“Now,” the pastor implored us as he completed his sermon, “in light of what we’ve seen in 2 Timothy 3:16 this morning, I challenge each of you to equip yourselves for life and ministry! God commands us to be obedient and to glorify him through our obedience so I’m asking each of you to spend at least five minutes in each of the next five days reading the Bible. This is God’s clearly stated will so let’s go out and do it!”

I looked around. Lots of heads were nodding positively: this would be the week to obey God and to give him his glory. Some were looking down at the floor. One man—he looked like a cutting-edge sort of guy—glanced at his watch. The service ended with a song and the benediction.

On the way out of church a man in the congregation took a moment with the pastor.

“Pastor, I’m pretty busy but I want to take up your challenge. With life as full as it is, when should I do it? Is there an especially good time of day to read?”

“No, it’s totally up to you! Maybe while you’re having breakfast, or maybe before you go to bed. Just commit yourself to find a little spare time somewhere in the day.”

“Great,” the man responded, “I’ll do it before I go to bed at night—it might be a good way to get to sleep!”

This particular scenario is my own creation but it summarizes some of the more common sentiments I hear from believers today—from both pastors and parishioners. In this post I’d like to ask a few tough questions about how we treat Bible reading today. Why do we bother to ask anyone to sacrifice their precious time in this way?

First we need to ask, do we actually know God? If we don’t know him—even if we know lots about him—then any invitation to read “God’s word” is like asking someone to read someone else’s mail. The appropriate response to that will always be, “If I haven’t met him, why should I be interested in his issues?” So it’s important for those who don’t read the Bible to start with a polite question: “Dear God, have we ever actually met?” For those who lack any appetite for the Bible I’m sure he’ll answer, “No, we haven’t, but I’ve been waiting for the opportunity for some time now!”

The point is that our religious activities—whether we’re deeply involved in a cool and post-modern community of faith; or are members of a clunky and traditional old church—are not the real issues at stake. I think of Paul, for instance, when he was still Saul, being “zealous for God” as he chased Christians all over the landscape. All of that was so much nonsense when he was finally knocked off his chariot by God himself.

“Who are you?” Saul asked the one who spoke to him out of a brilliant light.

“Jesus, whom you’re persecuting” came the answer.

This, by the way, is an awkward point because in my experience it’s uncommon to hear church people talk about God as if he cares for them and vice versa—in contrast to Paul’s great passion for Christ after his own introduction that day on the Damascus road.

Yet the Bible assumes that all who really know God love him. Why? Because all who know him discover that he first loved us. And it’s impossible to ignore the Creator of all of heaven and earth as he regularly tells us, by his Spirit, “I love you” (Romans 5:5). Consider, for instance, Psalm 42:1, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.” The Bible is full of portrayals of people with that appetite, who love him deeply. And all of us who get that, love to spend time hanging out with God in his Word.

Some in the Bible, of course, despise God. And many—take Jacob or Paul as two instances—move from one status to the other as the Bible tells the stories of their lives. The Bible offers such transformation stories not only to invite us to that kind of story in our own lives; but also to warn us that only those captured by the love of the Father and his Son—as those who “kiss the Son” (Psalm 2)—will prosper in the coming Day of Judgment. And those on that Day who claim to have been religious—even when they’ve done “many mighty miracles” on God’s behalf—but who never really liked him much, will be told, “Depart from me, I never knew you” (in Matthew 7).

So knowing God “in person” is a crucial starting point for Bible reading and John 8:31 treats our devotion to the Word as the measure of true life in Christ. Yet there’s a second obstacle to overcome for many of us with lots of church experience. It’s our utilitarian tendency to treat the Bible as a resource for successful living. In sermons we hear of Scriptures as a place where we learn how to be more Godly; how to have stronger marriages; how to manage our wealth; how to become more missional as truly authentic people; how to build strong communities; and so on and on and on.

In other words, because of our fixation on finding “applications” in the Bible we begin to be “fix-it” Christians and the Bible serves us as a moral manual. This, however, misses seeing God himself—the Father-Son-and-Spirit-God—as the ultimate moving presence in the Bible; and as the ultimate motive for coming to the Bible.

Let me make the point by asking whether we see the Bible as God’s deepest and most tangible self-disclosure that he makes available to us: is he sharing himself and his heart through it? Or is does it offer us a set of lessons God and our pastors wants us to learn, ideas we need to assimilate, and behaviors we need to adopt? These differing emphases separate those who treasure the Bible relationally from those who don’t.

It’s true, of course, that the Bible does offer us all sorts of practical benefits. The God who gave us marriages, resources, communities, and everything else, has lots to tell us about how these benefits are part of his love for us. But they all become idols if we worship and serve the creation while missing the God who loves us and who has given us all these things in the context of his love. God is not a means to our ends, but our ultimate aim in himself.

So what should we say to a pastor who begs his congregation to spend 5 minutes a day for 5 days a week in the Bible? Or even to read 15 minutes each day in order to complete a one-year-read-through?

God alone can answer that, but God’s answer might be, “Shame on you! Is your portrayal of me so small, so disaffected, and so utilitarian that all you can ask for is a useless bit of spare time? I’m the ‘God who is love’ and I’m offering myself as the dynamic center of life for all your people—so get in touch with reality!”

So, as spiritual leaders of one sort or another, quit using the small appetites of those who may not even know God as a measure for anything spiritual. Instead let’s use the measure of a real love relationship.

Would a good pastor, for instance, offer premarital advice to a young couple like this: “Be sure to spend at least 5 minutes a day, 5 times each week talking to each other: that’s what your marriage needs to prosper!” God forbid!

Instead, with marriage as a model, here’s what we might want to tell young believers:

“God loves you. He opens his heart to you in the Bible. You’ll need to have ears to hear that love and the Spirit offers that—just ask for it and you’ll receive it. You’ll also need to give up things that block your response to him—he’ll coach you in that as you read. And you’ll want to have other partners to share with, so always look for companionship in your reading. Then be sure to pray in response to what you’ve read.”

If they ask, “How much reading?” answer with a bigger frame of reference—God’s love—in view than the frame of what others are doing.
“One good measure is to ask how much time you have for internet, movies, and television—our discretionary time. Then ask how you can use some of that discretionary time to be with God and with his people. Don’t let the soil of your heart get packed down by what the culture is throwing at you! Maybe cut your present ’screen time’ down by half and offer the other half to Bible time. Just remember, the more time you spend with God, the more you’ll enjoy him! Go for it!”

Remember, the more we know God, the more we love him, and the more we love him, the more time we want to have with him. Try it. You’ll like it!

Sometimes we hear reports of what others say about us. That happened a few years ago when a friend passed along what a noted ministry leader said about me: “The trouble with Ron is that he always rides the same pony.” What was the pony? “He’s fixated on Bible reading.”

My response? Wow! Please put that on my epitaph! What an honor if that’s what I’m known for, even if it dismisses lots of my other interests. In fact, all my other healthy interests are only derived from my fascination with the God who I meet each day in the Bible.

Why such a positive response? Because I’m standing with God himself in having that fixation. In his case the matter has to do with his identity: he is a God who exists in the eternal triune communion that carries with it eternal communication. God’s own being comes to us as “Word”—with the Son revealing what he hears from the Father, and the Spirit communicating the mind of Christ to our own spirits in words.

And our own creation as relational beings carries with it a divine template of communion and communication as we are made in God’s image as male and female. It takes at least two for a conversation to occur, for love to be expressed, for discoveries to be shared, and for glory to be given. All of this “back and forth” of being truly human only reflects the back and forth of the eternal, divine conversation—the shared glory that Jesus spoke of with the Father in John 17:24.

My thoughts about this were restirred as I prepared a sermon for this weekend on “Relational Bible Reading.” Let me review, in brief, some of the insights that jumped up once again for me in the process.

One was that everything in human history still pivots on the question of Genesis 3. Was God’s word true, or was the serpent’s word true? When Adam was told not to eat the forbidden fruit lest he die on that very day, he initially believed God. Yet when Eve—deceived by the serpent’s claims of potential benefits and the counterclaim “you will surely not die”—invited Adam to turn away from God’s word to embrace the serpent’s word he agreed to do it. And he died. The Spirit who was their bond of life was gone in an instant.

This, then, is certainly the context for what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3: “you must be born again” and “that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

The Spirit-based versus merely flesh-based versions of life set up the great divide of today’s world: there are those who are dead and still believe the serpent’s claim that they are really alive; and those who are now alive, having accepted God’s assertion that they were dead and needed to be born again.

Faith comes from hearing and responding to God’s calling to new life in Christ. Which means there are certainly a number of still-dead Christians—those who still dismiss the claim that we were all once dead in our trespasses and sins until God, by his grace working in us to create faith, resurrected us into a new and eternal life.

I’m repeating myself in much of this post: these are features I keep coming back to in these weekly posts. But why? Because I find many Christians talking about God, about theology, about church growth, social transformation, outreach efforts, discipleship programs, authentic community, iconic symbols, and a host of other things. But in too many cases these same people don’t ever mention their Bible reading as a primary devotion. Nor do they promote it with the passion it deserves. All of which worries me.

Why?

Because of what Jesus said in John 5 to some avid theologians and academic students of the Old Testament: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it they that bear witness about me” [v.39]. Their reading was fruitless, Jesus said, because “you do not have the love of God within you.” It is only when we are born of the Spirit and have God’s love poured into our hearts by his new and lively presence that we actually listen to the Bible in any true and effective sense.

And because of what Jesus said in John 8 to some professed believers who were still ready to critique him for what he said about being set free from sin through abiding in his word. Once again it was a matter of a great divide between God and Satan: “Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your desire is to do your father’s desires” [v.43]. Jesus also made it clear that there is another trajectory that separates professed believers who don’t really like God’s word and those who do: “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God” [v.47].

And because of what Jesus prayed in John 17 to the Father about his true followers.

I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. [vs.6-8, my emphases]

There are another set of references to the dividing power of God’s word in the rest of this chapter: the disciples are hated by the world because of their affiliation with God’s word [v.14]; and the word is truth and truth reformed—”sanctified”—these, his disciples.

So let me offer my conclusion: anyone who really knows God will be avid about his word. And everyone who loves God will be hungry for anything and everything he says. And all of us who share this passion can join in having the insider’s knowledge that we’re in a unique fellowship with God and with each other: lovers of the Word!

For those, on the other hand, who although professing to be Christians, still can’t find time to read the Bible (but who have lots of time for entertainments and temporal ambitions); or who find it too hard to read; or who are more interested in high theology than in the humble literature of the Bible, here’s an invitation: ask God to give you his wonderful new life and give up your old life. And then take up your Bibles and start reading.

Once again, the words of Jesus: “If you abide in my word then you are truly my disciples” [John 8:31]. Amen, and let’s start riding that pony together!

I’m listening to God right now. He’s using the voice of a BBC newsman telling us that an Iceland volcano is still disrupting airline flights throughout Europe. The map on the television shows that Estonia, where I’ve been speaking, is right at the center of the ash cloud. So my scheduled flight to London today had to be cancelled. My ticket from London back to the States, set for a couple of days from now, is also out of date since I won’t be there in time to use it.

An hour earlier I was also listening to God as I read in the Bible book of Numbers about his providential rescue of Israel—a rescue that had a whole series of surprises in it, including a forty-year delay in Israel reaching their destination. I’m hoping my own delay in Estonia won’t last forty hours, let alone forty days or years, but who knows!

I know, of course, that there’s a big difference between the experience of the Israelites in the Sinai as they listened to God, and my experience here in a Tallinn hotel. And I don’t mean the difference between the bed, shower, television set, and internet access I have here compared to the stark life they had. No. It might even seem that they were better off than we are because God was with them, speaking to them. Listen to the particulars.

And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and it spoke to him. Numbers 7:89

What I would give right now to go to a tent and have God’s voice tell me how to get back home as quickly and as inexpensively as possible! Maybe even to transport me bodily!

Yet, as I reflect on this business of how God communicates with us I find that the Apostle Paul denied that Moses had more access to God than we do. Quite the opposite! We have a serious advantage over Moses because he had to go to the tent of meeting for his conversations and today God comes to us and remains with us constantly.

Here’s just a segment of what Paul explained.

Since we have such a hope [in the Spirit's ministry], we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. . . . Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:12-18

In the next few verses of this text Paul goes on to explain that the object of this Spirit-based gaze of faith is “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” [4:4]. So while the glory Moses had—from going to meet with God face-to-face—would subside over time, our own glory of being transformed actually increases over time.

What I take from this is that Christ’s coming has given us a portrayal of God in human terms. His life and teaching as portrayed in the Scriptures are what the Spirit now uses to make us more and more like Christ. The change is ongoing and constant; and the Word is his voice to us in this continuing process of communication.

The difference between then and now—between the time of Moses and our day—is that Moses would go to God to speak about the challenges he and the nation were facing. So, too, Paul addressed challenges in life. In fact, in the rest of 2 Corinthians 4 he wrote of the challenges he was facing because of his devotion to Christ. Each challenge for Paul was like a new spiritual weight-lifting exercise, and his ambition was to be able to bear the “eternal weight of glory” [4:17-18] that was yet to come.

So what about God and the BBC broadcaster? The television figure was certainly not God’s presence to me in the sense that he would serve as God’s agent or image to lead me. That image is found in Christ alone—both in the Old and New Testaments. What the TV news offers me are pressures that cause me to ask of Christ’s Spirit in me, “Okay, Lord, what’s next? How will this make me more like Christ?”

He answers that his ambition for me is that “what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” [2 Corinthians 5:4] and that our ambition towards him should be to “make it our aim to please him” [5:9]. It’s now up to me to apply these values to my current trip planning.

What about Moses, then? He lacked the Bible and needed to go to the tent to hear God’s new words of revelation. We, on the other hand, now have God’s fully-developed revelation—Scriptures—to coach us in how to please him whenever we meet new challenges.

To sum up, the Bible is our point of access to God’s heart and the Spirit is our encouraging and transforming companion. Our highest commitment—in a love inaugurated through new birth—is to delight him. The challenges of life are what we need in order to start asking questions. And, after asking, we can start learning new dimensions of God’s care and provision for us, with the Scriptures serving like a headlamp along the way. The TV simply tells me what the trail ahead looks like: it’s sometimes dull, sometimes exciting.

A familiar verse that comes to mind at moments like this says it well: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths” [Proverbs 3:5-6].

This weekend I felt like a prophet of gloom and doom as I led retreat participants in a study of Habakkuk. Why Habakkuk? Because this brief oracle and its attached prayer engages the question of God and human sin at an epic level that we all need to grasp.

Habakkuk, we remember, was told of God’s plan to discipline sinful Judea with a devastating invasion by the Chaldeans. We know from other Bible content and general history that the prophecy was fulfilled as promised and led to a seventy year national exile for Jewish captives. But what does Habakkuk teach us today as those who are not facing a God-pronounced invasion?

At a minimum it prepares us to respond by faith to national and international tragedies, whether old or new, with a certainty that God’s hand is present and the events remain under his control. For the Jews in Habakkuk’s day the impact of the events would have been on the order of the great disruptions of our own last century—of World Wars I & II. In both ancient and modern times wars shatter societies: any sense of personal or national security is disrupted. Wherever the immediate conflict takes place the results are horrifying. I can think, for instance, of bas-relief images of a besieged Judean city on display in the British Museum that depict the gruesome warfare of that era. They would compare in violence with photos taken during recent wars.

Let us recall the particulars. The oracle begins as Habakkuk charged God with being passive in the face of Judea’s violent sins—”Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong?” God came back with a shocking reply, that the ungodly Chaldean army would be his instrument to confront that sin: “they [the Chaldeans] fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward” [1:2,8&9]. Judea, a small nation once known for its affiliation with God as his “chosen people” would soon be crushed by this cruel superpower.

Habakkuk was stunned. God’s judgment was over the top—completely disproportionate and inappropriate for a God of his moral stature! He told God as much: “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil . . . why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallow up the man more righteous than he?” [1:13] Habakkuk, we notice, had become a moral relativist. Judea, once tagged by the prophet as “wicked” [1:4] was now “more righteous” than the Chaldeans!

God responded with a confrontation and five “woes” and then ended the dialog. In his response God ignored Habakkuk’s sliding moral scale—of the less righteous and the “more righteous”—and set out, instead, just two types of people [2:4]: those who are “puffed up” and the one who is “righteous” because he lives “by his faith.” Just two types of humanity? Yes, just two: the arrogant who are quick to charge God with error—as Habakkuk had just done—and those who trust God. Which will it be?

That simple moral polarity has since echoed through history. The apostle Paul took on God’s challenge in Habakkuk as the launching text of his letter to the Romans: “The righteous shall live by faith” [1:17] and he repeated it in his letter to the Galatians [3:12] as a counterpoint to any forms of self-righteousness. The author of Hebrews also cited this text [10:38] as the measure of those who please God. For Martin Luther the use in Romans of Habakkuk 2:4 was key to his own calling as he set out “faith alone” as a sign of true reformation. In each case the later writers understood the stark issues at stake: human pride always defies God’s word; either that or a person repents.

In his closing prayer Habakkuk announced his own response: he would trust God even in the face of the coming army—”my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom . . . and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” [3:16,18]

Habakkuk offers at a national level what the book of Job offers at a personal level: a divine disclosure that God rules over evil yet without initiating that evil. As in Genesis 50:20, with a nod to Romans 8:28, Satan and his human servants can purpose events that are evil but God’s good purposes will always be at work even in those evil events. The difference between Job’s suffering and the promised suffering of Judea was that Job was blameless and Judea was guilty. Job was stretched; Judea would be disciplined.

What both books also share in common is God’s confrontation of the fallen human instinct to judge him. He dismisses Satan’s promise to Adam and Eve that by adopting a free will “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” [Genesis 3:5]. Their sin was to grasp at the status of God—to attempt to weigh God’s character with their personal scale of right and wrong. In Adam God must now answer to us and to our sliding scales of morality.

In Job God answered his struggling servant—who in his suffering challenged God’s fairness—with the same issue of Habakkuk: where do you stand on human pride? He asked Job to answer him: “Pour out the overflowing of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low” [40:11-12]. For all his complaints Job was most unlike God because he could not move a proud heart into humility—even his own. That is a miracle that God alone can manage.

If we can say anything in response to Habakkuk’s little book it should be this: “rejoice in the LORD.” No matter what comes our way in days to come—whether personal tragedies, economic collapse, or even foreign invasion—we are called to live by faith. Adam unleashed sin in the human experience, spurred on by Satan and his minions, and God now allows the sloshing of sin that fills the world—through those who are puffed up rather than living by faith—and he tells us to trust him, no matter how that sin spills over us. The evil day will eventually end; and the day when the faithful and the truly righteous are honored will come soon enough.

In the meantime let us read books like Habakkuk and Job, and then trust God no matter what comes. God knows best and he loves us. Let all of us who have faith in this God—who always overcomes evil with good—share a proper response: let us rejoice!

It is my pleasure to introduce Gretchen George as a guest contributor.  A friend told me of Gretchen’s story almost two years ago.  Through that indirect contact Gretchen very graciously sent me a summary of her Bible reading experience.  Here is her story.  May it encourage you as much as it encouraged me.

Those of you who have followed the posts on this website for any length of time know that Ron regularly challenges readers to read the Bible “boldly and relationally.”  Over the years, Ron has directly and indirectly challenged many people to begin reading the Bible in this way.  I am one of those people.  So when Ron asked if I would share a bit about my experience in reading through the Bible cover to cover, I was thrilled for the opportunity!

About 10 years ago, I went through a painful divorce.  I suddenly found myself a single parent of two children, then 4 and 5 years old.  As I was searching through the Scriptures for hope and encouragement, I was profoundly impacted by the words of Deuteronomy 6:5-9:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.

Although I have been a Christian since I was a small child, read the Bible regularly, attended Bible studies, etc., I was confronted with the fact that I didn’t know the Bible nearly well enough to teach my children the way these verses describe.  I began to pray that the Lord would show me how I could begin to know the Scriptures—and Him—in that intimate kind of way.  About six months later, I got a call from a former coworker, telling me about the Bible read-through, and inviting me to join her and her daughter in reading through the Bible.  I knew instantly that this was the Lord’s answer to my prayers.  I was excited!  We have been reading through the Bible together twice a year ever since.

The impact that this kind of Bible reading has had on my life has been profound.  For one, I have a greater understanding of God’s personal love for me and my children, and His active involvement in our lives.   For example, early on in the healing process, I told a friend that I felt like I was standing in quicksand.  Shortly thereafter, I opened my Bible and saw these words from Psalm 40:2, “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”

Another time I was telling God that I felt vulnerable and unprotected.  He responded with Psalm 91:4, “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” Time after time I have opened God’s Word and been enveloped in my Heavenly Father’s loving arms.  It’s a marvelous experience!

I have barely begun to touch the edge of who God is—-His glory, power, holiness, and wisdom—and it compels me to know Him more.  Take the time to read through the last few chapters of Job.  The God Job encounters—my God—is awesome!  Reading the Bible in large portions at a time gives you a picture of how this awesome God has worked through the generations and carried out His plan for salvation in a way that you don’t see when you pick out chapters and verses here and there.

Reading through the Bible has helped me to understand the sinfulness of my own heart.  It has deepened my love for Christ and given me such thankfulness for my salvation.  Because I became a Christian at such a young age, I don’t think I grasped the depth my sinfulness.   Luke 7:47 says. “But he who has been forgiven little loves little.“ It is our understanding of the deceitfulness and wickedness inside of us that causes us to love our Savior so much.  Our deep love for our Lord results in a desire to please Him and to want to avoid anything that doesn’t bring glory to Him.  And, when confronted with the temptation to sin, we can fight back with the Sword of the Spirit.  Even Jesus did that!

Each time Satan tempted Him in the desert, He responded with God’s Word!

Seeing the holiness of God and my own sinfulness in a fresh way played a vital role in my being able to forgive my former husband for the incredible grief he caused me and my children by his choices.  Early on following the divorce, I received what may be the best advice I have ever gotten in my life.  The person said to me, “Gretchen, whenever the pain hits, whenever the anger comes, get down on your knees and ask God to give you a heart of forgiveness, and keep doing it until the sting is gone.”

As I did that, the Lord was so faithful and gracious to meet me right where I was.  The pinnacle of those experiences occurred one day as I was crying out to God and telling Him that I wanted to forgive, but I didn’t know how.  I then opened my Bible and saw the words of Psalm 130:4, “If you, Lord, kept a record of sin, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.” It suddenly dawned on me that the grief I felt over my former husband’s offenses was but a small taste of the grief that my Lord feels over my sin.  How could I not forgive?!   It was the turning point for me in healing.  Oh, the blessing of God’s Word!

The Bible tells us to seek wisdom, to cry out for it, to search for it as for a treasure.  The thread of God’s wisdom is woven throughout the pages of Scripture.  It’s there for the taking, and yet we so often ignore it.   Having more of the Bible in my heart has helped me to access this wisdom more readily in my daily life.

My children, now ages 14 and 15, are able to take in and accept my decisions and discipline more easily than many of their peers because they know that the Bible is the foundation of my parenting.  As a nurse on a cancer surgery unit and the leader of a single parents’ ministry, I regularly encounter people who are hurting, discouraged, and frightened.  To be able to share God’s wisdom and love as expressed in Scripture is such a blessing.  Ten years ago, I would have stood by and wished I could help but would have had little to offer.

Over these past 10 years of reading the Bible in this way, I have developed a love for it, and for the Lord, that I never had in all my years as a Christian previously.  I recall reading in I Chronicles and being bogged down with what seemed to be an endless list of unpronounceable names.  Then the Holy Spirit reminded me, “I know you by name, just as I know these people by name.”  Those lists of names no longer seemed tedious!

I so enjoy books of the Bible that I’m sure I hadn’t opened previously in years.  When was the last time you read Zephaniah?   Look at the message of love you’re missing in Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”  God is waiting to pour out His love to you on every page of the book He has written!

There is much more I could say, but this has already gotten longer than intended.   The bottom line, though, is this:  You have a God who loves you so much.  He desires a deep, intimate love relationship with you.  His love is etched into His Word.  I urge to open it up and begin reading as you never have before.

I welcome Mark Nicklas back as a guest contributor for this Christmas entry. His reflection on God’s gift to us in Christ plays on some of the paradoxical realities of God’s gracious entry into our realm. I hope, on Christmas day itself, to offer my own voice of celebration and reflection in a separate entry that echoes many of Mark’s themes. In the meantime, read, reflect, and rejoice!

The story of Christmas brings us to a baby in a manger: Jesus Christ, born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem.  It is a historical fact that changed the World forever—the Incarnation of our God. 

Brother Linus Van Pelt appealed to the beauty of the nativity when he uttered those unforgettable words, “Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about..”                 

Mary shared the birth story with Dr. Luke and the Apostle Matthew in order provide us with an important detail of the advent of Jesus Christ—the miraculous events that surrounded His birth.  It is a glorious story where God bestowed royalty on common people, in common circumstance, in common place. And in so doing, he consecrated his Creation. 

Prior to the coming of Christ, God was approached tentatively and circumspectly in the Holy of Holies and through the Law.  The veil separating God from man was a visible reminder of the great gulf that existed between the God of Holiness and fallen creation.  The veil was as much a protection from the power of the darkness-shattering holiness of God—if exposed to its pure “volume,” our spiritual “Bose speakers” would have been blown from the wattage of God’s presence.  Moses had to wear a veil to speak to people after being in God’s presence, the glow was so powerful.   And yet, in the story of Jesus, God came to be with us: “and the word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

This Christmas season I look with awe at how it unfolded.   It helps to have an understanding of the first century anticipation of a Redeemer King in Israel.  The Book of Hebrews looks back at the advent of the Lord in this way: 

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.  (Hebrews 1:1-2)

The writer of Hebrews draws attention to the expectation—long ago in many times and in many ways—God had spoken of the coming Redeemer King through the prophets.  As we read God’s story from Genesis to Revelation we see again and again the expectations that were set. 

Even at the fall in the Garden, God told Satan that the seed of a woman would crush His head.  He promised to Abraham one of his own descendants would bless the whole world.  Moses promised the children of Israel that One would be raised up from among their own brothers to whom they should listen.  God promised to David that a Son of his own body who would reign forever.  Isaiah said a Son would be given, called Wonderful, Counselor, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  His light would shine out of Galilee.  A righteous Branch of David would rise up and rescue His people.  One was coming who Isaiah said would swallow up death forever. There would be a Light to all the nations, a Bringer of a New Covenant, who would write His law on our hearts.  Daniel told of One like the Son of Man, to whom is given dominion and glory and a kingdom who all peoples, nations and tongues would worship. 

And all of this all pointed to Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem, to God with us.

First century Israel was alive with expectation that God would begin the emancipation of Israel from Roman rule, but they could not possibly have fathomed how God’s plan would work.  The long awaited Messiah would arrive without trumpets, and would gain victory by His own death.  The kings of our day, the presidents and prime ministers and premiers, always arrive with pomp and circumstance.  Their arrivals are carefully planned and orchestrated and accompanied by public handshakes and banquets.  They needn’t open any doors—doors are always opened for them. 

By comparison this King’s arrival was a mundane event.  He was born in obscurity and to humble circumstance.  Perhaps God considers mundane things to be of royal proportion.  Maybe that is why it is hard for some people to see God in the world in which we live—the miraculous is so often clothed in the ordinary.

Mary seemed ordinary.  Still, she was uniquely qualified to be the God-bearer.  She was a direct descendant of David.  She was also a direct descendant of Aaron (through her mother).  But even given her unique bloodline, her greatest qualification was that God chose her, to which she responded in faith, “Let it be done to me according to Your word.”   And after that confession of trust, at the moment of conception, the eternal Word left His glory with the Father and the Spirit and became flesh, to be the God-man forever and ever.  It was the greatest moment in Heaven and Earth since Creation!

Frankly, when I was set in motion it was initiated in the flesh.  Two humans, my mom and dad, came together and the miracle of life was set in motion.  There is no mystery in that.  But when Jesus Christ’s humanity was set in motion, God was the initiator.  The Incarnation shows that salvation can never come through human effort; it must be by the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.   And on Christmas day, finally, the King arrived.   

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.  (Gal 4:4-5)

This very thought leaves me in awe.  2000 years ago, in a manger in Bethlehem, lay the One promised long ago and in many ways… here was the King.  I’ve held 5 of our own babies right after they were born.  I have looked with marvel at these little creations and was in awe of the life God had given to my wife and me.  No doubt, some of those same emotions were encountered at the manger by Joseph and Mary… but this Child is the One who spoke and the universe leapt unto existence, the One by whom all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.  

This Child is before all things and in Him all things hold together and in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. 

This Child is the image of the invisible God who humbled Himself in the form of a servant, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. 

This Child upholds the universe by the word of his power.  He would wage a war with Satan and crush Satan’s head  and swallow up death in victory. 

This is the Child in whom all the world would be blessed.

This Child is the light of the nations.

This Child would reconcile to himself all things making peace by the blood of the cross. 

This Child is Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary, Immanuel, God with us. 

And in coming to Earth God made the irrevocable declaration that He is all in!  That’s what love does.  Love commits.  Jesus is a part of His creation, and He’s all in.  Love came down in the flesh.  And His flesh became the new veil.  The body of Jesus contained all the fullness of God and in His total connection with His Creation, Jesus is fully God and fully man. 

The earliest witnesses of the church, at peace with His Divinity, affirmed his humanity.  Some people think that the story of the virgin birth developed out of a need to claim that Jesus was the Son of God.  But that was never in doubt to the church—people already knew Him to be God—they understood that in the way they had come to love and worship Him, something that is evident in the very earliest writings of the church. 

Jesus Himself did not turn to His own virgin birth as a witness to His divinity when the Pharisees sought proof.  It is actually the other way around, against the cries of those who said Jesus was not fully human that this part of the story of Jesus is so important for us.  Ignatius of Antioch in the 2^nd century declared in another creed of the early Christian church that Jesus was “truly born, truly lived, truly died.”  Jesus is the God-Man—a miracle of conception.  The Word became flesh—even as an embryo He was fully God and fully man.  The King had arrived and was here to inaugurate His kingdom. 

Getting back to
Brother Linus, it is worth remembering the story he told so beautifully,

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.‘” (Luke 2:8-14)

Taking up his blanket and walking off the stage to Charlie Brown he said, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

The Nativity remains an irenic, beautiful picture of the way the King entered His Creation.  Of course, that manger rested under the shadow of the cross.  This same Jesus, in who the fullness of God dwelt, would conquer sin and swallow up death forever.  He would make a way so that the Holy Spirit would come and inhabit the hearts of every believer who calls upon His name.  The Incarnation of Jesus Christ led to yet another Incarnation—the Holy Spirit in the midst of His Church.  The King has established His kingdom, and His kingdom will have no end. 

And He invites us to come.

One of the startling moments in Christ’s ministry came as he answered a tough question on divorce and remarriage. Jesus told his followers that marriage is meant to be a lifelong commitment that precludes divorce (see Matthew 19); and they then asked him about the option for divorce that Moses had provided in the Old Testament. His answer: “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives . . .”

In effect Jesus was saying that God’s real desires could sometimes differ from what he allows us to do. So my point in starting here is not to poke around in the thorny bush of divorce and remarriage but to ask what we should make of God’s apparent accommodation to human stubbornness—to our “hardness of heart.” The question is this: if God really does offer us some room for moral accommodation can we or should we take advantage of the space it offers us?

It’s an important question. One strong impression that comes with bold Bible reading is a sense of how far our Western and modern (and even post-modern) Christian patterns of life may differ from biblical ideals. I think, for instance, of biblical calls for holiness—including sexual and ethical purity—in a culture that winks at boundaries. Of calls to hold human life as sacred. Of calls for social and economic justice. For meaningful and constructive conversations in place of degrading entertainments and divisive gossip. For mercy and care as opposed to relational and physical violence or the quieter abuse of selfish disinterest towards others. For men to be godly leaders. For marriages to display a trajectory towards increasing oneness rather than towards negotiated detachment and emotional separation. For shepherds to lead churches selflessly and sacrificially. For lives to be lived in the world but not of the world—offering a distinction between Christ and the brokenness of our fallen culture.

The points of tension are innumerable and I suspect my little list will have hit hot buttons for some—which only illustrates the point. And as Christ indicated above, there is a biblical diagnosis for these issues: our hearts are still hard towards God. Mine included.

What, then, should be our response? Should we take advantage of God’s grace in Christ—knowing that whenever our sin increases, grace increases even more? Paul rejected that option in his writing to the Romans. Grace will always match our needs, but transformed hearts refuse to abuse that privilege.

Or should we repent and determine to shift our hearts in a new direction? The solution of working to be godly—as if we could stomp out the raging forest fire of sin with our tennis shoes—is nonsense because a hardened heart doesn’t even realize that it’s hard! It would be like telling a tone-deaf person to sing a complex melody in perfect form.

Our hearts, after all, are defined by desires. Or, to put it differently, the heart is the response-center of the soul, made by God in order to respond to him in love. Every moment of life is meant to be lived in the purview of God’s love. Yet that bond was violated by Adam; and since then all of us have embraced that violation because in Adam all of us are now birthed without the presence of the Spirit. In his dismissal of God the Spirit’s ministry to his offspring also ended. And it was the Spirit who had once poured out God’s life and love into his heart.

So we now—if we either lack the Spirit’s life or are newly born in Christ but still oriented to old desires—find ourselves responding to other invitations to love. And these invitations, if not of Christ, are all illicit and corruptive. Jesus was saying as much when he declared, “apart from me you can do nothing”. We were made to abide in him, in his love and in his word. So a heart is measured, ultimately, by its orientation to Christ and to the Father through him. If a person finds Christ unattractive he or she is simply showing off their hard hearted status: of a stone-like disposition towards the creator and lover of their soul.

I know I’m being repetitive here in my review of a Spirit-centered and heart-based spiritual anthropology; it’s a familiar refrain from earlier Spreading Goodness entries.

I need to review the point in order to shift gears and to move to a point of specific application in the question of how we can still be hard hearted while believing in Christ. And here it is: we are being hard hearted when we refuse to read the Bible relationally, daily, and boldly.This has to be said in the face of vast indifference to relational Bible reading found in the church today. God exists in eternal, triune communion and his Son has been called the eternal “Word”—God loves us and shares himself with us through his word. The battle of light and dark, of life and death, pivots on God’s word versus the Serpent’s word.

So the gravest question of life is this: whose voice are we responding to in a given moment? There is no “neutral” realm of life-conversation—Paul made that clear in Ephesians 2:1-3 where he wrote of our former life as being under the rule of Satan, God’s enemy. Paul, thank God, was at least willing to confront the issue. Today it isn’t even raised in most churches. Paul, for instance, called the Corinthians spiritual babies—utterly immature. They were still nursing on milk rather than eating spiritual meat.

Yet we Christians still tend to nibble at the Bible if we taste it at all. Christians will watch two or more hours of television in a day; or invest as many hours on the internet and then consider ten minutes in the Scriptures, if that, to be more than enough to satisfy any spiritual obligations.

Let me be blunt: that approach is hard hearted. God offers us his heart in the Scriptures yet hardened hearts could care less: God isn’t very compelling compared to _______. But think about it. To ignore the Scriptures—the most tangible self-expression God offers us today—is like telling a spouse, “ten minutes of you is all I need in a given day, thank you.” Try that and see how far your relationship goes ahead.

Jesus was making this point in John 8:31-59 as he confronted the “believers” who were not ready to listen to his word: “If you abide in my word you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” To listen to him is to be set free from the world and its values. To listen to him is to be captured by the Father’s love that the Son reflects and reveals. To resist him is to be given over to the desires of the devil. Jesus made it clear enough in this text—along with his disclosure of his union with the Father—that it almost cost him his life before his time.

Now let’s turn to the applied solution: what can we do if we have hard hearts and have an itch to be open hearted? As one who is also hard hearted too much of the time here’s my best advice: pray the prayer of Psalm 139: 23-24 at least once a day and then start to respond to God’s nudges to read his word and to respond to what it tells us.

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Here’s the point: the heart is so self-deceptive that only God can reset it. And he is more than prepared to step in once the invitation is offered. In fact, he will have been at work beforehand if we offer any invitation in the first place! That’s because our hearts were made by him and for him. And only his presence stirs the heart in the right—the God-oriented—way.

So while Jesus spoke to his audience about hardness of heart in the times of Moses, with a suggestion that their current questioning was still aligned with that hardness, I think we can presume that Jesus was not expecting them to stay there.  The whole point of his teaching was to move them forward into love and greater faith.  It’s a calling we need to receive as well.

I thought I knew all about Jesus by the time I was a teenager. I had been raised in a Christian home and was well-churched. Throughout my childhood I heard about Jesus in a number of venues: at church, in Sunday school, at church camps, and in moments of Bible reading. Yet when I actually met Jesus he startled me. He was very different to all my earlier impressions; and whenever I return to the gospels in a new read-through those surprises are reawakened.

For one, I found Jesus to be deeply compassionate. This was hardly one of my biggest surprises—most people affirm this as a proper starting point in speaking of him—but it was more than I expected and to a different crowd than I expected. He cared for the broken, hungry, and needy and not just the good folks who deserve his care [I'm using my pre-conversion view of things here!]. When he and the disciples were ready for a retreat he delayed it as an act of compassion in order to feed the hungry thousands who were following them. He spoke of Jerusalem as a city that he longed to draw near to himself like a hen gathering her brood of chicks. He offered his power to heal and exorcize freely and often. He asked the Father to forgive those who carried out his own crucifixion while he was dying on the cross.

Jesus is also his Father’s delight; and he, in turn, is devoted to the Father. He did whatever the Father called him to do—even up to his willingness to die on the cross. He responded to the Father’s lead in everything. Whatever the Father said he accepted and obeyed from the heart. And he invites us to share in the glory of their mutual bond—a glory the Father gave him because he loves him.

So the surprise for me was that the gospels open a larger window into the Father-Son relationship than I ever expected. The view was at once attractive and shocking: the Father loves the Son and the Son reciprocates that love. Yet the Father wanted the Son to go to hell and back for our sake; and the Son—despite a momentary hesitation in Gethsemane—agreed. Why? In order to draw us, by the wooing of the Spirit, into their own familial love relationship: making all of us who respond to that love into the Son’s collective bride. All of this by way of the cross.

And from that invitation into God’s eternal embrace comes Richard Sibbes’ aphorism that “God has a spreading goodness.” The Father and Son share their love freely and boldly in order for us to enter into their bond of love through Christ. This trumped my teenage views that faith is mainly a function of legal demands and benefits.

What surprised me most, though, is the revolutionary Jesus. He came to overthrow the status quo of religion, of society, and of every person’s self-concerned view of life and meaning—a status quo based on human interests but not on God’s values.

This picture of Jesus keeps most people—including believers—from reading the Bible boldly and with open hearts. To the degree we idolize our self-focused personal identities, all that Jesus says represents just so much nonsense to us! And, with my own residual habits in play, I still find the three weeks it normally takes me to read from the beginning of Matthew to the end of John to be a jolting trip.  There Jesus regularly reminds me of how he views life and it is never “Frost-centric”!

What I see in the gospels is a man who held the social structures of his day in contempt. He challenged societal leaders, both in the government and in the religious society. He called Herod a despicable animal [a "fox"]; he excoriated theology professors ["teachers of the Law" or "Scribes"] and Bible-quoting moralists ["Pharisees"] again and again; and at his final trial he gave the High Priest, the Sanhedrin, Herod and Pilate only the most cryptic answers while boldly advancing God’s ultimate Kingdom—a realm that would dismiss their own respective kingdoms as inconsequential—without a hint of fear.

At times he even challenged his own disciples for not getting it. At one point, for instance, he challenged Peter for being aligned with Satan by setting his mind on “the the things of man” rather than on God’s ways. So Jesus was and is always a polarizing figure: pressing people to either love him or to hate him. He insists on God’s full mastery over our lives.

How, then, would he respond to today’s social expectations that we all affirm relativism, pluralism, and diversity in life and religion? Not warmly!

These are values that speak to superficial social issues birthed in human autonomy rather than in a bond with God, shaped and guided by his love. Jesus, in opposing our autonomy, calls for repentance and offers a transformation that is only birthed by his renewing love. And from this repentance will come passionate yet compassionate disagreements with those who differ from us.

The point is that Jesus refused to blend the world’s values with the ideals of God’s Kingdom—the two are utterly incompatible. Instead he offered parables, sermons, and provocative actions that challenged the status quo of his day, and ours. And he refused to accommodate himself to the ever devolving social mores of his day, and ours; yet he reaches out to all who were and are hungry to be healed and set free from the ravaging outcomes of autonomy.

Jesus, in sum, lived in the world but he was never of the world. He lived a life fully oriented to the Father and that was always running against the flow of his earthly culture. One visual picture that regularly comes to mind for me—after trips on a jetboat on the Snake and Salmon Rivers in Idaho some years ago—is of a ministry that drives forward against plunging currents and massive rapids. He followed his own Spirit and insisted that his way is the only option for all who wish to join him and his Father in eternity.

In the end his stubborn nonconformity led his foes to kill him. Which is exactly what the Father sent him to experience: to go into the hell of our broken world in order to bring about resurrection for all who come to love him and what he stands for. He offers real life to all who repent—by dismissing the world’s fixation on personal security and status—and follow Jesus in his revolutionary ways. What haunts me is that most churches, Bible colleges, and social structures in society today are non-revolutionary by biblical standards. So it is that within this environment I often find myself being pulled out into the powerful currents of media, of societal expectations, and of friendships that move me away from a full devotion to Christ. I find myself being swept downstream, even while among groups of believers, by those who find accommodation to be preferable to revolution.

In my Bible reading, then, whenever I come to the gospels I find a jetboat awaiting me with Jesus speaking: “Come aboard, my son; let’s enjoy the ride!”

So the final question for today: is anyone else ready to get on board with us? The trip is a thrill and the destination is even better.

Let me propose a possibility. What if God—who we know loves books—is now producing the greatest of all stories? And what if we are part of that Story, a Story we will all get to read once we reach eternity? Let me suggest, too, that our own part in the Story will be interpreted and expressed from God’s own point of view.

What is exciting about this prospect is that we have the first segment of this possible book in hand: the Bible. In the Bible—to make the point of how our own story may fit into the whole—we find people who never knew they would be known to subsequent generations as stars, villains, or something in between.

Noah, for instance, had no clue when he was a twenty-some year old that he would become one of the most famous people in history.

Rahab, when she was hosting the men of Jericho as a prostitute, could never know that she would become a noble figure in Israel, a woman devoted to God.

David, when he was watching over the sheep and composing poems about the stars he watched at night, never knew his poems would eventually be included in the book of Psalms. Or, that later when as King David—with the security of wealth and position—he would be exposed for having gone up on his highest-building-in-Jerusalem rooftop one night to sneak a peek into a nearby private courtyard to watch a naked woman bathe herself. He never guessed this would became a tragic chapter in the Story of stories—forever shocking and disappointing later readers.

There are different sorts of people in any story, what we call stock figures in novels. But, while novels create fictional figures with features we recognize in real life, the Story of stories has true stock figures. And the profiles they present to us in the Bible can still be found among our friends and neighbors. Each of us fits loosely—uniquely—within a category of characters, so that in the expanded Story of stories readers in a future day will be able to locate us within a recognizable profile. Let me suggest some possibilities.

There are the sympathetic figures. Ruth comes to mind. We all know and admire a Ruth, even today. She comes from another country, culture, and religion. She suffers from tragic circumstances. She is as poor as dirt, yet is still an attractive person and a hard worker. But most of all she has a depth of character that God touches, cultivates, and brings to a full bloom that is breathtaking to see. Call her a transformational character.

There are people like Eli: the religious moralist who is ready to challenge Hannah for being drunk—when she was actually praying—but who ignores the gross misconduct of his sons. Eli, it seems, is one of the more common figures in the Story: the religious imposter who doesn’t actually hear God’s voice, but who is in a very high position of religious authority. Jesus lumped this group together as the “scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites” in his own day. They draw near God with their lips even if their hearts are utterly distant from him. They have the form of religion but no power: towering weeds dominating the actual wheat. Call Eli an antagonist.

Another version of religious characters was represented by Balaam. He was equivalent to the media stars of today who proclaim high values. He was treated as a spokesman for God by the world at large, and he even had the benefit of receiving God’s clear directions in certain respects. But the real measure of Balaam was his pragmatism: he earned money for performing religious duties. People had to pay him to perform. In his brief chapter he was able to reap a host of service fees—although never the big bonus he was being offered—and in the end he happily betrayed the people God loved. Call him an attractive betrayer, or a surprising villain. An unattractive villain was Judas Iscariot—while he lacked Balaam’s star power he loved money just as much.

Money is a major theme in the Story. The profile of the wealthy individualist is mainly a non-religious category—including people who don’t really believe that God exists. The term, God, is simply a token concept that attracts other power-brokers in search of networking opportunities. In our modern world we have the helpful profile of ancient Babylon to look to. That biblical chapter, along with emerging stories of greed found in today’s newspaper, will expose the emptiness of materialism for the rest of eternity. A love for wealth is good for a time but it always leads to social collapse. This theme is called a tragedy.

There is also the good Samaritan. He fails to fit any of the categories we expect good people to fill. He has the wrong background, limited resources, no prospect of gain, but he does exactly what we all hope for from others when we are desperate: he offers profound and inexplicable compassion. Call him a paradoxical hero.

Yet the greatest number of participants in the ultimate and final Story of stories will only be present as part of the faceless crowds milling around in the background. In the Bible we find them as members of two groups: some shouting “hosanna!”  Others calling out “crucify him!” We may not have major roles but our direction of travel will be unmistakable.

Finally, what if we have an angel meet us if and when we arrive in heaven? And we ask our kind guide, “Was Frost right? Is there an extension to the Bible Story that God has been writing until now, the ultimate Epic that includes my own story?”

What if the angel says, “Yes, of course! You had all kinds of cues in the Bible that you should expect that to be true!”

And then we ask, “May I look at the section that mentions me and my role?”

In some cases, perhaps, the angel may say: “Oh, you were so disinterested in God until now that he couldn’t say anything meaningful about you—so take a look at the “.” at the end of this sentence. That’s all the space you’ve been given. You really didn’t have much time for God’s kingdom before now, did you?”

Or, possibly, the angel may answer: “We’ve all been waiting for you! Your chapter is fascinating—even though you had absolutely no human prominence in your lifetime you were famous here in heaven for your selfless devotion to the small group of needy people God gave you to serve, and in such tough circumstances. You showed off your love for Christ in all you did. It was a delight to watch … may I have your autograph?!”

So while the Story of stories has, in some fashion, already been set out in God’s plans from eternity past, it is clear from the Bible narrative that God involves us in the process. So, given that remarkable reality, here’s my prayer:

May each of us have a wonderful chapter that has God’s faithful angels enthralled from first to last!

Where is God these days? Is he paying any attention to my life and needs? Does he know what’s going on in our lives?  In our families, churches, and neighborhoods? We hear in church that God rules the universe and knows every thought we think, and every act we do. So why is it that he seems so uninvolved with our practical needs? We pray, yet he hardly ever answers—or, for many of us, he never answers—so it’s hard to take him seriously. 

I suspect this exposes an unstated question shared by many Christians—and one that also keeps many non-believers from taking Christianity seriously: “Why is God silent?” Some ask if he even exists. What makes the silence even more troubling is that Christians constantly link love to God, as if his love for us is a basis for faith. Do love and language not go together? So the rhetoric of Christianity seems not to be matched by God himself. What is more, most legitimate claims about God speaking are from the distant past—located in events of 2000 or more years ago. Did God lose his voice back then? Does he really care for us if he never talks to us? 

Let me ask another question.  What is God’s point of view? Everything written so far has been biased by our human point of view, a viewpoint that requires God to meet our expectations. Given that God is greater than we are—as creator to creation—the question we need to ask instead is whether we are meeting his expectations.

And with that comes another question: have we been listening to the ways in which he is speaking? Is it possible that he is a great communicator who longs for us to listen him? Could it be that our sinful disinterest is really the problem? That, while having ears, we don’t hear; and while having eyes, we still don’t see?

Listen to God, for instance, speaking to a group of spiritual skeptics centuries ago: “when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen and when I called you, you did not answer” [Jer. 7:13]. The people of that era were blaming God for not listening to them, but from God’s point of view they were actually ignoring him.  And God certainly did not quit trying to get through to humans after the era of Jeremiah. Later on he went so far as to send us his Son to express himself in terms humans could literally grasp. Consider, for instance, the Son’s title in John 1:1&14 where he was introduced as God’s “Word” made flesh.

Let me press that point. God made us to be communicators because it represented his own relational image. Our own ability to communicate is based in God’s eternal Triune relationality—a state of being in which the Son is the expression of all that the Father is. That is, he is the Word for God and the Word who is God. When he was transfigured on the mountain for the three apostles to see—fully exposed in his divine glory for a few moments—the Father underscored the point of the event by proclaiming aloud from heaven, “listen to him!” But the fact is, most people in his own day did not listen to him.

I suppose many of us would excuse ourselves from that crowd—I would!—by aligning ourselves with the disciples who did listen to him. We, after all, are on the side of Jesus. Our only complaint is that he no longer speaks to us as he did in the times he lived on earth. We would certainly listen to him if he came back today!

Or would we? Here’s my challenge. First, begin by considering what Jesus said to a group of his so-called “disciples” in John 8:30. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” The response of this group was remarkable: they immediately disagreed with Jesus! You can see for yourself how the event unfolded by reading the chapter. What I want to point to is an axiom Jesus expressed in this debate: “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here” (8:42). The reason Jesus gave for their not listening is that they had the desires of a different “father”, namely the devil.

Is God really silent? No. We have the words of Jesus, who is God the Son, written in the gospels; and his teaching stands behind the entire New Testament as its guiding impulse.  Jesus also assured the listeners of his day that the Old Testament Scriptures reveal him as well. This Bible, with both the Old and New Testaments, is now readily available to us.

The critical question is whether the “love” for Jesus, as a product of our being children of God, is an active motivation for our listening to him.  That axiom of John 8 was cited more than once.  See, for instance, John 5:42, where Jesus confronted the Bible College and Seminary professors of his day for not seeing how the Old Testament pointed to him. Why were they blind? Jesus answered: “But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.” These were men who knew their Bibles, but not the God of the Bible.

The second part of my challenge is this: read your Bible. Read it boldly, as if it is the main way God intends to share himself with us in this day and age. As if it is the boldest, clearest, and most tangible expression of God’s heart to be found on earth. Read it all the way through in just a few weeks, as if God is offering his deep concerns and purposes to you. Read it as a love letter.

When we get to heaven I expect this to happen—just a guess, mind you, but an informed guess—that God will separate religious people in the same way he addresses the non-religious people. Those who love what Jesus says, what he stood for, and what was written about him under the Spirit’s direction (i.e. the Bible) will be asked to form one group. Then he will have those who may have held important positions in their church, and even those who held high degrees in theology, but who didn’t really treat the Bible as a relational resource—i.e. “abiding in his word”—to move into a group that is filled with those who ignored the Scriptures because of their more overt dissaffection. These are all the ‘non-lovers-of-God’ (both religious and non-religious versions) who are ever ready to defend themselves for not reading the Bible because they are too busy. Too many good television shows to watch, perhaps? Or church meetings to attend?

The final addendum to my challenge is this: if you are one who has complained that God is silent, despite our having constant access to a Bible that shares his heart with us in some of the most remarkable and effective ways possible, then consider doing this: ask him, in a brief prayer, to open the eyes of your heart to begin seeing what you may not have seen before—that he loves you. Then begin to read the Bible with the passion it deserves.

Here’s my prediction: with that passion every reader will begin to see God’s point of view, that he is a great communicator and he wants us to listen to all he has to offer. The heart of his message is that his Son is wonderful and that we should listen to him!