Hebrews 4:12-13–God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God’s Word. We can’t get away from it-no matter what. (MSG)
I’ve had many a surgery in my lifetime but none cut so deep or removed so much as those that God performed on my heart, mind and lifestyle. Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855) explains it this way.
The Bible is easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lays the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close.
Oh, the priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.
Prayer: Oh God! We beg you, purge, cleanse, and operate on everything in us that is not you……so that our first choice is to get on with you, not with the world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Be First to Comment