Words That Devour

 

 

This being April 22, Psalm 52 is in my daily reading (I typically read Psalm 52 on January 22, April 22, July 22, and October 22).

 

The following struck me this morning, “You love all words that devour…” The psalmist is speaking of the wicked man, whose “tongue devises destruction, like a sharp razor.”

 

It seems to me that we live in a society that feeds off words that devour, and that we pass these words on to others. The most popular news channels are those – on both the “right” and the “left” - who attract viewers by issuing a steady stream of words that devour. The viewers internalize these words and then spew them out to others.

 

Then there are so-called “Christian” ministries that distinguish themselves by using words that devour those with whom they disagree, rather than having Jesus Christ as their center of gravity. Their adherents, in turn, are known not for being devoted to Jesus Christ, but are rather known for being opposed to other Christians. (I am not suggesting that we ignore false teaching and practice (of which there is plenty), ha! What am I doing right now? Tension, tension, tension!) When our main course is anything other than Jesus Christ we ought to take a step back, consider where we are, and return to our first love.

 

It is not unusual upon first meeting someone to be subjected to words that devour. People will proclaim what they have been reading and hearing (usually within the past few hours due to limited attention spans) and if you do not accept what they are saying, if you refuse to allow their words to devour you, then you often find a barrier between yourself and the other person and limited possibility of meaningful communication.

 

Of course, people often assume that you naturally agree with them and that there is no need to question anything they’ve received from others and are passing on to you. Sadly, many Christians so completely identify with political and nationalistic thinking, and the words that devour that are usually embedded in this thinking, that they cannot be distinguished from the world…since our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20; Heb. 11:13 – 16; 12:18 – 24) this is a particular tragedy.

 

I have visited churches in which it was assumed Vickie and I agreed with the predominate political views of the people. In fact, in these churches, as in many others, political mantras were more critical than the Apostles Creed, and political affiliation was the important common ground and basis for acceptance, rather than Jesus Christ and His Gospel.

 

“Words that devour” permeate our society. We hear them in song lyrics of virtually all genres. We hear them in sports – from trash talking to more violent language. Our movies and television shows are animated by words that devour – words that destroy our hearts and minds and souls and reduce us beneath the dignity of men and women and children created in the image of God. Our popular authors produce written words that devour, and we are foolish enough to think that we can read their words with impunity – words of violence, sex, material lust, and self-deification. (And make no mistake, much “Christian” writing is not about Jesus Christ, it is about us – shame on us! These are also words that devour.)  

 

Words that devour eat our souls and corrupt our minds and turn us into earth dwellers, perhaps even into beasts of the earth. Words no longer are vehicles for thought and communication, they become cudgels to beat the opposition into senseless submission. They are also words to seduce us to sleep in the lap of Delilah.

 

Yet, Jesus says that His words are “spirit and are life.” Jesus tells us that “the flesh profits nothing” (John 6:63). Paul writes, “Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.” (Col. 4:6).

 

Paul writes, “The Lord’s bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth…” (2 Tim. 2:24 – 25). And let me stress that “the truth” that Paul is writing of is not political truth, it is the truth of Jesus Christ.

 

Our calling is to be Light and Life to those around us, it is to call others to our Lord Jesus Christ, and as the hymn goes, we do this by sharing “beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life…words of life and beauty.”

 

We have the Word of eternal Life…will we share that Word with others? Will we “appear as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15) with words of goodness, truth, and beauty in Jesus Christ? Will we counter words that devour with words that give hope and joy and light and life and love in Jesus Christ?

 

Will we do this today?

 

Why I Bring My Bible To Church – And Why You Should Too

 

Why I Bring My Bible To Church – And Why You Should Too

Robert L. Withers, 2024.

 

A friend told me that there was no reason for him to bring his Bible to church because he has the text on his phone. I was surprised to hear this, for he is a leader in his congregation.

As I have pondered this, a phenomenon which is common in both church and small group settings, I wonder if we are thinking this practice through, and I wonder if pastors aren’t contributing to it by displaying Bible text on screens – giving attendees one more reason not to bring their Bibles – and with frankly not insisting that their people read the Bible – yes, I wrote “insisting.”

We have come to view the Bible as information and data, I hear this language all the time. We think we are cute when we say that B.I.B.L.E. means basic instructions before leaving earth – which again turns the Bible into a manual. We talk about the Bible being like a car manual in a glove box. If the Bible is a manual, if it is data and information, then okay, let’s use our tablets and smartphones and video screens because universal and cosmic and spiritual context and relationship don’t matter – and I do think that is what the Bible has become, when it is anything at all. I think we even skirt a danger zone when we speak of the “text” as an object for analysis and when that becomes our primary viewpoint – for a text is impersonal and there is no life in the impersonal.

If I open a Bible to read a passage I will see its context, I will not see the context on a video screen on my phone, a tablet, or on a screen in church.

As for the argument that we put the text on screens so that everyone will be reading the same version, I don’t think this was a problem before video screens when it was not uncommon for people to use different translations – after all we are supposed to be adults.

If my pastor is using an ESV and I have an NASB and my neighbor an NIV, we ought to be able to follow along and note differences – in fact, those differences ought to stimulate our thinking. Furthermore, good preaching and teaching can take differences into account when they matter. Again, we are supposed to be adults.

If we must display Bible texts on screens, let us please do it with a warning that what is on the screen is no substitute for viewing the text on the page of a physical Bible.

       

Peter tells us (2 Peter 1:4) that through the promises of God, which are in the Scriptures, that we become partakers of the Divine Nature. This means that reading the Bible ought to be sacramental, that in reading the Bible we partake of the very life of God, that God transmits His life to us. Instruction manuals do not transmit life, my Toyota RAV4 manual does not make me a RAV4, but the Living Word transforms me into the image of Jesus Christ.

The Scriptures reveal Jesus Christ. Most of us no longer believe this. Most of us have been taught that when we read what we call the Old Testament that there are some “Messianic texts” and those are the texts we gravitate toward. While there certainly are some texts which are Messianic in Technicolor; if we are to believe Jesus, the Apostles, and the Church Fathers, all of the Scriptures reveal Him – they give us a composite and holistic portrayal of Jesus Christ and His Body. Consider:

“Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:27).

“Now He said to them, ‘These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’” (Luke 24:44).

The writers of the New Testament see Jesus Christ from Genesis to Malachi – and they see His Body – they see the Head and the Body as a unity, as do many of the Fathers.

How can we not thirst for the Old Testament when Christ reveals Himself to us through it? How can we not thirst for the New Testament when Christ, who is our life (or at least is supposed to be) comes to us through the Gospels and Letters? (And let’s recall that Revelation is a letter).

The Scriptures are Holy Ground, how have we taken the Holy Bible and turned it into a religious database? A self-help book? A therapy manual?

The Scriptures are to be engrafted within us, not downloaded whenever we need to reference something. (James 1:21; 1 Peter 22 – 25; Psalm 1; Hebrews 4:12).  

Here is another thing we seem to have forgotten, for centuries men and women and families have risked their lives, and often paid with their lives, to preserve and distribute the Bible. Even today, Christians distribute Scripture in dangerous places and are imprisoned and executed for their faithfulness to God’s Word and love for others. As I write this, there are men and women and families who have dedicated their lives to translating Scripture in difficult and sometimes dangerous environments, foregoing the cotton – candy lifestyle of American professing Christians; yet many of us are too lazy to open the Book or take it to church.

May I ask, what image and example are we giving to our children and young people when we do, or do not, bring our Bibles to church? What are our children seeing? What image is being planted in their hearts and minds? What is our testimony to our neighbors when they see us walk from the front door to the car to drive to church?

When I was a young Christian, it was not unusual for believers to carry pocket New Testaments, sometimes with the Psalms, in their shirts or purses. Nor was it unusual for Christians to have Bibles in their cars for their devotional use during the week and for sharing Jesus with others. To this day I have a Bible in my glove compartment that I can place in a pocket to take with me wherever I am going. In my business career it was not unusual for my coworkers to see me with a Bible in my office – it came with the package of who I am in Jesus Christ.

When we gather with believers, we ought no more to think of leaving our Bibles at home than we would our wedding rings.

Pastors, are we encouraging our people to bring their Bibles to church? Church leaders, are you being an example to others by bringing your Bible?

When we carry our Bibles to church we are making a statement, a statement that the Book is the Word of God, that the Word of God is our source of life in Christ, that we are not ashamed of the Gospel (Mark 8:38), and that we belong to the Communion of Saints – including those saints who have suffered, and are suffering, for the transmission of the Bible and its message of Jesus Christ.

“More to be desired than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.” (Psalm 19:10).

Fact or Fiction - Romans 4 (4)

 here is the conclusion to Fact or Fiction?

What are the fictions in my life? What are the areas that I think I can control? What are the promises of God that I don’t trust God to fulfill, and that I am trying to fulfill on my own strength, my own wisdom, my own knowledge, my own ability?

What about you? What about us as a church?

Are we living in the fact of God’s supernatural life and Presence, or in the fiction of our own thinking and ability?

Abraham believed in a God who calls things which are not as though they are – and who gives life to the dead.

Abraham and Sarah’s bodies were dead, yet they kept believing God to fulfill His promise of a son.

And then after that son was finally born God told Abraham to sacrifice him – Genesis Chapter 22.

Hebrews chapter 11:

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; 18 it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.” 19 He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.

Are we living in the fiction that God will not require everything from us? Are we living in the fiction that we can hold parts of our hearts and lives back from God? If God required Abraham to offer Isaac, and if God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, do we really think we can live the Christian life without offering anything and everything to our Lord Jesus Christ?

Who can measure the love that Abraham had for Isaac? Who can measure the love that the Father has for His only begotten Son?

What is there in our lives that we refuse to offer to God? What is there in my life that I say to God, “You cannot touch that?” What about your life? What about our life as a church?

It is only as we experience the death of the Cross that we can experience the resurrection life of Easter. God calls us to die with His Son so that through us others may live.

22 Therefore it was also credited to him as righteousness. 23 Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, 24 but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.

Are we living in the fiction of religion, of religious tradition, of self-righteousness; or are we living in the fact that in Christ alone we have justification and new life and purpose and destiny?

One way I can tell whether there is fiction in my life is how I react when someone questions my fiction, when someone approaches it, challenges it, questions it…

What fiction is there in my life, in our life, in our life as a church – that we need to offer up to God?

How is our heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus Christ challenging us to live in the fact of the truth of the Gospel and the Word of God today? What is there in our lives, in my life, in your life, that God wants to renovate, to tear down in order to build up so that we can live in the glorious freedom of the sons and daughters of the true and living God?

AMEN.