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What makes the Bible different – According to the Bible

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Like many Christians, I have a lot of Bibles. Most of them sit on my bookshelf next to all kinds of other books. However, the Bible could not be more different than those other books. Here are several reasons why, according to the Bible itself:

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17 ESV)

The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. (John 6:63b ESV)

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12 ESV)

Let’s observe several things about those texts. The Bible is…

  • Truth: Not just true, but truth. Many books on my shelf may be true, but the Bible alone is truth.
  • Spirit: There are powerful things happening in the spiritual realm that we usually can’t see, and that is where God’s Word resides. The fact that the Bible exists in the physical realm at all is a great grace to all God’s people.
  • Living: Most of my books are made from dead trees. While the Bible may also be printed on paper, it is just as alive, if not more so, than you and I are. I don’t claim to fully understand that, but I do marvel greatly at it!
  • Active: When I read the Bible, it is not full of passive words on a page. Unlike my other books, the burden of changing my life when reading the text does not rest on me, but on the Scriptures themselves.

The next time you hold your Bible and open it, take a moment to thank God for the very nature of His Word. It is truth, spirit, living and active – terms that do not apply to any other words that have been or ever will be written. This is why we not only do observation and interpretation of Scripture, but we seek to faithfully apply it as well!

May our response be like Simon Peter’s, who saw Jesus’ words for what they truly are:

After this many of [Jesus’] disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:66-68 ESV, emphasis mine)

Context Matters: The Living and Active Word

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This is a guest post by Josh Alley. Josh is a graduate student in political science at Texas A&M University and a member of Declaration Church.

Perhaps you’ve heard that the Bible is “living and active.” This phrase comes from Hebrews 4:12, which says that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

We rightly cite this verse as evidence of the power of God’s word. But do we grasp the scope of this power or the intention God has in wielding it? In particular, God employs his powerful word both to expose sin and to offer mercy. By answering these questions, the context increases our joy in God and his gospel. The living and active word that removes any hope of earning salvation through works simultaneously offers mercy.

Exposure

The first way God wields his powerful word is to expose us.

Heb 4:12 starts with “for,” so we must connect it to the previous verse. Heb 4:11 exhorts readers to enter God’s rest and Heb 4:10 says that “whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”

What does it mean to enter God’s rest? In short, it means to believe (Heb 4:3). Those entering God’s rest are those who have placed all their faith and trust in God.

Pauly (2013), Creative Commons

The author exhorts his readers to enter God’s rest “so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience” (Heb. 4:11). Here, disobedience refers to how Israel heard God’s voice and still rebelled against it (Heb 3:16-19). In response to their rebellion, God swore that a generation of Israelites would not enter his rest in the Promised Land. That promise is repeated throughout these chapters (Heb 3:11, 18; 4:3, 5). God punishes those who hear the word and fail to follow it.

Heb 4:11 implies that without entering God’s rest, disobedience is inevitable. People either enter God’s rest or fall. So the power of the word is, in part, a power that either enables people to rest or illuminates their disobedience.

In “discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart,” the word exposes all disobedience. It pierces every denial and obfuscation, and it exposes all the sin in the human heart. Heb 4:13 reinforces this point, as “all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him [God] to whom we must give account.” Anyone who fails to keep one part of God’s law has violated the whole law (James 2:10), and the scriptures uncover every sin.

Being cut open by God’s living and active word is painful, as I know from personal experience. When I arrived at college, I thought I was a good kid. But as friends read the Bible with me, I saw that the law demands perfection. My striving was inadequate. Having this sin exposed is uncomfortable, but subsequently resting through faith is far sweeter.

Mercy

But that’s not all. The second way God wields his powerful word is to grant mercy. If all the word shows is the hopelessness of obeying God, the power of the Scriptures will terrify. But God made another way—we can rest from our works through faith (Heb. 4:3). Jesus intercedes before God as a “great high priest,” so when we place our faith in his perfect works and in his payment on the cross for our sin, we no longer need to strive. Through faith, believers are justified in God’s sight because Jesus’s perfect righteousness covers our disobedience.

Thus, after warning about the consequences of disobedience, the author of Hebrews encourages his readers to draw near with confidence to the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16). This is astounding. Though God’s word exposes all our sin, he offers us mercy and grace.

Due to the power of the Scriptures to expose sin, we can please God only by faith. God calls us to rest from our works through faith, and when we do, we find not condemnation but mercy. So God’s word is powerful enough to cause us to delight in salvation through faith in Jesus.

Context matters.

 

 

Context Matters: the Faith Hall of Fame

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Perhaps you’ve heard about “The Faith Hall of Fame” (Hebrews 11:1-40). It’s a lengthy list of Old Testament heroes and the mighty deeds our great God accomplished through them. Children’s Bibles could derive their tables of contents from this chapter, and many believers come here for inspiration and encouragement. And for good reason. But how many, like Abraham, wander into this text, not knowing where they are going? And how many of our good intentions fall like the walls of Jericho by the author’s encircling, and clearly stated, intentions? And how many come away with assurance of things hoped for, and conviction of things not seen in the text?

Context matters. If we learn to read the Bible for what it is—and not as a collection of independently assembled inspirational stories—we’ll discover that some of our most familiar passages don’t actually mean what we’ve always assumed.

psmckiernan (2011), Creative Commons

The Big Idea

You don’t have to dig far into articles or commentaries on Hebrews to get the letter’s* main idea. Few would dispute it: Jesus Christ is superior. He is:

  • superior to angels (chapters 1-2)
  • superior to Moses (chapter 3)
  • superior to Joshua’s rest (chapter 4)
  • superior to the Levitical priesthood (chapters 5-7)
  • superior to the old covenant (chapter 8)
  • superior to the tabernacle (chapter 9)
  • superior to animal sacrifices (chapter 10)

The Main Application

As the text concludes a whirlwind review of the Old Testament legal and sacrificial system, it pulls everything together. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places” (Heb 10:19) by superior blood, through a superior way, with a superior priest, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb 10:22). “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope” (Heb 10:23) and stir one another up to love and good works.

Remember, there is no sacrifice for deliberate sin. This was the case under Moses’ law, and it remains the case under the Son of God and the Spirit of grace (Heb 10:26-30).

Wow! Sound harsh? Sound unchristian?

Perhaps. Unless you pay attention to which deliberate sin it is that cannot be covered by any sacrifice, including Christ’s. It was mentioned in Heb 10:19-25, but he brings it up again:

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings… Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward… We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. (Heb 10:32-39)

The sin that cannot be covered by sacrifice is the sin of throwing away one’s confidence in Christ. The sin of shrinking back from enlightenment regarding Jesus’ superiority. The sin of not holding fast the confession of hope in Jesus. The sin, that is, of lacking faith.

In other words, the only people who will be in hell are those who refuse to believe in Jesus Christ as their true rest, true tabernacle, true priest, and true sacrifice. No sacrifice or religious duty could ever rescue such people. But those who maintain their believing loyalty to Christ will receive the promised reward. Don’t ever let this go; it’s not worth it. With such loyalty, you can endure any suffering.

The Hall of Fame

And on this note, the discourse launches into a litany of Old Testament examples of people whose primary hope and assurance came not from their own performance of religious duty (temple, priest, sacrifice), but from the promise of God to preserve and reward them through hardship. But the text doesn’t want us to look at these examples. No, their eyes are on us (Heb 11:39-12:1), so that our eyes can be on him (Heb 12:2-3).

The litany nearly becomes a mantra that you can’t miss: “By faith… By faith… By faith… By faith,” eighteen times. Then a “through faith” (Heb 11:33) and a “through their faith” (Heb 11:39) are thrown in for a little variety at the end.

When reading through the faith hall of fame, we sometimes miss the fact that it’s a faith hall of fame. It’s not a works hall of fame. It’s not a list of strong people who did great things for God. It’s a list of weak people who trusted that God could do great things for them. We don’t have to try to imitate the heroes of old. They’re cheering us on, encouraging us to fix our eyes on Jesus. He endured hostility so he could win us as a prize. Can we endure a bit of ridicule to win others to him as well?

Context matters.

*While it’s obvious that Hebrews comes in the section of “letters” in the New Testament, there is good reason to believe that this “letter” is really a transcribed sermon with an appended P.S. (Heb 13:22-25). But that’s another post for another day.

Listen to the Best Interpreter

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This is a guest post by Zack Gugenheim. Zack lives in Lewisburg, PA with his wife Heather and their two children.  Since 2008, he has ministered with DiscipleMakers, training students in bible study, evangelism, and discipleship.  He is the lead campus staff at Bucknell University.  You can follow his blog at Escape Escapism, or find him on Facebook. If you’d like to write a guest post for Knowable Word, please see our guidelines.

I was going to be the best. As a college student, I wanted to know God’s Word, and I wanted to interpret the Word well—and I wanted everyone to know it. Though God was working in many people, He was obviously working in me more! I expected people would see me as a deep thinker with an influential voice. What I didn’t expect, however, was that, during Bible study, I would find a better interpreter.

At our meeting we studied Matthew 13. In the chapter, great crowds gather to Jesus, and he tells of a sower who sows seed. Four soils each produce a result. Three yield no fruit, but the fourth yields lots of fruit!

As a proud, young, Christian, I of course knew the parable. But my greatest surprise came at what Jesus told His disciples afterwards:

Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom… (Matt 13:18-19a)

Jesus explains the parable. The sower sows the seed of God’s Word. And the soils? They represent people who hear the Word. At this point, the Bible study leader remarked, “Do you realize that as we interpret the Bible, the Bible is actually interpreting you?”

Ed Yourdon (2008), Creative Commons

Ed Yourdon (2008), Creative Commons

I was in shock. I wanted to prove myself as a great Bible interpreter. But I hadn’t yet realized that the best interpreter in the room was the Word itself. It exposed my hard heart, and it revealed my lack of fruit. My invulnerability, pride, and self-centeredness were in the open. God’s Word had found me out, as it always does.

Now, of course we want to observe, interpret, and apply. We should be good students of the Word. But we must remember it isn’t a one-way street. We need more than good scholarship; we need exposure. As we look at God’s Word, it’s being sown in our hearts. And our response to that Word reveals what kind of people we are.

Can a book know us better than we know ourselves? The book God wrote can, and exposure produces change in us. Consider Hebrews 4:11-13:

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Imagine that. The world’s sharpest sword pierces your heart; it sees and understands all your thoughts and intentions. And nothing is hidden from God. You are naked and exposed. Why? So you may strive to enter that rest. In other words, only exposed people will cling to the cross of Christ.

So, as you interpret God’s Word, have you considered how it’s exposing you? Or do you hide behind facts, theology, or pride? Do your applications penetrate the surface of your life? Is God’s Word showing you where you are weak?

Let’s interpret God’s Word well. But as we do, let’s remember that this Word is always the best interpreter in the room.

Loving Leviticus

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Aaron Armstrong has a short piece about how he’s “Learning to Love Leviticus.” He’s found a new appreciation for all the ceremonial details in light of the claim of Hebrews that Jesus is better.

Jesus is different—as the spotless sacrifice and the sinless priest, “He doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do—first for their own sins, then for those of the people. He did this once for all when He offered Himself” (Hebrews 7:27). That’s the real secret of loving Leviticus—recognizing that it is a book full of hope for those redeemed by Christ’s death and resurrection.

Check it out!

One Vital Behavior Determines the Success of Your Teaching Ministry

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Have you attended a Bible study with a leader who had no people skills? Have you been to Bible conferences where the speakers refused to hobnob with the proletariat? Have you taken a Bible class where everything you heard was true and precise, but you wondered if the professor had ever interacted with a live descendant of Adam?

What you do outside your Bible study meeting is just as important as what you did during it. You can reinforce the lessons you taught, or you can undermine them with your own hands. You can guide softened hearts into beneficial spiritual disciplines, or you can subsidize the calluses that deaden people to the very truth you proclaim.

It all depends on whether you live to serve the teaching, or whether the teaching exists to help you serve others. This goes for small groups, youth groups, Sunday school classes, and sermons. It goes for conference talks and classroom lectures. It even goes for 1-on-1 mentorship. Your teaching ministry matters, but it will be counterproductive if you don’t care about the people you teach.

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. (Heb 13:7)

One Vital Behavior

I’ve spent many weeks focused on the mechanics of leading a Bible study. I’m a firm believer in a strong ministry of the word, and I affirm that bad (shoddy, false, ignorant) Bible studies are costly and dishonoring to God. But I also deny that the ministry of the word is limited to the truthful and precise words that pour from a leader’s mouth. The ministry of the word is incomplete apart from the love and mercy that pour from the leader’s heart.

Therefore, to all who want to learn how to lead a Bible study, I commend one vital behavior above all others: Love your people. Get to know them. Learn their names and their histories. Find out what in life encourages them and what discourages them. Ask about their disappointments, dreams, and values. Make sure you understand them before you disagree with them. Find out why they come to the Bible study. Ask them regularly how they think it’s going and how you can improve. Ask them what God is teaching them through it.

You’ll never be able to do all these things during the meeting itself. Love requires investment; a price must be paid. You’ll have to spend time with them (both in groups and 1-on-1). You’ll have to learn what they do for fun so you can learn to have fun doing it with them. You’ll have to express your love in ways they feel loved, which won’t necessarily be the same ways you like to express love. I write “you’ll have to…you’ll have to…you’ll have to…” not because your righteousness depends upon it, but because love has the inscrutable power of compulsion.

The Cost of Failure

Simon Webster (2011), Creative Commons

Simon Webster (2011), Creative Commons

The success of your Bible study—or of any teaching ministry—depends upon this one vital behavior. Is that a naïvely bombastic claim? I think not.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. (1 Cor 13:1-2)

I’ve performed in orchestras when the gong and cymbals crashed at just the right time. Few earthly experiences are as moving as such powerful musical climaxes.

I’ve also performed in orchestras when the percussionist dropped the cymbals on the floor during the concert. Few earthly experiences are more embarrassing, more useless, or more counterproductive.

It is good for us to earnestly desire teaching gifts and to diligently develop teaching skills. But let us never forget: There is a still more excellent way (1 Cor 12:27-31).

How to Resist Seduction’s Tactics

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Seduction’s tactics are not complicated (Prov 7:10-20):

  • Initiative
  • Dress
  • Commonality
  • Touch
  • Foreplay
  • Piety
  • Taste
  • Sights
  • Smells
  • Adventure
Hamed Saber (2006), Creative Commons

Hamed Saber (2006), Creative Commons

Though death awaits, we still regularly go looking for trouble and find it. What applications can we make from Proverbs 7? How do we strengthen our resistance to this wily enemy?

1. Before the Seduction

The battle begins long before you face sin’s temptation. This is where you discover whether you want to resist it or not. “Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected” (1 John 2:4-5, ESV).

Do you have time scheduled to soak in the commands of God? Do you have adequate time in the Scripture? Do you even want to have such time?

As you spend time in God’s word, you hear the voice of Jesus. His perspective overshadows your own. His delight drowns yours. His death gives you life and reminds you of what’s most important. Hint: It’s not your self-gratification but his kingdom. When Jesus is your intimate friend, immorality’s seduction becomes less and less seductive. Why would you gorge on black licorice when there’s ice cream in the freezer?

2. During the Seduction

As best you can, try to figure out what you’re thinking while in the midst of temptation. What do you really want? What do you think this immoral act will give you? This is difficult because immorality is not particularly logical. But your thinking provides the avenue to your heart. You and I must identify the lies before we can replace them with the truth.

Did you have a hard day with difficult deadlines and unresolved conflict? Do you think sexual sin will offer an escape?

Does your life feel out of control? Do you think sexual sin will make you feel powerful and stable once again?

Are you feeling sorry for yourself? Do you feel mistreated, alone, abandoned, or discouraged? Do you think sexual sin will make you happy again? Do you think it will feel good?

Remind yourself that the Lord is near, and he sees all. How does that influence your motivations?

3. After the Seduction

You might expect me to say “remember the gospel.” And that’s critical, but it comes with another key discipline: Reinforce the pain. Not in a guilt-ridden, beat-yourself-up sort of way, but in a sobered, moment-of-truth, life-lesson sort of way.

By “reinforce the pain,” I don’t mean that you should flagellate yourself and feel sorry for yourself all over again. That would not be in line with the fact that Jesus already died to rescue you.

No, I mean that you should receive the Lord’s discipline. He disciplines those he loves, and he chastises every son he receives (Heb 12:6). No discipline is pleasant at the time, but painful. So receive the pain. Learn from it. Brand it on your conscience and leverage it to strengthen you in your Father’s love.

As a teenager, I once drove a girl home and ended up making out with her in the car before she went inside. It didn’t surprise me when it happened. I had hoped it would happen when I offered to give her a lift; I was reasonably sure she was baiting me to it (though I blame myself, not her, for the idiocy of it).

But afterward I felt awful. I felt so bad about it—not because I felt condemned by God, but because it felt so unsatisfying—that as I drove the rest of the way home, I prayed to God and shouted things at myself: “That was not fun! That really sucked! That was the stupidest thing you could do!”

I don’t condone fits of rage, and I acknowledge that this story is somewhat childish. But I’ll confess that few things have been more helpful to me when I face sexual temptation. The memory of my private shouting match has stuck with me ever since. I’m not perfect, but often, when I face temptation, I still hear my own voice: “That was not fun! That really sucked!” And the memory of the pain reminds me both to remember what Jesus has done and to reconsider what the Lord would have me do.

And I have never regretted such remembrance and reconsideration.

Question: What practical steps have helped you to unmask immorality’s deceptive tactics?

What Kevin DeYoung’s Book Launch Taught Me About Bible Study

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Taking God at His WordIs the Bible enough for whatever we face in our churches today, be it bulimia, self-mutilation, conscientious doubts, or cultural differences? Is it true that God is still speaking through the pages of this ancient book?

Last weekend, I joined more than 500 others at a book launch event hosted by Westminster Bookstore. Kevin DeYoung’s new book, Taking God at His Word: Why the Bible is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me, addresses what we should believe about the Bible by examining what the Bible says about itself. Westminster Bookstore partnered with DeYoung to hold this one-day event to promote both the book and the critical truths within.

I could multiply praises for this event, but let me get right to it.

DeYoung inspired us to have confidence in the text of Scripture. He inspired us to inspire others to have confidence in the text of Scripture.

It sounds so simple, but we so easily drift.

  • Though you believe the Bible, do you long for a mystical experience with God? Perhaps to hear from someone who’s been to heaven and back? Perhaps to hear his voice calling you through private letters written just for you?
  • Do you trust that God has spoken now in his Son and that we need no further prophet, priest, or sacrifice (Heb 1:1-4), or do you feel safest when someone else tells you what to think?
  • Does this book speak life to you, or do you feel the need to supplement it with study guides, commentaries, or other expert guidance?
  • As you lead or teach, do you communicate that people must come to you with their questions? Are you in danger of leading primarily with your personality and not with the truth?
  • Are you seeing other people learn to study and teach others, or do you prefer to be seen as the guru with the best answers?

Now I’m not saying that DeYoung encouraged us to separate ourselves from the church or from the historical insights of others. Nor would I urge such a thing.

But, are you able to compare everything you hear with the Scripture? Do you have confidence that these precious words have been spoken by God the Holy Spirit for your growth in grace? Do you understand that Scripture’s authority lies in the text, and not in your experience of the text nor in the teaching you sit under? Do you see that when you pay closer attention to these Spirit-spoken words, the Lord Jesus Christ (the Morning Star) will rise in your heart (2 Peter 1:19)?

Though I appreciated DeYoung’s messages at last week’s conference, I’m sure I’ll forget most of what he said soon enough. But he explained the books of Hebrews and 2 Peter in such a way that I don’t think I’ll ever read them the same way again. He explained these books so clearly that I don’t need to hear DeYoung’s messages again. I have the text itself, and that’s enough.

That said, I highly commend his book to you. Not simply because it has the words “knowable” and “word” in the title, but because it will unravel for you the riches of how God views his own word. It will inspire you to love God’s word the way God himself does.

I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. (Ps 119:16, ESV)

It is impossible to revere the Scriptures more deeply or affirm them more completely than Jesus did. Jesus submitted his will to the Scriptures, committed his brain to studying the Scriptures, and humbled his heart to obey the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus, God’s Son and our Savior, believed his Bible was the word of God down to the sentences, to the phrases, to the words, to the smallest letter, to the tiniest specks—and that nothing in all those specks and in all those books in his Holy Bible could ever be broken. (DeYoung, Kindle location 1330)

Though I received a free copy of DeYoung’s book at last week’s conference, I purchased the Kindle edition so I’d be able to give the hard copy away. It’s that good.

——————-

The Amazon link above is an affiliate link, so if you click it and buy stuff you’ll help ordinary people learn to study the Bible at no extra cost to yourself.

Fight for the Main Point

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The main points of the Bible are the ones worth fighting for. Often, however, Christians disagree over things other than the main points. And while we’re not wrong to draw conclusions about secondary, debatable, or implied points, such conclusions must never drown out the Bible’s main points.

Alex Indigo (2008), Creative Commons

Alex Indigo (2008), Creative Commons

The Pharisees demonstrate the problem. As the fundamentalists of their day, they cared about God’s truth. They wanted to glorify God and live lives pleasing to him. They passionately protected important doctrines, and they went to great lengths to win converts and change the world.

But in the process of remembering good things, they forgot the best things.

They attended Bible studies to improve their lives, but they didn’t embrace Life when God sent him (John 5:39-40).

They promoted God’s moral standards to a degenerate, fallen world, but they plotted harm on the day designed for doing good (Mark 3:1-6).

They put God first over every relationship, but they neglected God’s own wishes for human relationships (Matthew 15:3-6).

Sometimes Jesus condemns them for doing the wrong things, but sometimes he condemns them for neglecting the best things. Consider this judgement in Matthew 23:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! (Matt 23:23-24, ESV)

Notice that they should have continued tithing. They weren’t expected to exercise justice, mercy, or faithfulness instead of giving 10%. They were expected to exercise justice, mercy, and faithfulness in addition to it. They always drank skim milk, but then got caught eating too much ice cream.

Today, we likewise can get distracted from the Bible’s main points. The worst distractions are not bad things but good things. They’re not false teaching but true teaching. They’re not opposed to God’s kingdom but in favor of God’s kingdom. These distractions consist of things that should concern us, but they’re not the only things that should concern us. Nor are they the main things that should concern us. We should reserve plenty of bandwidth for the weightier matters.

For example, we study Genesis 1 and focus our discussion on the length or literalness of the days of creation. We spend so much time on the “what” that we forget to seek the “why,” and we mistakenly believe we know the “why” because we’ve discovered the “what.” We might get the “what” (“What is the length of each day?”), and we should try hard to get the “what.” But we must press on to get the “why” (“Why does the author tell the story of creation as a sequence of 7 days?”). We must not neglect the fact that God’s creative process sets the pattern for our lives on earth (Mark 10:6-9, 2 Cor 4:5-6, Heb 4:1-5). And we must not ignore Jesus—the creator, light, life, word, sustainer, ruler, subduer, multiplier, author of faith, image of the invisible God, and firstborn of all creation.

For another example, we study Hebrews 11 and trumpet the heroes of faith. And rightly so, as the text recounts their lives with much fanfare. But we must not miss the main point. It’s a faith hall of fame and not a works hall of fame. The point is not so much to show the greatness of these heroes as it is to show their smallness. We should fix our gaze on these heroes, but only as long as we keep Jesus in our field of vision. The heroes huddle around us, bearing witness to the real Hero, Jesus (Heb 12:1-2).

Finding a passage’s main point is hard work, but we must fight to get it. And once we’ve got it, we must fight to keep it.

Jesus is Your Resume

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This is a guest post by my friend and co-worker Dan Miller, who has a video blog at Video Verses.  You can follow him on Facebook.

 

suitAs a Christian, the best work you’ll ever do for God’s kingdom is believe in the work of Jesus.

Do you agree with that?  Or do you work under the assumption that child-like faith in Jesus is a good thing…but it belongs on your résumé somewhere below the great number of people you’ve managed?

If that is what your résumé looks like, Jesus is not hiring.

That’s been His policy all along, and yet there’s hope.  Just look at the Bible’s most capable manager.

Joseph.  A man who, no matter what life threw at him, seemed unstoppable.  Sold into slavery as a teenager in a foreign land, he rose to manage the estate of a powerful man.  Then after being framed and losing everything, he rose from “neglected prisoner” to “essentially the most powerful man in Egypt.”  His rise came during a devastating time: a famine that could have leveled the entire world.

Fortunately for the world, Joseph was the right man for the job.

Joseph led Egypt to store their abundance before the famine hit, so they could feed themselves, the nations, and the world.  Including the brothers who were so unkind to him and the person who had framed him.

In a nutshell, Joseph rose from convict to savior of the world.  How would you like that on your résumé?

Now, stop planning your financial future for a moment, and consider Hebrews 11, the “who’s who” of the Old Testament.  To no one’s surprise, Joseph made it in there.  What do you think was on his résumé?

By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones. (Hebrews 11:22, ESV)

That’s it?

Yes.  According to the writer of Hebrews, this is the most important thing to know about Joseph’s life’s work.  Back in Genesis 12, God made a promise to Joseph’s great-grandpa Abraham.  This promise continued through the line, but as awesome as Joseph’s life was, the promise didn’t come true during his lifetime.  Rather than questioning God and dying a bitter old man, Joseph believed God.  He believed so strongly, in fact, that he denied himself a prominent burial, instead saying, “Descendents, take my bones to the Promised Land yourself.”  About 500 years later, they did.

God always keeps His promises.

But God had a bigger, better promise, and the name of that promise is Jesus.  In John 3:16, Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me will not perish, but have eternal life.”  The real goal for God’s people was not land acquisition, but restoration to the holy God who made us, whom we betrayed.  This restoration came totally through Jesus, who is alive and well, interceding for us despite our best efforts to stop Him.  He has given us new life and a glorious new mission – to proclaim HIS name.  He’s also given us the strength for the mission.

That’s the point: your belief in Jesus’ work is the greatest work you will ever offer the world.  In other words, it’s not just at the top of your résumé, it is your résumé.

So as you live the rest of your life, remember that faith in Jesus is your greatest weapon, and your greatest danger is faith in anything else.