How To Read the Bible - iv. Why Read It At All? (Deuteronomy 6:1-9)
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Do you read the Bible?
No? Why not?
You may answer that question by telling me that you grew up with the Bible. You’ve heard it all. You know what it says, and you don’t need to keep reading it.
You may answer by telling me that you grew up without it, and you turned out just fine. You don’t need an old book to tell you how to live.
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If you are not a believer, and you have no interest in becoming one... I dare you. I double dare you to read the Bible! Power brokers and political extremists through history and around the world today have good reason to be nervous of this book; it spurs people to action.
This is the book (and if you're not sure about any of this, look it up. Do some history.) that shaped the people who started the first free public schools in Europe. The first free public hospitals, providing healthcare for people who couldn't afford it.
This is the book that shaped the people who first took medical care to the front lines of war zones, under the flag of the Red Cross, treating the wounds of anyone. From either side. Without judgement.
This is the book that shaped people who founded organizations like hospices, and Habitat for Humanity, and the YMCA.
This is the book that shaped the people who invented food banks, soup kitchens, and shelters.
This is the book of people who sparked revolutions against slavery, oppression, and injustice.
Every caring institution built into our system of government today has its roots among people who were shaped by this book. Because this book forces us to look beyond the pragmatism of so-called evolutionary ethics and of the so-called selfish gene. It forces us to consider the eternal, infinite value of every human being. Their beauty. Their belovedness.
It forces us to confront our obligation to each other, whether it's convenient or not.
Some things in the Bible, I will grant you, are hard to read. There are things in there that I struggle to comprehend. The hardest book I have ever encountered is Shake Hands With the Devil, by Roméo Dallaire, a memoire of his time leading the UN forces on the ground during the days of the Rwandan genocide. That was hard to read, and there are sections in the Bible that are equally hard to read for similar reasons.
But at its core? At its core, this book defines, and sets the bar for, the best of humanity.
This book, at its heart, is the driving force behind immeasurable good, so I get frustrated when I hear somebody say, “I don’t want to read the Bible because I don't want to ‘get religion.’” Because I think we must have very different definitions of that word.
If “getting religion” is something that's connected to this book, what does the Bible have to say about religion? The New Testament and the Old Testament agree on what that word means.
New Testament:
Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27
Old Testament:
Ohh, people! The Lord has told you what is good. This is what He requires of you: do what is right. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
In both cases, true ‘religion’ is: first, seeing and caring for the vulnerable, and second, caring for yourself.
Religion is not about ticking boxes and keeping rules. It's not about being “better than you, honey.” It is not about telling people what they ought to think.
The Bible's definition of religion includes being formed over a lifetime into the best and the bravest of humanity. That is not a bad thing to get.
If you don’t believe in Jesus, if you don’t share this faith, I would say this: don't refuse to read the Bible based on your presuppositions and prejudices. Don't refuse to read the Bible because of a few bad apples, and a few things you don't understand.
Don't say no until you've actually listened to the question.
Read the Bible because it might change you. And if it does, you might change your world.
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So if you are a believer, if you are a follower of Jesus. What are some good reasons for reading the Bible?
First reason, best reason: because Jesus did.
For those of us who believe, Jesus and the God of whom He is a part is the beginning and the end of everything that matters. He is our boss, and Jesus read the Bible. Jesus knew the Bible. He quoted the Bible. He lived the Bible.
British writer Andrew Wilson says this:
Ultimately, our trust in the Bible stems from our trust in Jesus Christ. I don't trust in Jesus because I trust the Bible. I trust the Bible because I trust in Jesus. I love Him and I've decided to follow him. So if He acts and talks as if the Bible is trustworthy, authoritative, good, helpful and powerful, then I will too, even if some of my questions remain unanswered or my answers remain unpopular.
Read the Bible because Jesus did.
A second reason for believers to read the Bible: life is hard and the world is complicated, and sometimes you don't know what to do.
We like the 10 commandments. They’re straightforward. Don't lie, don't steal, don't cheat.
There is no commandment in the Bible about MAiD. There is no commandment about smoking. Or smoking pot. Or joining the military and carrying a gun. There is no commandment that tells me whether I should download that game. Stream that movie.
Join that subreddit. Invest in this company. Should I vote for that party? Or for this party? Or should I vote at all?
If the Bible were just an ancient list of do’s and don'ts, then yeah, the fact that it's old would become a problem. But instead, the text is crafted in such a way that it provides us with tools to think things through: to pray, to engage with the Holy Spirit, to ask for wisdom to make wise choices.
Read the Bible because life is hard. Because life is complicated and sometimes you need help in understanding what to do.
Third reason: for the believer, reading is an act of worship. Reading the Bible is an act of relationship.
Those pages are not just instructions and stories and things that are supposed to make you feel guilty so that you'll do whatever will make you feel better.
Those pages are a place where we spend time with someone who loves us. We've been given those words as a place to linger, a place to dwell, a safe space, to just settle in and hear the voice of Someone who loves us, Someone who gets us, Someone who created us, Someone who has been us. When we read those pages, those words, with an open heart and an open mind, God will meet us there.
[Moses said,] These are the commandments and statutes and ordinances that the LORD your God has instructed me to teach you to follow in the land that you are about to enter and possess, so that you and your children and grandchildren may fear the LORD your God all the days of your lives by keeping all his statutes and commandments that I give you, and so that your days may be prolonged.
Hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe them, so that you may prosper and multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you. Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts. And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as reminders on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:1-9
On the day when Moses stood before his people and shared with them the “commandments, and statutes, and ordinances” of God, much of what they were taught was, for those people at that time, very clear and unambiguous. Do this. Do it this way. This often. On these days.
But at the core of those laws, God laid a foundation: a foundation of love. He laid a bedrock on which, for centuries following the life and death of Moses, other writers were inspired by the Holy Spirit build and build: more understanding, more insight, more revelation.
What Moses told his people stands for us today.
- Those words should be in your heart, spoken there by God and held there by you with love.
- Those words should be in your mind, studied and puzzled over with your intellect and your reason.
- Teach those words to your children, so they can get to know God for themselves.
- Speak those words to each other at home, when you're sitting around having a coffee, and working through everyday life.
- Speak those words to each other as you walk along the road: as you're finding your way forward, exploring open terrain, or heading towards a destination.
- Speak those words to each other and to yourselves as you lie down to sleep, or to rest, or to die.
- Speak those words to yourself and to each other when you get up, ready or not to face the day and whatever is going to come through the door.
- Tie those words as reminders on your hands, always in eyesight, and shaping how your hands move.
- Bind those words on your forehead. Let them sink into your brain: those precepts, those ideas.
Jesus didn't do that.
He was ready. The words were at His fingertips. They were in His mind. They were in His heart. They were on His lips: “It is written...”
That is what those words are to be to you. Your bedrock, and your foundation. The framework around the door that you walk through. The hinges on the gates that you open and close.
Read the Bible to absorb the words until they are part of who you are.
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The writings of the Bible are here for you: as a gift to challenge you, to shape you, to refine you.
They are here to provide a place where you can meet someone who invites you to truly meet yourself.
To hear the full message:
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