Good MORNING, and Happy Bible Sunday. As I begin, I’ll acknowledge something we all know but rarely say out loud: there is a reason that the Bible has very thin, see through pages, and that’s because it is a really, really big book, and would probably weigh twice as much if it was printed on regular paper. If the Bible were a Netflix series, it would have 66 seasons, that’s a lot. And there would be some, like Leviticus, that only the most dedicated would even try to watch.
But here’s the beautiful thing about God’s Word: you can skip around and mostly understand what’s happening. You don’t need to understand Leviticus completely before you can appreciate the Gospel of John, though it helps.
The Bible contains history, poetry, prophecy, actual letters from people who were very concerned about church drama, and one book of love poetry that can be quite funny, because ancient terms of endearment sound funny to modern ears. But through all these pages, through genealogies and place names we can’t pronounce, there’s one constant thread: The Bible shows God’s relentless, pursuing, never-giving-up love for humanity. And that’s why we should dig into it with the enthusiasm it deserves.
Today is Bible Sunday, based on our Collect of the Day, where we prayed that God would use his Word in our lives, provided that we make our effort to read it, mark it in our heart, learn it, and meditate upon it. God has given us His Word to support our walk in this life through troubles, and to remind us of his hand in good times as well, since we usually credit ourselves for those.
In times of crisis, God’s Word is there to bring us encouragement.
In times of confusion, God’s Word is there to give us direction.
If you are discouraged? Jesus says in John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
When we are worried, Peter tells us I Peter 5:7”cast all your anxieties upon (God,) because he cares for you.”
The Bible is not just a book which tells us how people in the past have looked at God. It is, as Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 3:16, Breathed out by God, Inspired, God wants us to know Him. The word of God is written for everyone, and it can aid us in our daily life as it directs us to Christ. This is why the principalities and powers of this world, who seek our destruction, are ALWAYS trying to get us to distrust the Bible’s truths.
One quick favorite story about the how the Bible has been attacked in the past. (many stories like this) One favorite way to undermine the Bible has been to claim the books weren’t written when we think they were, but decades afterward. One scholarly movement beginning 200 years ago was especially determined to undermined the Gospel of John, because John so clearly states the divinity of Christ. Without much evidence, the claim was made that John was written by someone or some community of believers about 130 years after Jesus walked the earth, (160 or so) so it couldn’t possibly be accurate, and this became the view of most academics… until about 1940.
Then, God decided to have a laugh at the expense of man’s wisdom. Beginning in the 1930’s and 40’s, archaeologists began finding ancient copies and scraps of copies of the Bible, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, all over the Middle East.
The picture on the cover of the bulletin is the front and back of one tiny scrap the size of a credit card, called Papyrus 52. P52 was found in Egypt, in a scrap heap, and had writing from John 18 on both sides. The important part? The papyrus and everything else it was dated around AD 125. So, how could a copy of John’s Gospel have found its way to an Egyptian scrap heap in 125 if John wasn’t written until 160? And just like that God wiped out thousands of books from LIBRARIES of theological seminaries across Europe and North America.
Every generation has had people doubting God’s Word. “Did the Lord Really Say?” seems to be the #1 response against the Bible, from the Snake in the Garden, to Jeremiah who was always accused of this, to Jesus time, and even today!
Today, the attacks on the Bible are usually attacks against St. Paul and his epistles, saying that he didn’t like women, and that we should just consider him a product of his time. He was uptight and stuff. Maybe he was, but if God inspired him to write things we should be taking for our encouragement and direction, it wouldn’t matter how uptight he was, he was God’s chosen instrument.
Hebrews 4:12 The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
That’s the description of an effective weapon!
To close, I’d like to share with you a story, which encompasses all of these ideas of the truth and support of the Bible. John Jay was a delegate at the first continental congress. You may have never heard of him before, but Jay was pretty much single-handedly responsible for averting a second war with England right after the Revolutionary War ended through his diplomacy skills.
Then in May 1802 after 28 years of marriage, his wife Sarah became very extremely ill. As her condition became worse, John and their children gathered at her bedside. When death came for her, John said that, at first, he began to feel weak and defeated. Then, with his children by his side he turned to the Bible for strength. and began reading I Corinthians 15, which concludes with this verse…
54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
When he closed the Bible, with tears in his eyes he spoke to his children and assured them from God’s word, of the promised reunion they would all someday have with his Sarah.
Here’s our question as we close. Is this a happy story or a sad one? The world sees it as trusting in vain, but the Bible gives us assurance that we can trust in a God we cannot see for a future we can only “hope” for.
The world, however, wants its security here and now.
For the Christian, it is a beautiful story, because it reminds us of where our true hope is. The Bible gives us God’s promise that His disciples will be together with Him in unity for eternity. And we have the evidence of that promise with us in his word, to take with us and encourage us always.
