‘Teach me O Lord, the way of thy statutes’. Which statutes, though? Do we mean the ones about not wearing two
kinds of cloth, or the one about not planting two types of crop next to each
other. How about the prohibition on
eating pork – no more sausages? Or
shellfish (there goes the Emsworth Oyster-beds!). How about the statute about
stoning your child to death if he blasphemes the law. It turns out that identifying which of the
Bible’s statutes are divine, and which are man-made, is a tricky business.
According to one survey, the Bible has sold more
than 6 billion copies in more than 2,000 languages and dialects. Whatever the
precise figure, the Bible is by far the bestselling book of all time. On the other hand, the Bible is also the
least read book in the world! Very few
Bibles ever get opened. They are often
given as gifts. But, unfortunately, they
often remain as pristine as the day they are given.
Why is this? There are
a number of reasons. Sometimes the
translations of the Bible are just too difficult, and too archaic for modern
minds to grasp. Other people find that
they do try to start reading the Bible.
But they soon get lost in a sea of numbers and laws.
In my experience, if
that’s YOU, you will undoubtedly be a good Christian. You will be someone who
tries to follow Jesus every day. And yet, you will be carrying around this
weight of guilt that you never actually open your Bible.
So, how am I to
respond to this fact? How would you expect me to react? Perhaps I should pull
myself up to my full height and call you all 'Sinners!'?
Hmm...I'm not sure
that would help very much, would it? Because, actually, if you are one of those
who finds the Bible difficult to read...I agree with you! The Bible is not a novel. It's not even a
newspaper. Some people have described the Bible as 'the Maker's Instructions'.
But for many, it’s the kind of instructions which come with those packages we
sometimes get from foreign countries: ...like
this bit of helpful instruction from a computer hard-drive I recently
purchased: "More simple under USB
interface, it only can do until the 3rd step and deleted is present
channel”. And let’s be honest – that’s
how some of us hear the Bible. I know –
I watch those eyes glazing over!
But
the Bible is not an instruction manual. Neither is it a well-planned novel from
a single writer, who sets out to tell a story. Instead, it is a collection of
writings, 66 letters and books, assembled over a period of about 1,600 years.
(The word Bible itself means ‘library’ – and is a word preserved by the French ‘biblioteque’
for those who remember their O level French!).
It contains legal codes, songs and poetry, prophecy, myths, history,
stories and some pretty complex and sometimes competing theological ideas.
Sometimes these different genres are separate. Sometimes they are all woven
into just one of the books!
At this morning’s
service, Bishop John Hind offered a very fruitful analogy – that of a
garden. He described how the Bible, like
a garden, has some beautiful flower borders, but also some wild patches, a few
weeds, and even a compost heap. Each one
of them contributes to the overall beauty and diversity of the garden. But some parts of it, should be entered with
care.
So should we just not
bother with the hard work of reading the Bible? No. One of the things that the
Protestant Reformation gave us, was access to the precious pages of Scripture
for ourselves. With that access comes the chance to grow daily in our
understanding of God.
But, the church Fathers of old were right about one
thing. They knew that, unless properly understood, the Bible can be so easily mis-interpreted,
mis-used and manipulated. That’s why
many of the church leaders at the time of the Reformation were very worried about
the advent of the printing press. Direct
access to Scripture is why the quote "you shall not suffer a witch to
live" was used so mercilessly throughout the Middle Ages. It's why the letter to Philemon was used for
so long as a justification for slavery.
It’s why the letters of St Paul are still used to silence women’s voices
in some church leadership circles, and to denigrate people of minority gender
identities or sexual orientations. It is
too easy to take a line or phrase from one of the Bible’s many competing voices
to justify your personal biases and prejudices.
The underlying problem
is that in some very loud quarters of the church, the Library of books,
stories, myths, laws, poems and theology we have inherited has gained a status
which it does not claim for itself. Some
of the loudest voices declare that the ‘Library’ is ‘the Word of God’…as if God
had personally written down his thoughts for us, as fully- formed instructions
for us to follow slavishly.
Well…I might be about
to shock you now. My view is that the
Bible is NOT the word of God. Rather,
it is a collection of writings – Scriptures - which point us towards the actual
Word of God – the Logos, the wisdom, the statutes of God – who is Jesus
Christ.
For it is in Jesus Christ that the Scriptures find their target, and their fulfilment. In that one divinely inspired man, who embodied the very essence of God, we find the inspiration and the focus of the whole Library of writings we call The Bible. He is both the author and the perfector of our faith – the first and the last. He inspired the writers of the Bible, like a beautiful mountainside inspires a painter. The painter will never be able to record the deep reality of the mountain in his view. He’ll never know how many blades of grass there are, or how many insects are buried in its soil. But the mountain may inspire the painter to create a facsimile, a shadow, and an accurate impression of it. And through his teachings, his life, his death and his ongoing inspiration – Jesus, inspires us ever up the mountain to the sun-lit uplands of our Faith. Amen.
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