Ali has asked if I'd share some of my recent sermons on reading the Bible. To be honest I don't much like putting sermons out there, outside of the community I'm in. The community I'm in at Napier Baptist is a huge part of the sermon itself - sermons are organically intertwined with the church community itself. Also, it freaks me out the thought of people reading a sermon of mine. I struggle enough with with the thought of whether I've got anything worth saying to our church community, let alone putting things on the web. But I do trust God incarnates our human words in some way in order to speak the Word. No doubt some of my fears are actually pride that doesn't want to be critiqued! Anyway, some of the sermons on reading the Bible weren't sermons as such. Rahter, they were simple helps for our people to open the Scriptures. I will put my first sermon online which is my theology of Scripture/Bible reading type of thing. In other words, why read the Bible? Please realise it was written as a spoken word and not a written word and it might be clunky to read. Also, sermon notes are helps and I often drift away from them - therefore this isn't the exact sermon I preached word for word - but it's pretty close.
I don't know how to add attachments like PDF files to a weblog so it's below in the body of this post.
Also, there's always loads of people who you read and borrow from in sermons. Among others, I'm indebted to the work of Jason Clark and Real Live Preacher.
Anyway, enough apologies! Here's my sermon "Eat This Book" given with fear and trepidation.
The sermon title is taken from Eugene Peterson's book with the same title:
Today we start a series on how to read the Bible on its own terms. It’s not exactly a sexy topic is it? I’d better explain what I mean. Last year we had Tony Anthony come to speak here in Napier. A fantastic speaker who was an ex-hit man, martial arts expert who’d been in prison and become a Christian come and share his testimony and there were hundreds of people that went along. Now that’s an exciting and sexy topic. A few weeks before that here at Napier Baptist we had Mark Strom the Principal of BCNZ come to speak to us on basically how to read the Bible. We sent flyers out to all the churches in not just Napier but the whole of the Hawkes Bay. I don’t know how many Christians there’d be in the Hawkes Bay but it would be well into the thousands. We made the event free – no charge to come and here an internationally renowned speaker talk about how to read the bible. We got about 30 or 40 people turn up. A bit like prayer meetings, how to read the bible isn’t a very sexy topic. I heard about an Indian pastor who visited a mega church in the US to learn some church growth principles. He went along to their Sunday service and there was about 10,000 people there. It was packed and the place was pumping. During the week he went along to the church prayer meeting and about 10 people showed up from a church of thousands. Praying and reading the bible are not particularly sexy. We know that prayer and studying the bible are vital to growing us as Christians but we’re so time poor, stressed and busy it’s very hard to find time for it. Statistics are clear that the bulk of Christians about 80% don’t open their Bibles week to week. We don’t read our Bibles. Here’s a common experience for me in ministry. I talk to someone about how their walk with Jesus is going. They get a bit red in the face and look at the ground. Then they confide in me that they don’t really read their bible nor do they pray much. They think they’re the only people in the church who this is an issue for and that they’re letting the team down or they’re not really Christians. The reality is that this is one of the most common things I hear in ministry. That’s one of the major reasons why this year we will look at how to read our bibles and later in the year we’ll explore prayer. I won’t embarrass us today by asking who read their bibles in the last week. I’m not doing this series to judge anyone – I’ve gone long periods as a Christian without reading my bible. What are some of the things that stop you from reading the bible?. What are some of the things that make it difficult for us or for people wanting to read the bible? ENGAGE WITH ANSWERS
This series in many ways is trying to be a very practical series to help people to read the bible. One of the major things as we go through this series is that I’m really keen for us to learn how to read the bible on its own terms. And the key words are – on its own terms. Too often we read the Bible on our terms rather than on its terms. If you’re after a great book on the way we should read the Bible this book by Eugene Peterson called Eat This Book is one of the best I’ve come across. I shamelessly borrowed the title of this morning’s sermon from this book. In it Peterson says this The challenge regarding the Christian scriptures isn’t just getting them read but read on their own terms. A pastor I know of in Auckland once burnt his Bible as part of his sermon to protest against the way the Bible is often misused and abused. He actually burnt his Bible to protest against the way the Bible so often gets abused. I’m not sure that I’d burn my Bible because I’m a chicken and I don’t have the guts to do it. But I agree with his sentiments! There’s some good ways to read the Bible and there’s some bad ways to read the Bible. This morning I simply want to outline some of the ways I think we shouldn’t approach the Bible and then some of the ways we should approach the Bible.
What sort of images does the Bible have in society? When I started as a vehicle inspector I was given this massive rule book called the Compliance Code. It was full of all the rules and regulations that imported cars had to meet before we would let them onto NZ roads. I was told this is the vehicle inspector’s Bible you need to read it. Or backpacker’s when they trip around the country carry with them the backpacker’s Bible to NZ. It gives them clear practical down to earth guidance on where to go and what to see in NZ. If you want to look good Trinny and Susannah give us the Bible on what not to wear. Clear, practical advice on how to dress well. The Bible has the image of being a massive rule book full of dos and don’ts or some sort of practical advice on how to live well and become healthy, wealthy and wise. I want to say this morning that the Bible is not a rule book or a how to manual and if you want to read it on its own terms just don’t read it like that.
Another one to be careful of which I find myself often doing is reading the Bible as if it’s some sort of religious book full of inspiring little quips to help me get through the day. A sort of quote of the day type of book for my religious devotion. Jesus is a sort of spiritual guru that we go to like Buddha to get some pearls of wisdom for our day ahead. “Treat others how you want to be treated”. “Love your neighbour” The sort of advice any wise person would give. Now we all do that at some time or other but if you want to keep the Bible as a devotionally cozy book you have to pick and choose fairly carefully what you will and won’t read. If this is the only way you read the Bible then you’re reading it on your terms rather than on its terms. The Bible has a lot of hard things in it if we don’t pick and choose what we’ll read. When people come to me to talk about getting baptised I don’t often send them to Luke 3:7 for inspiration. In it John talks to the crowds who’ve come out to be baptised and he says “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” We don’t often turn to that one when we’re picking passages for inspiration. So be aware of using the Bible as a big book of spiritual wisdom instead of reading the good the bad and the ugly.
Another one to be aware of is seeing it as a race so that when we get to the end we can say “Finished! What’s next?” Reading the Bible isn’t a task to complete. Olivia’s got a children’s bible that we read together each night. Slowly we made our way through it until we got the end and finished it. The next night I got her Bible out and asked her what part she’d like to start at and she said “we’ve read the Bible can’t we read something else?” I’ve read the Bible…. What’s next? I thought it was a really big deal to have read the whole Bible so a few years ago I did it in one year. I loved to tell people that I’d read the whole thing. “Yeah man I read the whole Bible back in 2000” Well big deal, it’s not that impressive. I can’t remember what I read a month ago let alone 7 years ago. Having read the whole Bible isn’t that impressive. You’re better off reading one chapter and understanding it and doing what it says than reading the whole Bible, understanding hardly anything and doing none of it. It’s possible to know the Bible inside out but live a life that looks nothing like Jesus. An important thing for us to remember is that Christians don’t worship the Bible. The Bible isn’t God and the Bible hardly ever points us to itself – it points us to God and calls us to follow him.
The worst way to read the Bible is to use it as a weapon. A baseball bat to smack people our enemies in the head with. Please don’t do that – it’s not cool. You’re not a defender of truth if you do that, you’re simply reading the Bible trying to apply it to everyone else’s life instead of doing the hard work of applying it to your own life. It’s called avoidance. We all like to use the Bible as a scalpel to cut everyone who doesn’t agree with us to ribbons. It’s easy to see the Bible as a scalpel but as the writer of Hebrews tells us the Bible isn’t a scalpel – it’s a two edged sword.
As we’re busy trying to perform surgery on everyone we don’t like, the Bible is performing surgery on us. The first thing we must realise is that the Bible isn’t speaking about everyone else, it’s speaking to you. If you spend the bulk of your time thinking oh wish so and so would read this, it so applies to them. Then you’re reading the Bible on your terms and not on its terms. We read the Bible not for information to smack people around with but for transformation.
Now I’ve given some ways not to read the Bible not I want to give a way to reading the Bible that I think will help us to read it on its terms. We read the Bible for transformation not information. The Bible opens us up to a strange new world. It’s a world we’re not used to. A world of grace and mercy, a world of forgiveness and peace, a world where people submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. It’s a strange new world. We’re used to a world where I’m in competition with you and there’s no way I’m going to lose to you. We’re used to a world where no one forgives anyone and bitterness and grudges stop us from even relating. We’re used to a world that’s happier to drop bombs on each other killing men, women and children just to show that I’m right. We open the Bible and we find this strange new world. God’s world. A world where the normal is made strange and the strange made normal. This is God’s world and we need to realise that this is the real world. So often people complain that Christians need to get into the real world and often I’d agree. But the Bible asks us what is really real? The world as it is is not what’s really real. The world as it is is fading – it’s dying. The real world isn’t the world out there. That world is passing, it’s dying. What’s really real is the world that’s coming to be through Jesus.
A world of love, peace, justice, mercy, grace, sharing possessions and forgiveness in Jesus. This is the new world we find in the Bible. God’s real world is the renewed creation redeemed in Jesus. And scripture opens us up to this strange new world and demands that we convert to it. Every time we read the Bible is a conversion experience. Michael Jinkins says If we’re true to the biblical text there’s going to be times when we can’t catch our breath because we’re astonished at what God desires for us. When it comes to being a community of the Word, it’s insane to wear straw hats to church. We should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should be issuing life preservers and signal flares. They should lash us to our pews! The Bible doesn’t politely ask us what do you think, do you agree? It tells us this is the way things are going to be are you on board or not? If you’re on board then forgive, show justice and mercy, share your possessions and submit to one another. We read the Bible to let scripture have its way in us, to transform us to be people of God’s real world. The power of scripture is its ability to produce the type of readers it requires. A people worthy of the name Christians – Christ ones. A people of God’s new world.
Now everything’s different. Instead of trucking out our huge superior arguments when people ask us is the Bible true? Now we put forth our little lives for people to judge if the scriptures are true or not. This is the power of scripture to transform us from being people of this world to being people of God’s new world that he’s making through Jesus. We read the Bible for transformation not information. And so we read the Bible differently than we do any other book. We read it differently than we would read the newspaper or a comic strip. The Bible is not some dead frog waiting for us to dissect in the science lab. Nor is it some daily inspiration book. Nor is it a how to manual. And most certainly it’s not a baseball bat to smash our enemies with. Scripture is the sustenance of God’s new world. As Eugene Peterson says we need to learn to eat this book. In Revelation 10 the mighty angel comes holding the scroll of God’s divine plan and plants one foot on the sea and another on the land. The angel’s pulpit spans across the land and sea and he thunders God’s mysteries to John. The first thing John tries to do is to write it all down. Like so many of us John studies God’s word like he’s studying to pass an exam. But the angel says seal it up and don’t write it down. Don’t write it down. But John still wants the book, so the angel gives the scroll to John and tells him to take it and eat it. And John eats it and finds that it is sweet as honey to his lips but bitter in his stomach. Isn’t that how scripture is for us? When we read scripture often it is a sweet comfort but other times it’s incredibly bitter. Sometimes we find refuge in God in scripture and other times like Jacob we wrestle with God and end up limping away with a black eye. You see you can’t study this book clinically detached. It’s not like dissecting a frog in a science lab. No you have to eat this book. Get it inside you. This is the food we eat – it’s what prepares us and sustains us for God’s new world. Scripture is the food of God’s new world. Wrestle with it, chew on it, savour it, taste it as both sweet and bitter, get it flowing through your veins and into your blood system so that it will prepare you for God’s new world. Get it pumping through your veins so that it metabolise into acts of service, mercy and redeeming love. Eat this book!
I read about a woman who worked as a house cleaner. Her day would consist of her going about different houses cleaning them from top to bottom. She was excellent at her job and she was very well respected by her customers. The job brought in a very meagre income but it was enough for her and her children to survive
She worked hard from early in the morning so that she could finish in time to go home for when her children got home. Not only did this woman work full time and raise her own children but she also raised over a dozen foster children on her meagre income. A newspaper reporter got wind of this woman and her story and went out to interview her. “Why did you do it?” the reporter asked. “Why did you raise all those foster children along with your own children on such a meagre income?” The woman paused and thought about and she replied “because I saw a new world coming” I saw a new world coming…
Eat this book!
