We tend to start with ourselves instead of what the authors intended in the writing. Because, believe it or not, there is an intended way to read the Bible, it was written in a certain way to a certain people for a certain purpose.
So we want to ensure to the best of our ability as the Spirit of God instructs us that we are reading in a way to not impose our agendas on to it, but to mine it for the gems it most definitely contains and what Jesus and the other NT writers, especially those of Jewish background saw in it.
WHAT IS THE BIBLE?
So, maybe the not so obvious question to start us off is, what is the Bible?
What is the Bible?
Surely you have an answer. What is the Bible?
Many of us have grown up with the Bible. So we must have an answer. Perhaps you have attempted to connect with the Scriptures over the years but often just find them confusing. That’s alright.
Maybe some of you have had a bad experience where someone in your life, maybe they were well-meaning, maybe not, has tried to use the Bible to correct or instruct you, and it just left a bad taste in your mouth.
There are some of you, I’m sure, who have been a Christian for quite a long time, your whole life even and have yet to read the Bible through in its entirety. Hey, I get it. Numbers is a hard book to get through.
Here’s a Christian pick-up-line for you. If you’re single you can try this out and let me know how it goes. “Last night I was reading the book of Numbers and I realized I didn’t have yours.”
One of the goals of this series is to defamiliarize ourselves with the Bible in a way. We take for granted that we can read and understand these words. We forget that it is ancient near-eastern literature. It is literally foreign to us. We have to remember that. There are parts that are hard, hard to read and hard to understand. And that’s alright.
My hope is that there are some of you who already love the word of God and you are hungry to understand it more.
In Psalm 63 David says, “1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”
My prayer for you is that you would earnestly seek God in the revelation of His word. And if that’s not you today, I hope you will become this more and more over the next couple weeks.
I want you to fall in love with the word of God.
WHAT THE BIBLE ISN’T?
Maybe we should really start with what it’s not.
The Bible is not a lawbook. That’s something you may have thought at one time or another in your life.
“Man, Christianity is just a list of dos and don’ts.”
It’s not. There are approximately 613 laws in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). And while that may seem like a lot, the Bible is not written in the same style as an ancient near-eastern law book such as the code of Hamerabi or something like that. It’s not intended to be a law book. It contains a selection of laws for sure, but if you treated it as such you would find it to be incomplete.
When we talk about the Torah, we often translate it as “law” but in reality it can mean something more along the lines of “teaching” rather than law. It’s not intended to be a law book. It’s not written to be a law book. And therefore the authors did not intend you to read it as such.
Interestingly enough. People point to Jesus and the New Testament as stepping away from the law, even though He said He didn’t come to do away with the law. There are some 1,050 laws or commandments you might say in the New Testament. Nearly double than the Old Testament. Clearly, we don’t think of the New Testament as a law book. We shouldn’t think that way of the Hebrew Bible either.
What’s more, it’s not even written to be a set of instructions. Or at least not instructions alone. So when we teach our kids that Bible stands for Basic. Instructions. Before. Leaving. Earth. That may be a clever acronym, but it only vaguely represents the heart of the Scriptures. We can glean instructions to live by from the word of God, but even there we will find situations, scenarios that God apparently never thought to address. Of course, that’s ridiculous. It’s not that God’s instruction is lacking. It’s that the Bible was never intended to be an instruction manual. We can’t boil the Bible down to an “insert Tab A into Slot B” conveyance of information a’la an Ikea assembly instructions manual. That’s never been the point.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
Throughout the scriptures there are wonderful descriptions of what the Bible is and does.
Isaiah 55:8-11, “8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. 9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. 10 “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. 11 It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.”
God’s word has gone out from since the beginning of time, creating and accomplishing all that God has willed it to. In His words are power to accomplish His purposes in your life.
Jeremiah 23:29, “29 Does not my word burn like fire?” says the Lord. “Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashes a rock to pieces?”
It is a consuming fire. A mighty hammer. The word of God breaks down and builds up. It warms and refines.
In John 6:63 Jesus says, “The very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
Acts 7:38 says that Moses ”received life-giving words.” God’s word is life-giving.
And 1 Peter 1:22-25, “22 You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth… 23 For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God. 24 As the Scriptures say, “People are like grass; their beauty is like a flower in the field. The grass withers and the flower fades. 25 But the word of the Lord remains forever.” And that word is the Good News that was preached to you.”
All of Psalm 119 is essentially a love letter to the word of God. Verse 105 reminds us, “Your Word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” It guides us in the way that we should go.
Puritan Writer Thomas Brooks said "The Word of the Lord is a light to guide you, a counselor to counsel you, a comforter to comfort you, a staff to support you, a sword to defend you, and a physician to cure you. The Word is a mine to enrich you, a robe to clothe you, and a crown to crown you.
John Flavel echoes Brooks writing that "The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering and the most comfortable way of dying.
Brian Edwards - Philosophy and religion may reform, but only the Bible can transform.
The word of God is life and light to the darkness in and around us.
HIDDEN TREASURE
In Matthew 13 there are a series of rapid-fire parables concerning the Kingdom of God.
In verse 44 Jesus says, “44 The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
Some of the early church Fathers have used this parable to discuss the word of God. Here’s what Iraneaus says, “If anyone, therefore, reads the Scriptures with attention, he will find in them an account of Christ, and a foreshadowing of the new calling… For Christ is the treasure that was hid in the field, that is, in this world (for “the field is the world”); but the treasure hid in the Scriptures is Christ, since He was pointed out by means of types and parables… When [the law] is read by the Christians, it is a treasure, hid indeed in a field, but brought to light by the cross of Christ.”
Scripture is the visible, it is the earthly, that reveals the invisible, the heavenly. In reading scripture, we see Christ in all of it.
All of scripture Reveals Christ.
And all of scripture is fulfilled in Christ.
On the road to Emmaus, after His resurrection, Jesus appeared to two disciples. Luke 24 says, “27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself… 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
Christ revealed how all of scripture pointed to him - in other words, Christ dug to find the treasure. And it made the disciples' hearts burn.
The Bible is not an end in and of itself, it is the means to the end. It points to the living God who has the power over sin and death, who has conquered the grave, and who leads us into His holy presence. Scripture leads us to experience Christ.
The Bible is wisdom literature that guides you to an end goal of being rescued – salvation through trusting in the Messiah, Christ Jesus.
It all leads to Jesus.
A RESCUE STORY
So what is the Bible?
Now that we’ve started with the more complex answer, the simpler answer is that it’s a story. Two-thirds of the Bible is in narrative form. It’s a collection of stories, that’s what the word bible literally means. It’s a collection, a library of scrolls, of books, of stories that tell us one big important story. The greatest story ever told.
It is a collection of stories produced over a thousand years by 40 different authors in three languages telling one unified story.
Our common misconception of the Bible is that each book is its own thing. Their own story. Like potted plants, they stand alone, beautiful, each in their own way, but separate.
We need to see it as more connected. Now, we shouldn’t go around searching for Jesus in every story as some modern pastors might suggest. Every story is connected. Each story informs the larger narrative and is informed by the overarching storyline. It all leads to Jesus. But you can’t always put your finger on Him. The Bible isn’t a “Where’s Waldo?” book. That’s not how it works.
The more accurate way to think of the Bible is as a single, interconnected organism like a grove of aspen trees. Aspen trees are all one organism. Every tree spurts out of a single unified roots system. Each tree looks distinct and unique, but they are genetically identical. They are all the same tree.
The Bible is a collection of stories that are all telling the same story. It’s one story. Each book is inextricably interwoven together like a system of Aspen roots. Each book nourishing and being nourished by the next book.
And so, the Bible is carefully crafted Jewish, meditation literature with every word placed intentionally to convey a specific message to tell one unified story – to bring order out of chaos.
It is a story, meant to be read forwards and backwards, inside and out. It’s meant to be chewed on, meditated on, and mined over the course of a lifetime to tease out the treasure in the field – the pearl of greatest price.
The Bible is by and large a rescue story of a God who fiercely loves His creation, enduring and suffering greatly in His faithful pursuit of people.
So why do we read it?
WHY READ THE BIBLE?
Well, why do we gather as a community? Why do we pray? Why do we forego our appetites? Why do we serve the needy?
We do all these things because we are so enamored with the magnificent, living God of whom all of life points to – Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God.
We believe with every fiber of our being that Jesus the Anointed One is alone worthy of our lives and our worship. And, it is because we want to know Christ - We want to see him clearer, we want to experience Him and search for him like buried treasure - that we read scripture.
I read it because I'm a disciple of Jesus.
Jesus loved Scripture.
A disciple of Jesus should love the Scriptures. We should be thirsty for the word of God.
We need it like the body needs water.
We don’t just drink water when we experience thirst. We don’t just treat water as a life saving mechanism as a last resort. We drink it throughout the day so that we don’t become thirsty.
Why do we treat the word of God differently? Why does it so often become a last resort?
We need it.
STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT
It has the power to change lives.
It has the power to affect us in profound ways.
Studies that have been done show us the astonishing effects engaging with the word of God has on your life. If you were to read the Bible in a meaningful way four times a week or more, feelings of loneliness drop 30%. Anger issues drop 32%. Bitterness in relationships drops 40%. Alcoholism drops 57%. Sex outside of marriage drops 68%. Feeling spiritually stagnant drops 60%. Viewing pornography drops 61%.
Sharing your faith skyrockets 200%. Discipling others 230%.
“The more Christians read or listen to the Scriptures, the more bold they will be in sharing their faith and growing in their faith. Your lives will begin to have a profound impact on those immediately around you. There will be fewer times of stagnation in your spiritual growth. You will become viral in your faith.”
Here’s the sad truth. Every statistic has another side. For those who read the Bible three times a week or less, statistics show basically the same effect on their personal lives as those who do not engage at all.
You can’t think you’re doing what you’re supposed to. You can believe you are justified before God. You feel good about yourself and still experience no lasting fruit, no life, no power. Just one day less a week and you can think you’re being a “good Christian,” but your life look no different than people who aren’t Christians at all.
Four times a week or more. That’s more often than not.
There’s something about “more often than not” that demonstrates what you’re after.
More often than not demonstrates a pursuit, a saturation point that pours and overflows and produces lasting fruit in your life.
God wants to change you. He will shape you into His image as you engage and obey His word. He is faithful.
THE WORD OF LIFE
The enduring claim is that these words have meaning and implications for the biggest questions in life as a whole and for your life today.
This all somehow matters.
Ricky Gervais, some of you know him as the creator of The Office, he’s a British comedian and has been an outspoken voice against the Bible. He even has whole comedy routines where he reads the Bible in front of thousands of people just to add his witty banter as commentary over the story.
I once heard him say in an interview, “Why would you only read one book? Read another book!” That’s his advice to us. Expand your horizons. Get out more. Read more books. Don’t just read one book. For the rest of your life. Heh, what a fool you would be to do something like that…
Where else should I go? To whom shall we go? What other book is there? Please name it if you know it. These are the words of eternal life (John 6:60-71).
In them there is life. If there is life, there will be love and joy and a heart to obey the word.
Give yourself to this word so that your words become the word of God for others and reveal to them their own spiritual condition.
The key verse we will return to week after week is Hebrews 4:12, “12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
“The word of God is not a dead word or an ineffective word. It has life in it. And because it has life in it, it produces effects.”
It reveals to us our true selves.
“Are we spiritual or are we natural? Are we born of God and spiritually alive, or are we deceiving ourselves and spiritually dead? Are the "thoughts and intentions of our heart" spiritual thoughts and intentions or only natural thoughts and intentions. Only the "word of God" can "judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart" Is there marrow and life in our bones? Or are we only a "skeleton" with no living marrow? Is there "spirit," or only "soul"?”
“The word of God pierces deep enough to show us the truth of our thoughts and our motives and our selves.”
OUTRO
I want you to fall in love with the word of God.
I want you to be saturated with it.
I want you to feast on the faithfulness of God by meditating and chewing on these words that you may say in the end, “103 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103)
This story will work on you over time. It will affect the way that you live. It will affect the way that you see yourself. And it will change the world we live in.
Resources (*the views expressed within the following content are solely the author's and may not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Mountainside Church):
https://research.lifeway.com/2021/01/20/9-tangible-benefits-of-bible-reading-for-your-church/
https://maninthemirror.org/2021/04/20/the-four-voices-in-your-head/
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/pierced-by-the-word-of-god