THE WORD OF GOD (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

The bulletin board of one of our professors at the College is probably best described as a collage of comic strips and jokes that deal with biblical and theological issues. Most of the posts are cartoons, but there is a document that is entitled “How to Get a Wife in the Bible.” There are fourteen suggestions, but I only chose ten of them.

1. Find an attractive prisoner of war, bring her home, shave her head, trim her nails, and give her new clothes. Then she’s yours. (Deut 21:11-13)
2. Find a prostitute and marry her. (Hosea 1:1-3)
3. Find a man with seven daughters, and impress him by watering his flock. (Moses, in Exodus 2:16-21)
4. Purchase a piece of property, and get a woman as part of the deal. (Boaz, in Ruth 4:5-10)
5. Go to a party and hide. When the women come out to dance, grab one and carry her off to be your wife. (Benjamites, in Judges 21:19-25)
6. Have God create a wife for you while you sleep. Note: this will cost you. (Adam, in Genesis 2:19-24)
7. Agree to work seven years in exchange for a woman’s hand in marriage. Get tricked into marrying the wrong woman. Then work another seven years for the woman you wanted to marry in the first place. (Jacob, in Genesis 29:15-30)
8. Cut 200 foreskins of your future father-in-law’s enemies and get his daughter for a wife. (David, in 1 Samuel 18:27)
9. Become the emperor of a huge nation and hold a beauty contest. (Ahasuerus or Xerxes, in Esther 2:3-4)
10. When you see someone you like, go home and tell your parents, “I have seen a woman; now get her for me.” If your parents question your decision, simply say, “Get her for me. She’s the one for me.” (Samson, in Judges 14:1-3)

The articles of faith of every Christian denomination affirm the centrality of the Bible as the written Word of God, and that it is the sufficient guide and canon for Christian faith and practice. One of the results of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, in Germany, Switzerland, and England was the translation of the Bible from the original languages to the common vernaculars so that the laity can read it themselves. I do not know if the Bible still holds a significant place in these countries, but it appears that the best illustration of modern day people who long for the Scriptures can be traced in places like China, Sudan, and the like where people only get access to pages of the Bible through smuggling.

Karl Barth, the greatest twentieth century German theologian argued that Christianity today is suffering and dying for one particular reason: that is, that the Word of God is no longer given much attention even by Christians. It is ironic that the most sold book in the whole world is the Bible, but I wonder if it is also the most opened and read on a daily basis. It is even a shame that even Sunday worshippers no longer bother to bring their Bibles to church.

The strength of the passage in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, where Paul wrote, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work,” could be best discerned if we consider the relationship between Paul and Timothy. Timothy was Paul’s disciple, and it is recognized that Timothy was actually pastoring a church as a part of his apprenticeship. Therefore, to state the obvious, Paul was instructing the learning Timothy of the significance of the Scriptures.

But even if we read our Bibles everyday, how do we approach it? How do we look at the Bible in order for it to be able to teach, rebuke, correct, and train us in righteousness? What should be our relation to the Scriptures?

I. THE WORD DEMANDS HEARING

The most fundamental rule in order for the Scriptures to be able to teach, correct, and train us in righteousness, and so that we may be equipped for every good work is to let it speak to us. Our relationship with the Scripture is like a speaker-listener relationship. It is not a bargaining relationship, where the Word tells us something that we can either negotiate with or discard. I think one of the most difficult verb in our daily vocabulary is to listen. We forget the words of James: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger” (1:19). At the College, when some of us gather and talk about different issues, there are many moments when two or three simultaneously responds. It seems that everyone has his own word for anything. It is so hard to listen, and often times it is the most boring and tiring thing to do. I remember very well when I was in my Pastoral Counselling class at the seminary some five years ago, when our lecturer said that the greatest challenge a counsellor faces is how to listen to long and repetitious stories. In fact he taught us how to yawn discreetly.

Our relationship with the Scriptures, though it’s words demand interaction from us, is primarily that of being listeners and receivers of what it says. This means that we don’t read the Bible with preconceptions and fixed self-focused agenda. Approaching the Bible requires us to let it speak to us, while we absorb with all our hearts both the wonderful promises and the painful rebukes it tells us. It also means absorbing everything it tells us—as faithful listeners we do not close our ears to some of things that we do not want to hear. We do not come to the Bible with defence barriers, on guard, so that we might reject and argue against the things that might shatter our comfortable lifestyles. Instead we should come to the Bible, the Word of God empty handed, in humility and prayer, heartily waiting for what the Lord has to say to us.

It is right and proper that we meditate on God’s word. The Psalmist sang, “blessed is the man… who delights in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:1). But I have issues with the word “meditation,” as it is often understood today. I know this is not a lecture on philosophy, but it appears that our approach to the Scriptures in the modern world is very much influenced by either Rationalism or Romanticism, or both. Rationalism places emphasis on human reason, and the capacity of the intellect to understand the things of God; romanticism on the other hand places emphasis on the human heart, and the capacity of personal feelings or experience to interpret godly knowledge. At first look, it appears that there is nothing wrong with these two, but actually, both approaches are disastrous. The problem with them is their emphasis upon the ability of the human knower, so that the primary question in approaching the Scripture is “what does this mean to me?” This is absolutely a wrong question, because the primary character in the plot should not be me, my interpretation, my understanding, or my opinion, but God’s Word, God’s intention, and God’s speech. If we approach the Bible this way, rather than asking the question “What is God saying?” we dethrone God and put ourselves at the centre instead. And from the early centuries, the church fathers already recognized that a self-centred interpretation is the root of all errors. Our role is to listen, to accept, and not to argue. Using the analogy of parenthood, the writer of Proverbs admonished: “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck” (1:8).

II. THE WORD DEMANDS PAINFUL TRANSFORMATION

The act of listening is already a painful experience, especially when you are listening at something that you do no want to hear. But isn’t it that most of the times, the most painful words are the most true, and that these are the words that we must hear, but are avoiding to hear? I remember the story of the rich young man in Matthew 19, when Jesus told him to sell his possessions and give to the poor in order to gain treasures in heaven, and how “he went away sad because he had great wealth” (19:22). The words of Jesus must have hurt him on the right mark—the very thing that he did not want to do was the very thing that Jesus asked him to do. To listen also means to be able to receive with whole heart what the Word of God tells, and respond in obedience to it. But as the story of the rich young man suggests, obedience to the Word is a painful experience. Why? Because it entails and demands transformation. It demands a transition from this state of affairs to another. It demands change—and change for many people is a frightening and excruciating event.

The story of the Israelites would be an excellent example. They were living in Egypt for more than three centuries as slaves, and though they believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, their long stay in Egypt must have influenced their religious views, particularly on polytheism. Just as any other group of people in ancient Near East, they were probably polytheists. This was the background of the first commandment of God: “There is only one God, you shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). Also, they most probably practiced the same practices of typical near easterners. However, when God called them out of Egypt and called them as His people, God demanded from them radical transformation. They were to abandon their former ways of thought, their practices, and the way they managed their families and communities. God was shaping them into the kind of people He wanted them to be—as reflectors of the character and Being of God. This was why God gave them the long list of laws and ordinances in Leviticus, known as the Holiness Code (cf. Leviticus 19ff). And this was a painful process for the Hebrews, for it required from them a different set of lifestyle than what they were accustomed to. As in shaping clay to pots, the clay needs some mashing, pounding and swirling so that it could be transformed into beautiful objects. In fact while in the wilderness we read several rebellions among them, evidence of their self-centred struggle to fight the hands of God.

Isn’t this the very reason that people do not want to read the Bible—because the Word of God is “sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even the dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrows; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). It reveals to us our hypocrisies, our innermost secrets, and convicts us towards a costly repentance. It strips us bare from our masks and defensive armour, and shatters our own illusions. In front of the Word, as it speaks to our hearts, we stand naked, for “nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Heb 4:13). But to those who read the Word and hear the voice of God in them, let the admonition of the Psalmist guide us: “today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts […as you did at Meribah]” (95:7-8; Heb 4:7).

III. THE WORD IS JESUS CHRIST

Thomas F. Torrance, the Scottish theologian, and certainly one the greatest theologians that Britain ever produced, strongly argued that the real text of the New Testament is Jesus Christ. When I preached on the principle that Jesus is the Truth from John 14:6, I mentioned that Jesus is the personalized Truth, so that when we read the Gospels and look for truth, we do not only consider the spoken words of Christ as truths, but look at his life as the embodied Truth. There are some fancy prints of the Bible today that are quite misleading. I am referring to Bible prints where the words of Jesus are printed in red or whatever colour it is so that the uttered words of Jesus stand out. While I believe that the intention of the editors is noble, it actually misleads people to thinking that the words of Jesus are of primary importance and all the others are not so important. This means that they do not see the whole life of Jesus as revelatory in nature. They completely dismissed the first arguments of John: that “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (1:14).

And so we ask, how could the entire life of Jesus be a proclamation of the Truth? To answer this, we need to take the example of the Old Testament prophets, particularly Hosea. Hosea was a prophet who communicated the will and words of God in rather strange and out-of-the-box ways, according to the manner that God asked him to. For instance, God asked him to marry a prostitute [“called an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness” (1:2)], because in that particular act, God wanted to tell the Israelites how He loved them: “Go show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes” (3:1). This is where we should understand the prophetic ministry of Christ, not only in his preaching and teaching, but also in his life and death. Was it not that his death on the cross, though he uttered no word, God’s supreme love is demonstrated with great power? Did not his healing miracles show his unbounded compassion and mercy? Did not his exorcisms display his authority over everything and everyone? Did not his resurrection explain the fact that He is the God of life? The whole life of Jesus—the whole of what Jesus did and said—the totality of his being, without remainder—He is the Word of God. When we look at Jesus, does He not teach, rebuke, correct and train us in righteousness, so that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work? As Paul admonished his readers: “follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).

The Bible, the written Word of God, was given by God not only as a testimony of His Truth and its purpose is not only revelatory. In it we encounter God’s truth and will. If we are to gain the spiritual graces offered for us in it, it is imperative that we should have a proper relationship with it. As we attentively listen and heartily receive God’s words, we allow God to penetrate our hearts, souls and minds. And as we open our whole being to His Word, we also allow Him to transform us into a holy people—a holy people who should live Christ-like lives. When we read the Word we do not argue with it; when we read the Word we allow it to change our minds and hearts; when we read the Word we allow it to transform us into becoming like Christ.

“See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they [Israelites] did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven?” (Hebrews 12:25)