Perspective: The Book and the Word

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The Book and the Word

Since childhood you have known the holy scriptures that help you to be wise in a way that leads to salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus.  Every scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing mistakes, for correcting, and for training character, so that the person who belongs to God can be equipped to do everything that is good.

2 Timothy 3:15-17 (CEB)

Give me rules

I will break them

Show me lines

I will cross them

I need more than a truth to believe

I need a truth that lives, moves, and breathes

To sweep me off my feet

From "More Like Falling in Love" by Jason Gray

One day, while Jesus was teaching at the temple, He made a statement that some of the people in His audience found rather offensive.  He said, "I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life."¹  If we consider some of the implications of what Jesus said, some of us might find His claim offensive as well.

Hundreds of years before the days of Jesus, one poet wrote, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."²  These famous words are found in the middle of a very long Psalm dedicated to the Hebraic Law.  To the Psalmist, the Law is what helps people to navigate the murkiness of life without stumbling.  Nowadays, Christians often use the Psalmist's words to describe the Bible.

When Jesus says that He is the Light that keeps all who follow Him from walking in darkness, He is essentially claiming about Himself what the Psalmist said about the Law.  A number of the people who were listening to Jesus that day were Pharisees, people who dedicated their lives to following the Law to the letter.  They lived their lives by the book, so to speak.  These Pharisees found Jesus' claim offensive, and they argued that he had no right to make such a claim about Himself.³

Some Christians place the Bible on equal footing with Jesus.  Some even go so far as to suggest that the Bible is "the fourth person of the Trinity."  As I see it, such a statement is idolatrous.  Though Scripture is very important, it is not meant to be worshiped; instead, it points beyond itself to the One we are meant to worship.  As Christians, we are not to follow the Bible: we are to study the Bible so that we may learn what it means to follow Christ Himself.  Our main concern is not what is biblical, but rather what is Christlike.  In the words of one of my favorite preachers, "We're not 'Biblians': we're Christ-ians."⁴

Many use what is biblical to shield themselves from what is Christlike.  In the 1990s we were encouraged to ask ourselves, "What would Jesus do?" yet many of us use the Bible as an excuse not to do what Jesus would do.  Far too many times the phrase, "The Bible clearly says..." has been used to preface quotations from Scripture used to justify unloving, ungracious, and unchristlike attitudes and actions toward people.

Not long before Jesus made His claim that He is the Light of the World, some Pharisees along with some experts of the Law brought to Jesus a woman who had been caught in an adulterous affair.  "Teacher," they said, "this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.  Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women.  Now what do you say?"⁵  They were exactly right.  The Bible clearly says, "If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death."⁶

Jesus directly disobeyed the clear biblical mandate and chose an altogether different course of action.  First He challenged the woman's accusers saying, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."  Then, after they all put down their stones and walked away, Jesus forgave the woman, saying, "Go your way, and from now on do not sin again."⁷

We ask, "What would Jesus do?"  In this story, it can be clearly seen that Jesus didn't do what "the Bible clearly says" to do.

The Bible does not speak in a singular voice.  In this story alone we are presented with two responses to a particular situation - the prescriptions of the Law and the example of Christ - and the difference between the two is a matter of life and death.  Though both responses are biblical, only one of the responses is Christlike.

Mechanically following written rules is easy, cognitively speaking.  Doing the hard work of actually discerning what it means to follow Jesus in any given situation requires a lot more brain power and a lot more faith.  Thankfully, we are not alone as we seek to follow Christ.  Jesus said to His disciples, "I have much more to say to you, but you can't handle it now.  However, when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you in all truth."⁸  Evidently, not everything Jesus wanted to teach His followers can be found in the Gospels, but the Holy Spirit continues to teach us if we are open to the Spirit's leading.

The Psalmist said that God's word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.  The Gospel tells us that Jesus Christ is the Word of God who took on flesh and lived among us.⁹  He came not just to tell us how to live, but to show us how to live, and, if we follow Him, He will lead us to abundant life.


Notes:

1. John 8:12 (NRSV)
2. Psalm 119:105 (NRSV)
3. John 8:13
4. Brian Zahnd.  "Jesus Is What God Has to Say."  Ecclesia Houston podcast, 02/14/2016.
5. John 8:3-6a (NRSV)
6. Leviticus 20:10 (NRSV)
7. John 8:6b-11 (NRSV)
8. John 16:12-13 (CEB)
9. John 1:1-18

Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery was painted by Il Guercino in the early 1600s.