“Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the Spirit He has placed within us should be faithful to Him. And he gives grace generously.”
– James 4.5-6
I sort of hate when the Bible asks me questions so boldly: do I think the Scriptures have no meaning? I don’t dare say yes, but do I approach His Word with the reverence and respect it commands? Maybe one day.
Maybe because I’ve been paying more attention, trying to tune an ear to God and an ear to His people, I have heard a lot of flippant things said about the holy texts recently. That the Bible is outdated and irrelevant, that it ties the Church down and restricts her, how, sure, it is a beautiful book of our history and lovely metaphors for our lives, but see how far we’ve come? Such enlightened speak makes me scoff and disagree and go get my poster paints for a picket sign.
No. I do not think the Scriptures have no meaning.
But.
(There is always, always a “but” when you ask God to change you.)
But I know I don’t rest and rely on His life- and hope-giving words. Wait, let me back up. The Bible — indeed full of history and visions and prophecies fulfilled, directives and instructions and examples of loving well — is His Word; it isn’t The Word. The Bible gives life and restores hope, but not like Jesus, The Word Made Flesh. #theologyorsomething
So if Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God, then the Bible is the language of that image. The Scriptures give words and structure and plot lines to a very big and uncontainable God. Snippets, to be sure; the Bible has a beginning and an end describing a God who is eternal and infinite.
The Bible gives us a hearty glimpse. It shows us the saints and sinners who have gone before, how they saw and heard and learned about the same God breathing life into us now, how God moved in and interacted with His creation, how this earth has experienced Him.
It is His story and it is how we came to be invited into it.
This story — a collection of thousands of stories about one God — digs deeper. It invites us to dig deeper, to bury ourselves in the articulated God. These words — ancient things passed down from generation to generation, spoken and written and translated into words we all can use, through time and across the world — are the heirlooms of our faith.
This holy text, scrolls of wisdom and life and truth, tell us of a God intimately interested in our world. Passionate, this particular text says. Faithful and generous. And to think how unable our most eloquent speech is to fully describe Him.
I love the words, obviously (have you met me?). I love having the ability to be precise about what stirs my heart, to move my fingers across the page or my lips around syllables, and just like that, you know how I feel; suddenly, I am known.
That God would give us the words to describe (sort of) His goodness (to a degree), that He would shrink down (enough) to fit into language like so loved the world, and slow to anger, and leads me by still waters.
Not only do we have a way to see God, a way to name Him and speak of Him and to Him. We also have His own Spirit. What a generous God, to make Himself knowable in our limited language; to make Himself visible in the life and death of the Christ; to make Himself small enough to fit inside us, His Spirit residing in us, making room to hear the Spirit in each other, to hear and respond to the available God who craves our awareness.
I believe the Scriptures are Spirit-breathed, divinely inspired. But I have to come clean about how little time and attention I give them. The clearest, most straightforward way to know God and I barely give them a second thought.
But God’s got that covered too. When I am forgetful and distracted, when I choose a hundred other things above God, when I do actually think, despite myself, Scripture might possibly have no real meaning, no relevance to my modern, busy life, His grace is given generously.
What an extravagant God, to provide every way to wrap my simple mind around as much of Him as I can manage, and then the grace for when I squander that.
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