Sermon for Bible Sunday
About
2 years ago when Emma, my granddaughter was 2 she often sat next to a bookcase:
on what she sat I shall have to leave to your imagination as it is not the
subject for the pulpit! One day
she pulled a Children’s bible out of the bookcase and, to her
parents’ amazement, said, “This is the best book”.
Although
they never met, she may in some mysterious way have been recalling a song or
poem my father uttered frequently. As he was tone deaf it was difficult to tell
if he was singing or reciting but the words went like this:
The
best book to read is the Bible
If
you read it every day
It
will help you on your way
If
you read it once a week
It
will help you so to speak
If
you read it once a year
It
will not help you much I fear
The
best book to read is the Bible
Today
is Bible Sunday. My sermon echoes what my father and his great granddaughter
said: the Bible is the best book
There
are many views about the Bible. At one extreme are those Christians I shall call
the conservatives: they believe that every book, every chapter, every verse,
every word was directly inspired by God. For them it is almost like saying that
God dictated the Bible and the writers acted only as secretaries: it follows
that it is without error of any kind. At the other extreme are those Christians
I shall call the liberals: they believe that the Bible, although telling us
about God, is no different from any other book and is subject to human error in
the same way.
Perhaps
one could see the relationship between God and the biblical writers as rather
like that of an architect and builders. The architect (God) instructs the
builders (the writers) to build a house (the Bible) which shows the world what
he has done , what his work is like and what he can do in the future. The
architect could stand over the builders telling them how to insert each brick
( the conservative view) or he could tell them to build the house without
any direction ( the liberal view) or he could do something in between –
perhaps supply a plan covering the main points.
Where
do you stand in the debate?
I shall not tell you what to think but give you a few pointers from my
recent studies which might help.
First,
the Bible is not like the Qur’an. Moslems believe that God dictated the
Qur’an to Mohammed and Mohammed, although the greatest prophet, was a mere man
and fallible like any other person. It is very important to remember that for
Christians it is the other way round. Christ is the Son of God and infallible:
the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament alike, merely point the way to Him.
Second,
the Bible is often referred to as the Word of God. As Karl Barth, arguably the
greatest theologian of the twentieth century, points out this is not quite
correct. In the first chapter of his gospel,
Third,
Conservatives often criticize those who see some of the bible stories as
allegories – stories not literally true but containing deep spiritual meaning.
They say it is a newfangled idea. But it is not. Origen, one of the greatest
theologians of the third century, believed that every word in the Bible is
infallible and was spoken by God but nevertheless saw some of the stories as
allegorical. I believe he would, for example, have looked at the creation story
in Genesis in this way.
Fourth,
where did the idea come from that the Bible is inspired by God? The answer is
from the Jews. They believed that the Torah (the first five books in the Bible)
contain the very words of God. By the time the books to make up the New
Testament were settled – in the 4th century- many Christians had
adopted this idea. It may well be right but there is nothing in the Bible itself
claiming that the whole book was literally spoken or indeed inspired by God.
Fifth,
the Bible contains many books written by different people over thousands of
years. It has been suggested that some parts could be more inspired than others.
To take one example you could say that 2 Corinthians 5:19 (God was in Christ
reconciling the world to himself ) is more inspired than 1 Samuel 15: 3 (Go
attack the Amalikites – put to death men and women, children and infants).
Sixth,
many conservatives would say that, as the words of the Bible were spoken by God,
their meaning cannot change over the centuries. But Jesus himself re-interpreted
his Bible, the Old Testament. For example Exodus 21:23 and 24 say, “You are to
take eye for eye, tooth for tooth…” the list goes on. In chapter 5 verse 38
of his gospel Matthew recalls Jesus as saying, “You have heard that it was
said ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you do not resist an evil
person….”
So
there you have six, perhaps rather disjointed pointers, which may help you make
up your mind about the Bible. You may think they point away from the
conservative view. I want to make three fundamental points which may redress the
balance:
First,
many theologians waste a great deal of time picking at the Bible. For example,
one theologian suggested that Jesus copied the Lord’s Prayer from John the
Baptist . As my lecturer said this sort of thing has the advantage of keeping
New Testament theologians happy but it is pointless. They never seem to agree
and cannot produce proper evidence for their views. This type of criticism was
very prevalent among certain German theologians in the 19th century:
they tried to find what they called the real Jesus. As my lecturer said all they
succeeded in doing was to conclude He was like a 19th century German
gentleman: heaven forbid. Do not go there.
Second,
the Bible is the primary source of the Christian Faith. It tells the greatest
story ever told: a story that is true. That God so loves us that he came to
live, suffer, die and rise again for us. The whole book leads us towards this.
As someone put it: the faith of the church does not stand or fall with the
accuracy of every detail of the gospel story but faith does stand or fall with
the truthfulness of the gospel portrayal of the central events of ministry,
death and resurrection.
Third,
the Bible speaks in a unique way to each of us: it speaks like no other book. A
particular passage can be read any number of times and each time it can convey
something slightly different. I know this to be true because I have experienced
it many times. I will give you an example. When I was an undergraduate, I was
drawn to pick up and read the Bible for the first time in many years. I started
to read Matthew’s gospel. It had nothing to say to me until I came to chapter
6 – the passage about not worrying. I was completely bold over: it was as if
God was speaking to me directly.
In
conclusion, then I must agree with my father and granddaughter: the Bible is the
best book. I commend it to you: try to read it every day. But do bear in mind
that your faith is in the living Christ not in the book that talks about Him,
great though it is.
Jon Denman