WHO SHOULD READ THE BIBLE?

The Bible should not be force fed to people.  It is for "seekers."  It is right and good to speak to others, particularly parents to their children, about the Bible being the Word of God and to share with them how God has spoken to us through it.  As a parent, I wanted my children to read the Bible.  I shared verses with them.  If they began to read it, because of my faith and my testimony, that was good.  However, it would not be the Word of God for them, until they were open to a relationship with God.  Thankfully, children are often more ready to be open to God, as my daughters were, than adults who have increasingly shut out the Presence of God.

The Bible, then, is for seekers.  "Seeking God" is a key faith phrase in the Bible, particularly in the OT.  To seek God a person has to be beyond the point of self-rule.  I had to recognize that ruling my life was not working and that I needed some "outside" help.  I had to become open to the possibility that I might have a Creator who cares to help, one who might enter into my life if I tried praying, if I tried reading the Bible with an open heart.  Whether I recognize it or not, when I rule my own life, I am usurping the role of the Creator and shutting out God's love, mercy, and grace.  Yet, Jesus is waiting and available.  When I was receptive, then the Bible become the Word of God to me.

HOW IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD?

We have to go back to the oral cultures of the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT).  Both ancient Hebrew and Greek (languages of the OT and NT respectively) have a key word that encompasses a range of meaning (ruach and pneuma respectively): wind, breath, spirit (of life).  It makes sense.  If I am not breathing, I do not have life; and, breath feels like wind.  They are one and the same.  So, the spoken word mattered.  It came to be from one's life breath (spirit).  An oath or a curse were real.  They had a "tangibility" about them.  (A Hebrew word for "word," dabar, in a given context could even mean "matter" or "thing.")  Whether I want to believe it or not, my spoken words matter.  They can guide or misguide, support or suppress, heal or harm.

God's spoken word is obviously paramount.  In the creation account of Genesis 1, the spirit (ruach) of God was astir and God spoke order into the dimensions of chaos: darkness, the watery deep, and the formless earth -- the creational order that the spoken word continues to maintain.  (I like to think of God's word like radio waves, electromagnetic waves that once brought into existence go on forever.)  In the Gospel of John, Jesus is called the spoken word (Greek logos) of God, who was with God from the beginning and through whom all things were created, 1:1-3.  The "word of God" is substantial: "One does not live on bread alone, but upon all that comes from the mouth of God" (Deut. 8:3), or as stated by Jesus, "on every pronouncement [rema] from the mouth of God" (Matt 4:4).

So, when we think of the Bible as the word of God, we need to move beyond our western-world, modern associations of something static.  It is anything but that.  The Word of God is not ink on a page.  It is a medium through which God nurtures, guides, rebukes, and encourages.  In the well-know text, "All scripture is God-breathed..." (2Tim 3:16), the adjective "god-breathed" could be better rendered in active voice, rather than passive; that is, "God-breathing."  That is, I am convinced, how someone in an oral culture would understand it.

Lord, help me to hear you speak through your Word.  Amen.