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Words of Life, word of God
Words of Life, word of God Entries in Words of Life (4)
Monday's Meditation: Discovering Our Personal Canon
Monday, May 30, 2011 at 09:11AM 
Just because we can carry a Bible in one hand we are tempted to think it is only one book--when in fact we carry around an entire library. iPhone apps distill the collected wisdom of centuries into a tap and touch guided tour while we wait for an elevator. Sixty-six books, forty-plus authors, three continents and at least 1,500 years: how many gigabytes do you need for that?
The reason this collection is too big is not because of some flaw in how the Bible has been safeguarded and delivered to us today. The problem is me. I cannot take in the bedazzling array of God’s creativity in the written word. Let me flash my orthodox credentials for a moment: of course, all sixty-six books are inspired by the Spirit of God. I trust the inspired judgment of the church fathers in setting the canon with these very books and not some others.
I am aware of through-the-Bible-in-a-year reading plans, but I find myself hanging out again and again in the same neighborhoods of the scripture. How about you? Again and again I return to the epic life stories in Genesis, but wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with those wild-west Judges just a few books over. My heart is moved by the Psalms but I feel scolded by the Proverbs. I could read the gospels every day but when I read Paul I find myself asking, “Who made you the boss of me?” And don’t get me started on Revelation--I read it late one night and didn’t sleep for a week.
There was a time when I would feel guilty about playing favorites in the Bible. But perhaps my heart is pre-disposed to receive certain input more easily that others.
Let me be clear: it’s all the word of God. We should do our best to receive it all. We should not gainsay the books that do not yield their fruit as easily. We should desire to drink from every fountain he provides, yet we should not feel guilty if our hearts come again and again to a familiar spring.
Quite the opposite: we should ask the Spirit to reveal what this tells us about ourselves. Here are some questions to help us hear his voice in the Bible:
- What books of the Bible speak to me most clearly?
- What does this say about me--how am I postured to receive his instruction?
- Has the Bible changed for me over the years? Are the words which spoke to me in my youth the same ones that speak to me now?
- Are there treasures undiscovered in the books I read again and again?
- Are there treasures undiscovered in the books I rarely read?
Monday's Meditation: Discovering the Word of God
Monday, November 1, 2010 at 03:29PM I love the Word of God. Now I just have to figure out what it is.
As a young Christian someone told me the Bible was the word of God, and they were right. I began to internalize the words of the scripture; they became a source of life, empowering me to toward a life of purity.
Then I read the magnificent words opening John’s gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” and discovered Jesus himself was the word of God. I was startled to find that even when Jesus wasn’t saying anything, he was still the word of God. Asleep or awake, cooking or working, the Word was among us, himself made of flesh and bones.
One day I stumbled across the notion that his voice flashed over the waters, electrified the forests, and caused pregnant animals to bear their young right on the spot; I saw and heard his voice in the heavens, shining and singing continuously day and night; like Augustine, I heard his words in the sing-song of children who were unaware their words spoke like the Ancient of Days. (Psalms 8, 19, & 29)
I looked into the creases of my wife’s smile and met the word of God; I felt the warmth of my children’s breath and heard his message; and I stood motionless alone in my house, encountering the word of God in the sounds of silence.
Even apart from the discipline of meditation it has dawned on me like the morning sun that the whole earth cries, “Glory!” They are only echoing the sound of heaven.
This week I pray you fall more in love with the Word of God as well.
Monday's Meditation: Bringing the Word to Life
Monday, June 29, 2009 at 09:02AM This morning I sat around a table with other believers. We read selections from the Psalms. Out loud. Together. My usual morning custom is to sit with the Holy Spirit, read silently, and pray silently. But while I am at a retreat this week the morning prayers and readings are shared in community.
As we read the passages together I heard the sound of my voice mix with the voices of others. Up from the wooden floor and off the brick walls the sounds blended into one reading. The “others” were people I has just met minutes before but we shared a common devotion to Jesus, and in this morning exercise we shared the experience of the scriptures together. As we fell into a common rhythm I had a curious sense that my voice was not only joined with the five others at the table but with all those who had read these verses in the past.
Whenever we come to the scripture, we partake of the word of God with others. Some passages from the Psalms are perhaps 3,000 years old, and since the Holy Spirit first inspired the words, believers have been sharing the same meal. Whether we sit alone and drink with our eyes or gather around a table and raise our voices, the community of the Kingdom is present.
The Bible is available to us on-line, in print, even on the screens of our cell phones! We scan the verses and speak them silently to ourselves. But the earliest experiences of the scripture were oral and aural. The Word of God was held captive in scrolls until someone took a scroll, unrolled the parchment and spoke the word. He still longs to spoken in community.
What is the Rock?
Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 05:47PM Jesus offers his followers the kind of life that results in rest and peace. Yet Christians are thrown from crisis to crisis as if the storms of life are in control. Still, Jesus is very clear on this: if we will take his yoke upon ourselves, we can find the kind of life that will be characterized by rest and peace. Who doesn’t want a life like this?
My wife worked for years in a crisis pregnancy center. One day a young, unmarried Christian woman (a teenager, at that) came into the center for a free pregnancy test. The test was positive, and my wife delivered the news to the girl. “I don’t understand,” she cried as my wife held the girl in her arms. “How could God let this happen to me?” The news rocked this poor girl’s world. She received the news as if the pregnancy was something that happened to her--as if some force beyond her control had imposed its will on her and changed her life forever.
In my invitations to speak to Christian organizations, many people are familiar with the gospel stories I select as the theme for my talks. This familiarity can sometimes work against hearing the word of God in a way that can change our lives right now. We are tempted to think that because we have a heard a story before we must already understand its meaning. I believe this is especially true of the final story Jesus tells in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, & 7). So many people have heard the story they unwittingly think there is no need to let the word of God instruct them if they hear it again. But let’s try to hear it again:
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." (Matthew 7: 24-27)
Each time, after I read these words out loud, I stop and ask the same question: “What is the rock?” In more than a decade of speaking engagements I have never once been given the correct answer immediately. The answers offered are invariably “Jesus,” “God,” or “the Bible.” These are answers are worthy sentiments, but they are wrong.
Only after reading the text a second (or third) time with special emphasis given to the key phrase does it dawn on the listeners that Jesus is requiring something of them in response to his preaching. Jesus says plainly that the difference between the two builders is putting his words into practice. One man hears and puts the words into practice, and the other does not. The old-fashioned word for this response is “obedience.” In these three chapters Jesus offers words of life. He speaks to our condition. He challenges our ideas of piety. He teaches us to pray. He points toward a loving Heavenly Father who is poised to help us in every situation Then at the end of the greatest sermon ever preached, he invites you and me into the building process.
Jesus has provided the guidance, but we must take the initiative to build on his words. We must decide if we trust his words enough to adopt them into our lives. It is one thing to hear him speak, it is quite another to order our lives around his words. His words are the words of life. But we must act on them.
Implicit in his teaching is the idea that we are all building. Each day, brick by brick we are building the houses of our lives. Everyone is building. The question is whether we are building on the rock, and the only way to do that is to put his words into practical operation in our lives.
As a pastor I have listened to people in crisis as they stare into the corner of the room and share the specific sadness that robs them of rest and peace. Their difficulties are real, their pain is not imagined. Sometimes the house of their life is crumbling around them. Seldom do I hear someone question whether they are forgiven or whether they will go to heaven. But frequently I hear them question if God cares about their suffering at that moment. From their ruin they do not doubt that God will forgive them at the end of their lives, but they openly wonder whether he cares at all about their lives right now.
Of course, God does care about our lives right now. He cares so much that he sent Jesus to model how to live in this world in a way that equips us to experience rest and peace right now, no matter what happens. But he will not build our lives without us. We must participate with him, and that participation begins with the determination to put his words into practice, to build on the rock.