Photo by Tanner Mardis on Unsplash
Now there’s a lovely incendiary title for you.
“Adam’s saying that the Bible isn’t good enough! Everyone! Come quick! Come look at the heresy inherent in the system!”
Let me put you to rest a little bit, though. I’m probably not saying what you think I’m saying. However, I am not lying with my title, and if you stick around you’ll see what I mean.
I’ve been going through a Bible Study in the book of John with a friend of mine for the last several months. I often feel like I’m repeating myself, though, because there are just a lot of similar themes that run throughout the chapters of John.
One of the most common themes I’ve found in John is that Jesus refused to become who people wanted Him to be. Jesus was and is exactly who Jesus is. The Israelites wanted Jesus to be a royal king who was coming to overthrow Rome and instill a permanent Jewish kingdom. The Pharisees wanted Jesus to be more like them. Instead, Jesus just kept on being Jesus.
Perhaps no single event captures this dynamic more than the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Jesus is riding a donkey into the city while people shout praises at Him and proclaim him to be their king.
The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of Passover visitors took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted,
“Praise God!
Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hail to the King of Israel!”John 12:12-13 (NLT)
Later in that same chapter, you see where the crowd questions everything Jesus says about Himself. When Jesus talks about dying so that His message could spread, the people disagreed, saying, “The Messiah can’t die. What are you talking about?”
The truth is, they didn’t really believe. They thought Jesus was something that He wasn’t.
On the other hand, the Disciples did believe. They had followed Jesus for years, by this point, and were with Him to the end. Now, they didn’t have full understanding, but they did believe.
Keep in mind the passage I shared just a second ago. The people of Jerusalem and the tourists who were in town for Passover were shouting at Jesus scripture and prophesies that directly applied to Him. Now let’s look at what the Disciples did.
Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said:
“Don’t be afraid, people of Jerusalem.
Look, your King is coming,
riding on a donkey’s colt.”His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that these things had been written about him.
John 12:14-16 (NLT)
The Disciples, who believed in Jesus and who some had even said out loud that He was the Messiah, didn’t even recognize that He fulfilled prophecy from scripture. But they believed, didn’t they?
If they believed in Jesus, how come they didn’t see at the time? As I said, they didn’t have full understanding. We can’t blame them for that, of course, because we don’t have full understanding, either.
But the comparison and the contrast here are so striking to me. There were people quoting accurate prophecies at Jesus, but they didn’t really believe. Then there were those who did believe, but they didn’t see the prophecies.
The difference is that these 12 men had spent day after day with Jesus. They had come face-to-face with the real person of Jesus Christ and they had been changed by Him. Now only 11 of them had been changed for the better, but that’s another story.
I know my description really didn’t help matters, but this is a fun book.
I read a book in the last year or so called Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and I loved it. The story is about a young man who has to take up work at a strange little bookstore with very few visitors. They sell some of the usual stuff, but they also have a section in the back for a strange clientele who come in and check out these indecipherable books. The young man, being a curious tech genius, figures out a pattern in the books that are being checked out. It isn’t about the content in the books so much as it is that their placement on the bookshelves and the order in which they are supposed to be read eventually (mild spoiler) reveals a face.
Yeah, I know. It’s a weird image. But this is a book about secret societies and a guy who tracks the order in which books are checked out and figures out cool patterns. It really is a great book.
But the more I think about it, Scripture is kind of the same way. I’m not going to say that the words in the Bible aren’t important. That would be foolish and wrong. But what I will say is that the words of the Bible, without coming face-to-face with the Word of the Bible, are not enough.
In John 1, Jesus is described as the Word of God. Not the text, not the book, not all of the scrolls throughout history. Jesus Himself is described as the Word of God.
Just like the books in Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore were supposed to reveal the face of an important person, the words and the text in the Bible are supposed to reveal to us the Creator God and the person of Jesus Christ.
If they don’t, then they’re just ink.
See, anyone can quote the Bible. It is the most sold book of all time, isn’t it? You can go find copies of the Bible in just about any book store or general retail store of a certain size, and that’s wonderful! I certainly advocate for more copies of the Bible being available to the public, but just reading the words on the page won’t make a difference if you aren’t open to the reality and the power of Jesus Christ.
And not just your idea of Jesus, either. Remember what I said. The people of Jerusalem wanted Jesus to be an Earthly king and to overthrow the Roman government. They wanted Him to be that type of person rather than who He really was. If our idea of Jesus is anything less than or short of who Jesus really is, then our idea of Jesus is wrong. And our idea of scripture will be wrong.
It is also worth noting that our image of Jesus today comes from scripture, so obviously scripture is still important.
Without the power of Jesus, then the power of scripture is reduced about a thousand times. Sure, the Bible might still have political or social power. It might still have persuasive power. But milking the Bible for anything other than the Holy, saving power of Jesus Christ is a mockery when it comes to the Word of God.
I try really hard not to be the guy who harps on celebrities too much. It’s not right to bash people up and down for no reason. However, I do want to use a recent celebrity gaffe as an example of what I’m talking about.
In my home state of Georgia, there is a certain controversy around a proposed (and now passed, but still unsigned) “Heartbeat Bill” that outlaws abortions after six weeks of pregnancy or when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Given Georgia’s new status as “Hollywood of the South,” several Hollywood figures have spoken out against this bill saying that it would be too stressful for them to work in a state that is as “anti-woman” as Georgia would seem to be.
For the sake of full disclosure, I will admit that I’m a fan of this particular bill because it puts the life of the unborn child as the primary responsibility. I know people have their disagreements, but that is not why I bring this up.
See, Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano has been sort of the figurehead in the “con” side of this debate. She is perhaps the most prominent and outspoken actress saying that she hates this bill and that she doesn’t want the state to pass it.
Just Monday, she quoted John 3:12 in a Tweet that made almost zero sense:
To reiterate, this passage comes from Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. Jesus was telling Nicodemus about being born again and being born of the Spirit. When Nicodemus didn’t understand that, Jesus gave him a metaphor of nature on Earth so that he might better understand.
Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”
“How are these things possible?” Nicodemus asked.
Jesus replied, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony. But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things? [Emphasis mine]
John 3:5-12 (NLT)
Jesus was directly talking to Nicodemus regarding his failure to grasp an Earthly, natural metaphor in the passage that Milano quoted. Her quote here is so far removed from anything resembling context that I am not sure where she came up with it.
Again, I don’t mean to bash Milano, I really don’t. I also want to make it clear that this piece is not a direct response to Milano’s tweet. But she happened to provide a fantastic example of what I’m talking about just this week.
It’s also an easy example, though, because it is so far removed from the proper context. Taking scripture out of context is dangerous enough as it is, but what do we do when a verse isn’t so obviously manipulated?
Sometimes, a verse isn’t as obvious. Sometimes, you can almost see where people are going with their statements. This is where it is important to understand the entirety of the Bible. To understand exactly what the overarching message of the Bible is.
There’s an old saying about baseball that rings true here, as well. Baseball can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. The same is true for the Bible.
The simple, predominant message of the Bible is this: Salvation and forgiveness of sin comes through Jesus Christ alone. That simple message comprises everything that the Bible is about, from creation to the final amen. Of course, there are much more complex and deeper ideas that you can get into if you are ready. And that’s great. I believe that we should grow in our understanding of the Bible and scripture over time.
But if your “deeper understanding” of scripture doesn’t reinforce the basic message of salvation through Jesus Christ alone, then it is meaningless at best and dangerous at worst.
And look. “Those darn Hollywood liberals” aren’t the only ones guilty of this kind of scriptural posturing. Conservative politicians inaccurately quote scripture to prove their points all the time. People in the church do it, too.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t look to the Bible to understand moral or political issues. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t look to the Bible for guidance on voting or understanding how we should live in this world. Quite the opposite. I believe that the Bible, when read and understood through a knowledge of Jesus Christ, will clearly direct your conscience on how to live in this world.
“I let you off easy on the first one, but two darns is taking things much too far.” (Photo by Maria Teneva on Unsplash)
Jesus will only ever be who He wants to be. Some people look to Jesus as a moral conqueror, riding in on a stallion to stomp out everyone who disagrees with them. Some people look to Jesus as their Earthly victory and their motivational speaker. Some people look to Jesus as a loving figure who will allow us to do whatever we want because He just loves us so darn much.
And how you read Jesus is how you will read the rest of scripture. So if you approach Jesus as anything other than savior and Lord, then you won’t see the Word of God for what it really is.
We have to be careful that when we apply scripture to this world that we do so with the proper understanding. And that we have to make sure we have aligned our thinking to that of Jesus. If we read something in the Bible that we don’t like, that ought to make us ask questions. And, ultimately, that ought to make us figure out what about us needs to change. Because that is who Jesus is and what Jesus does. He causes us to change to be more like Him, not the other way around.
If you remove the word of God from the Word of God, then it might as well just be ink on a page. It means nothing. But if you marry scripture with an understanding of who Jesus is, and the love and power of Jesus Christ through God the Father, then the scripture has power.
That is when scripture is enough. Because Jesus is enough.