A sermon preached at St. Mary’s by Alice Lawhead on 27th October 2024
I wonder if any of us can imagine what it would be like to be a Christian without the Bible. In our literate, book-rich times the Bible is intimately connected to our faith in Jesus Christ. We rely on the Gospels to tell us what Jesus was like, and what He said and did. We look to scripture to give context for His life, by telling what came before – as recorded in the Old Testament – and what came after, as written in the Book of Acts, and the letters of the apostles.
The Bible is honoured in our worship. The church has developed an arrangement of readings for each day of the year, and on Sundays we work our way through the Bible’s ‘greatest hits’ over a three-year period. We hear the Bible, and we sing the Bible, not only when the Psalm is sung, but the words of our hymns are often straight out of scripture. When the Gospel is read, we stand to show our particular respect for Christ’s words and actions, and after each reading it is declared: This is the word of the Lord, and we say: Thanks be to God.
The Bible is also central to our devotional life. There are countless testimonies – and you may have your own – of people opening the Bible with virtually no expectations at all, to find that it speaks into their lives in a miraculous way. Words of truth, of encouragement, of instruction leap out from the page! This is the reason that the Gideons place Bibles in hotel bedside tables; they have countless stories of lives changed when a person simply opened the book and read, usually at random.
But the earliest believers did not have access to a Bible like ours, of course. If they were Jewish Christians, they would know the law and prophets and wisdom as it had been read out to them in the synagogue. If they were believers out of the Greek tradition, they wouldn’t have had even have that. In either case, when the early Christians gathered together in each others’ homes they would have learned about Jesus through the retelling of personal accounts, and through preaching and teaching based on what Jesus said and did, before it was systematically written down. Some early churches would have had a letter from Paul or Peter or some other apostle, perhaps only a scrap of a letter, that they would pour over for its instructive value. Eventually, comprehensive accounts of Christ’s life – the gospels – were written and these were of obvious value to his followers.
Gradually, sometimes painfully, there came a general consensus about which of those books and letters and poems should make their way into Christian scripture. Some say the process was, itself, inspired and completely trustworthy; others say it was patriarchal and political – and maybe it was a bit of both. But, once decided, and particularly once there was a printing press to produce Bibles in quantity, the reading of scripture by even ordinary people became possible as never before. The Protestant Reformation elevated scripture to a very high level indeed, and we are part of that tradition. But it is possible to get the cart before the horse.
For example:
I remember attending a friend’s large, vibrant church where the minister stood up at the very start, welcomed the visitors to the service, and said, ‘This is a church that preaches the Bible. The Bible is at the centre of our worship and everything we do. We look to the Word of God to direct us. We proclaim the scriptures! We are a Bible church.’
Oh, dear, I say – and I say it on Bible Sunday.
Let’s look at today’s Gospel reading, where Jesus is addressing those who have gathered around to criticize Him for healing a man on the Sabbath. Again. In dealing with His critics, Jesus talks about testimony – from which we get our word Testament, as in ‘Old’ and ‘New’. In the preceding verses he talked about human testimony and the testimony of John the Baptist, and we pick it up this morning where he speaks of the testimony embedded in his works – including the miracle they’ve just seen – and his Father’s testimony and then he gets to what but I think is the central truth for Bible Sunday:
39 ‘You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. 40 Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.’
These are strong words, and I think they are a challenge to us today. Especially to any who have perhaps carelessly or unthinkingly put the Bible at the centre of their faith and practice, instead of putting Jesus Christ at the centre – because only he should occupy that place. It is possible to dig so deeply into scripture, that we miss the whole point of scripture.
This Gospel of John opens with those beautiful, poetic words:
In the beginning was the Word,
And the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
Now, the Bible wasn’t at the beginning. Jesus Christ was at the beginning. Jesus Christ is the Word of God. Jesus Christ is what God has to say to us. Scripture is testimony – it’s a multi-voice, trans-cultural, longitudinal, literary witness statement. It points to Christ, but it is certainly not where we go to have life. And I can assert all this with confidence because …. That is exactly what the Bible says. It does not claim for itself to be worthy of our worship. It claims that it is testimony to Christ. And, as Paul wrote to Timothy, Scripture is
inspired by God and is[a] useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
I actually love reading the Bible. I would not want to be without it. But none of us must ever lose sight of its central claim: That Jesus Christ is The Message. He is what God has to say. He is the embodiment of who God is. If you want to know who God is, get to know Jesus.
With all that said, then, let me finally do what I’m supposed to do on Bible Sunday, which is encourage you to read the Bible!
If you used to read the Bible but fell out of the habit, I challenge you to get back into it. (Years ago I went to a dentist, who attended the same church I did. After giving me the usual chiding about teeth cleaning, he said: ‘Alice, just put your dental floss next to your Bible. That way you’ll be sure to do it every day.’ At the time, that would have put both my dental and my spiritual hygiene at risk.)
Even if you’ve read all the Bible, if you’ve sat through a thousand services like this one and heard it read every Sunday, it still holds new insights and inspirations. Maybe it’s time to pick it up again and see what it has to say.
If the Bible is a bit of a mystery to you, if you’re not really on speaking terms with it, here are some practical ideas to get you going:
- Read the Gospel of Mark. It takes about an hour. Do it with a friend, and talk about your impressions over a cup of coffee.
- Join a Bible Study group – or start one of your own. It could be in person, or on Zoom. You could organise it like a book group, taking on one book of the Bible each time you meet, or you could do one book verse-by-verse.
- Find a study guide that helps you read a book of the Bible. Tom Wright, the former Bishop of Durham, has written a book like this (Acts for Everyone) on every book in the New Testament. There’s a short chapter for each day. It’s easy reading, interesting, and will open up scripture for you – guaranteed.
- If you’re feeling really ambitious, and want to take a survey of the entire Bible, get one of those Read-It-in-a-Year Bibles. Each day you’ll be given a bit of Old Testament, New Testament, part of a Psalm, and a Proverb or two. You start on January 1 and by the end of December ….. you’re about 2/3 done. But keep going! You may finish it by Easter.
- Don’t have a Bible? It’s all on your computer or phone.
- There are apps that will put a daily Bible reading in your Inbox, or send it to you as a text. One of my favourites includes a piece of art that goes with the reading.
- And did you know … that David Suchet has read the entire Bible aloud, and it is available for free online? Now, there’s something to listen to while you’re gardening or walking the dog or doing the washing up.
Jesus Christ is what God has to say to us. The Bible is inspired, and inspiring, testimony to that message from God. It is beautiful, challenging, encouraging, and confounding. It is important. Early Christians, illiterate Christians through the ages, Christians who even in the 21st century are denied access to scripture …. would have loved to have our opportunities to read this testimony which points us toward Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith.
We end now as we began, with this prayer:
Heavenly Father, Give us grace to hear Your true and living word, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.