The Bible Idol

Recently a friend began a discussion on the concept of whether or not some Christians make the Bible an idol. After all, anything good can be made bad by worshipping it rather than the Creator, right?

Someone who loves nature can find that the desire to admire forests, mountains, rivers—rather than leading to thoughts of how wonderful the Creator must be, if the creation is so beautiful, may instead lift thoughts no higher than the exhilaration that can come from adoration. Nature then becomes an idol.

Or those who play or watch a sport may find their thoughts persistently interrupted with the need to think in that vein, to skip fellowship to be out on the field or court,  to neglect relationships and duties to scream at a television screen. Sports then becomes an idol.

Or for those with a creative bent—as the spirit explains to the ghost in a C.S. Lewis' novel—they may begin with a desire to share glimpses of heaven and end by worshipping their very method of communication or, ultimately, themselves.

"Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him. For it doesn't stop at being interested in paint, you know. They sink lower—becoming interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations."~The Great Divorce

Hmmm... Does that sound familiar? Not of an artist you may know, but of a Christian? Maybe it's you; maybe it's me—"becoming interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations." Yes. I know that disease.

It may start as love for God, but then morphs into a love of a habit, thought, (God forbid) a favourite Bible verse. Then in their "zeal without knowledge", they print signs saying who God hates, they picket military funerals for reasons that don't relate to the family or the deceased, they preach truth without love or love without Truth (is that love?). In these cases we live as devils in the name of Jesus!

But is it correct to say that the Bible can become an idol? Maybe. But more accurate, I believe, would be to say that our understanding becomes an idol.

If we choose pet verses and miss the balance of Scripture, we break the Law of God.
"For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it."

Interestingly, the above verse is in a passage in James exhorting the churches to not show favouritism. Whether we twist Scriptures to damn a fellow Christian or someone outside of the faith for not adhering to the convictions we feel, we show favouritism. We accept those who think like us and treat anyone else as enemies. This partiality is equivalent to bias towards the rich over the poor, which is specifically addressed in James. This divisiveness makes enemies of those who do not think like we do.

If someone is an enemy, what did Jesus command? Instead of hating your enemy, He said "I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

If someone is truly wrong, living in sin, love would have them repent and reap the mercy of God, but pride wants to condemn them without a trial. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community, wrote: "To make intercession means to grant our brother the same right that we have received, namely, to stand before Christ and share in His mercy." 

And, I would argue, this is the same right (to be prayed for) should be given to the lost too, who are not yet born again; therefore, to pray for an unsaved sinner, is to acknowledge that I was once in sin and (still struggle and have) need of God's mercy, and, but for His grace, I may have become worse than they.

True love desires that the one loved live in such a way as that he or she will benefit from the grace of God. You cannot love someone and desire their temporary happiness at the cost of their eternal happiness or at the cost of the value of their life. 

To want the best for someone, may require what some call "tough love." This does not belong just to the rebellious, who choose what is recognised as bad, but may also apply to one who is lazy and seeks pleasure rather than God. It may be necessary, out of love and only from love, to share with them the way of Truth, and pray they repent rather than reap the consequences of their sins. If they don't and the harvest of consequences comes, then love would lead one to come along side them to bear the burden and find the Saviour. 

Love and Truth summarize the whole Bible. As Mart DeHaan, former President of RBC Ministries, loves to tell—all Scripture either points to Christ as the Hope of all time or, by showing sin and weakness, points to our need for a Saviour. 

We, none of us, are guiltless. We all are responsible to be one who "correctly handles the Word of Truth." To "correctly handle" Scripture, one must be in it faithfully, consistently, listening, repenting, correcting our focus from one thing back to the Saviour and from another thing back to the Saviour. 

We will be accountable for knowing Scripture and for applying Scripture rightly (as this verse specifies). To know Bible passages and quote them does not prove you are righteous for even the devil quoted verses back to Jesus. 

Our knowledge of the Bible must be lived in obedience, love, and humility. If we find ourselves isolated from others, it may well be that pride has entered causing division. And, it may not be their pride, but yours or mine. Dissension and pride of any kind are something God hates.

Therefore, for our own standing before God, we must know and rightly apply the whole of Scripture to our own lives. But, also for the sake of the Body of the Messiah, to which all born again followers of Yeshua are members (arms, legs, hands, hearts), we bear responsibility.

"An element of sickness gets into the body; perhaps nobody knows where it is from or in what member it has lodged, but the body is infected. This is the proper metaphor for the Christian community. We are members of a body, not only when we choose to be, but in our whole existence. Every member serves the whole body, either to its health or to its destruction." ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When we stand before Yahweh, will you and I be "approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed"? Today is all we may have.

What are your thoughts?

JOY to the World

Tis the season of "Joy to the world the Lord has come."

The Bible repeatedly mentions joy. When the angel appeared to the shepherds, he announced the Messiah's birth to be "good news of great joy."

Joy, in Scripture, is frequently tied to one contradictory sounding circumstance—suffering—and one unique source—the Holy Spirit.

I've seen two extremes in Christians' lives. Both deflect the joy that should be their inheritance from the King.

One, is a seemingly fake joy (or at least one I could never relate to) where the person fails to express any suffering. Since God is good, their life is fine...nothing of which to complain...no heart aches, no doubts, no worry, no fear. 

While I have memorized the verses telling us to "cast your cares on the Lord," "trust the Lord with all your heart," not "worry about your life," etc, these are all lessons of growth. They only come naturally to a perfect person. For everyone else, it is something we must battle against—put up the Sword of Truth to parry the Sword of Doubt. 

If someone does not struggle, I question if they are really alive. The battle strengthens the warrior and makes him or her realize our dependence on God for righteousness and growth. 

Joy is a fruit of the Spirit that is produced in the midst of trouble and is most illuminated by the dark background of life. To struggle with the realities every human faces—the sorrows, the losses—yet to still have an abiding joy is the sign of the residence of the Holy Spirit.

The second extreme example I have seen in Christians is someone who lives continually on the "poor me" side of the street. Rarely is there a reason to rejoice, because there is too much suffering to bear. You know the person. It's the one you hate to be cornered by and of whom you thank the Lord you're not married.

Both—those without human struggles and those with more than their fair share—steal the glory from God and refuse the work of the Holy Spirit. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

Since ancient times, acidia—sorrowfulness of the heart, "resignation"—has been one of the deadly sins. "Serve the Lord with gladness" (Ps. 100:2) summons us to the Scriptures. This is what our life has been given to us for, what it has been preserved for up till now. Joy belongs, not only to those who have been called home, but also to the living, and no one shall take it from us.

Joy is not reflective of surroundings or even of a positive mental state. Instead, it flows from the Spirit that lives within a Christian.

Persecution can't kill it, sorrow can't crush it, and happiness cannot replace it.

As the Spirit is the seal in the heart of a true follower of Yeshua, marking us as His for eternity, so the fruit which He yields also cannot be stolen from us.

Bonhoeffer continues:

It [Joy] does not deny the distress where it is, but finds God in the midst of it, indeed precisely there; it does not contest the most grievous sin, but finds forgiveness in just this way; it looks death in the face, yet finds life in death itself.

Years after he wrote this, Bonhoeffer exemplified this truth in his own imprisonment and death.

Honesty in suffering is important not only for the one going through it, but also for those around who may be in a similar dark valley. God's glory is seen not in a perfect life, but in a life that He is perfecting.

Although happiness may shy away in the shadows, joy will accompany us through the night.

What is death?

Strangely enough, with the celebration of Yeshua's birth, I find myself contemplating many aspects of death. Sounds morbid maybe, but, along with taxes, isn't it one of the certainties of life?

Charles Dickens, in A Tale of Two Cities, described death as the closing of a book or water freezing over. "It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore." Each one is a mystery, Dickens says, to every other. When that life has ended, the mystery is buried.

What is it in human nature that seeks to know, to understand, to solve? Even the tritest thing--an allusive fact one should know, a name--irritates one's mind until it is recalled. Might this not be a small thread in the large shroud of death? Might this unsolved mystery in a loved one be what keeps us wanting to know more, even unconsciously, and thus the feeling of loss, of being cheated when death cuts short the breath and stills the heart?

In Love Letters from Cell 92, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his fiance' Maria write of the hopes they have that the Nazis will find him innocent of the conspiracy to kill Hitler, and they will at last be able to marry. Reading these letters is both beautiful and tormenting. Watching the dates of the letters progress and knowing that Bonhoeffer will die a couple days before the Allies victory, sets an eery back-drop to their love. It also poses the question--why? Why so close to victory, does he have to die? Why with all their hope in God's deliverance is he not spared...is she not spared? It's too easy to come up with answers: answers to defend God, answers that might try to comfort the grieving.

We probably all know many who grieve during this season. Memories of celebrations past always seem to make Christmas' time one of the hardest to bear loneliness and grief. Friday afternoon, I heard the cries of a co-worker on the phone, "Oh, no! No! Please, no!" then heart-wrenching sobbing. It was repeated. I have heard it before. Cries like the dry vomiting of the heart.

Even with hope, with knowledge that the one who died is in heaven, will be seen again, there is an earthly finality. The mystery is cut short. Their touch is lost. Death itself is a mystery. Our Creator's thoughts are a mystery. Maybe the greatest comfort I can give to one grieving is not words, but touch; not knowledge, but presence.

I'm trying to grasp reality: the balance of laughter beside grieving, of hope beside despair, of comfort beside helplessness; to give the hugs, to hold the hands, to say the words now before the mysteries I love close to me and open in eternity.