Proclaiming the Bible?

9/4/18       Jawan  (video)        early 20's

I am of the opinion that it’s no longer enough to simply tell people that the Bible is “the word of God”.  

What does that mean? 

With the increasing levels of biblical ignorance, more people are misunderstanding that phrase and finding it harder than ever to believe that God is its primary author.

Many people are like Jawan, early 20’s, whom I met in a sidewalk outreach conversation.  His exposure to the Bible comes from 2 places: the Bible stories he heard years ago with his limited understanding as a child, and the negative, critical opinions of those who cherry-pick passages out of context in order to frame it in the worst possible light today.

Lately I’ve been somewhat distracted from my primary purpose in proclaiming the Gospel, and have been encouraging the people I meet into a better and more mature understanding of the Bible instead.  I’ve been telling them that being “the Word of God” doesn’t mean we read every passage as literally being God’s direct message to ourselves personally.  Instead, I say that God’s authorship of the Bible means that everything written in its pages is what God wants to be there, and in the way He has inspired it to be written, and He will therefore use each part of it in the way He wants to use it in each of our lives and at different times.

 

The Bible is meant to be more than a literary work, subject to the critical opinion and analysis of man.  We are not to judge the Bible as much as the Bible is meant to judge us, to be “…alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”  (Hebrews 4:12)

It’s no accident that both God’s written word and God’s Son are both said to be “God’s Word”.  I’ve been distracted into proclaiming the Bible as God’s Word because Jesus is there, in its pages, in a living and active way.  But I have to keep in mind that for the unbeliever, reading it as the word of man rather than of God, it is “foolishness” and seems to them to be a waste of time when there are so many juicy and scandalous things to read instead.  Better to focus my proclamation on Jesus, the central message of the Bible, visible throughout all its pages; the One who is God’s Word personified.

Only those who want to receive the Bible rather than judge it will take the time needed to read and understand it as “God’s Word”, as it is meant to be read.  And only those who have had a spiritual experience with Jesus will want to take God’s Word seriously and to receive it in the way it was given.  So, when I need to choose between the two, I’m going to try to go back to proclaiming Jesus rather than just proclaiming the Bible.

PS – Jawan graciously allowed me to record our conversation, which can be seen in its entirety at https://youtu.be/s16U6nOiBZM