Living Story Grace

This is “Back to the Bible” week, and I’m inviting us all to fall in love with the Living Word all over again.  Today, two quotes from an excellent article and a wonderful series on what the Bible is and how to study it.  My friend Pastor Jimmy Davis LOVES to teach the Bible in a way that students get excited about spending time in the Word.  Listen to what he says, and then read the whole article.

What is it? may be the most often wondered but seldom verbalized question church-goers ask about the Bible.  It’s the same question the wanderers in the wilderness asked Moses the first morning they found manna scattered on the ground. Manna, a name derived from the Hebrew word for “what?,” was the “bread from heaven” God used to train His people to hunger daily for and hold dearly to His Word (Exodus 16; Deuteronomy 8).  Morning by morning the people woke to find manna covering the ground like dust.  Imagine how comical that first manna breakfast must have been as folks not only asked What is it? but then having in it hand also wondered Now, what do we do with it?

What is the Bible? is the question the people in our pews (or the folks in our folding chairs) are asking themselves but are hesitant to ask to their pastors and Bible teachers.  They know that God has provided His Word as heavenly food for daily consumption, but morning by morning, as folks wake up to find God’s Word sitting on the chair-side table covered with dust, they wonder: What is it? and What do we do with it? As preachers and teachers of the Word of God, we must help our listeners understand what sort of book the Bible is and what purpose it serves in the life of God’s people.  Jimmy Davis, Associate Pastor of Metrocrest Presbyterian Church

For the next few days, I’ll post some of the “cut outs” from my worldview and story research.  I’ll post the link to that article when it’s up.

“There have been many times in New York City that I have seen people make professions of faith that seemed quite heart-felt, but when faced with serious consequences if they maintained their identification with Christ (e.g. missing the opportunity for a new sexual partner or some major professional setback) they bailed on their Christian commitment. The probable reason was that they had not undergone deeper ‘world-view change’. They had fitted Christ to their individualistic world-view rather than fitting their world-view to Christ. They professed faith simply because Christianity worked for them, and not because they grasped it as true whether it is ‘working’ for them this year or not! They had not experienced a ‘power-encounter’ between the gospel and their individualistic world-view. I think apologetics does need to be ‘post-modern.’ It does need to adapt to post-modern sensibilities. But it must challenge those sensibilities too. There do need to be ‘arguments.’ Christianity must be perceived to be true, even though less rationalistic cultures will not demand watertight proofs like the older high-modern western society did.”  Tim Keller, Redeemer article, http://www.redeemer2.com/themovement/issues/2004/oct/deconstructing.html