Scripture

So I really have every intention of updating this blog on at least a bi-weekly basis, but I have been staying with a couple of the guys from my youth group while their parents are in Germany and their is no wireless Internet. It is actually kind of ridiculous how much our lives revolve around all these little signals floating through the air. It's also kind of liberating when we are forced to go without.


Having not yet decided what the main purpose of this blog is, I figure I will just keep updating whoever reads it about some thoughts I have had on the Christian life. Not really expect to blow any minds or anything, I am just going to spill out my version of what I have been learning. If its wrong or if you disagree, feel free to let me know. Mostly, I just hope the things I write will serve as an encouragement for you to draw closer.

A couple days ago, I sat down with a cup of coffee to spend a few minutes in Scripture before I really got my day going. I realized that I was not really all that enthusiastic about the subject matter. I had the Bible opened to Proverbs (what I have been reading recently) and I thought "Why am I reading this book in the first place?" It is not that I do not want to read the Bible, but I found myself wondering what the heck is it actually going to say to me on this particular morning that is going to pertain to my particular life? I mean realistically, what does ancient wisdom literature have that could possibly pertain to a suburban culture driven by consumerism?

So I stopped reading and attempted to answer my original question, "Why should I read this book?" I thought about it for a couple of minutes and this was the answer I gave to myself.

I wrote...

"It is the Word of God, the eternal one, given to His people to declare His plan of salvation and reconciliation to an unworthy people through His Son, Jesus Christ. In its pages I find eternal truth, hope, joy, and love."

Later on that same day, I spent some more time reading Bonhoeffer's Life Together. This is what he wrote..

"Reading of Biblical books forces everyone who wants to put himself, or to allow himself to be found, where God has acted once and for all for the salvation of all men... We are torn out of our own existence and set down in the midst of the holy history of God on earth. There God dealt with us, our needs and our sins, in judgment and grace... It is not in our life that God's help and presence must still be proved, but rather God's presence and help have been demonstrated for us in the life of Jesus Christ. It is more important for us to know what God did to Israel, to His Son Jesus Christ, than to seek what God intends for us today. The fact that Jesus Christ is more important than the fact that I shall die... I find no salvation in my own life history, but only in the history of Jesus Christ."

How many times do I come to Scripture with expectations and a desire for pithy advice? To put it simply, there have been countless occurrences that I have expected to open the Bible and have it speak to my immediate situation. It goes like this "God, I'm really struggling to understand such and such and I really need your word to point me in the right direction." At this point I open the Bible and expect to find the immediate answer written evenly across the face of the epistles, psalms, proverbs, or gospels. But rarely do I walk away from a Bible encounter thinking "Man, all of the sudden I feel like everything has just been answered!! All my wondering and wanderings have been solved and I have no more questions!"

Why doesn't this happen? Why don't all our questions get answered when we approach the most revered book in the history of the world, the book we believe to be the inspired and holy word of the only Eternal God? I think the answer is us. We, Me, I, Us. We are constantly trying to force God's word to give its opinion on our life when we shoud simply be reading it to understand who God is. We approach the word of God looking for Chicken Soup for the Soul and we find nothing. We approach it looking for the revelation of God given in actual history to a crooked and depraved generation through Jesus Christ and we find our meaning. As Bonhoeffer said, we find more meaning in the history of God then we ever will in our history.

It is not until after we find out who God is that we can start to recognize who we are. So the next time you come to Scripture, look for God, not for answers. Find out who God is and what he has done in Salvation history and than you will find out who you are and what your purpoe is.

Anyway, that is what I have been thinking about the last couple of days.

"I am the alpha and the omega," says the Lord God, "who is and was and who is to come, the Almighty."
Revelation 1:8