If you’ve been following along here for a while, you’ll know that we have been going through First John recently, and exploring it a little differently that the typical teaching or sermon series might. As I was sitting here thinking about posting something this afternoon, I had a funny thought about it. Boy would this letter look differently if I dug out my old class notes that I used to hand out to students when I taught this! My class notes were for my Bible College students, and they were fairly academic. Greek words, grammar, big words and all of that stuff. Yet, unlike my colleagues, I always had application in my classes. In these posts, I’ve blogged pretty much all application, all the time, and I haven’t really included all of the academic stuff.
This led me to think some more, particularly in light of this debate business that is still all over the internet, and a question came to mind:
What do you expect from the Bible?
Have you ever thought about that? Are you looking for a science textbook or a history textbook? The end of the world? Sex and violence? Facts, trivia and minutia? The way to follow Jesus? Maybe something else?
It could be argued that you can find all of these in the Bible to one degree or another, and people seem to find what they are looking for in most cases. I remember years ago, the church I attended sent a group of young people to the North American Christian Convention to compete in the “Bible Bowl,” which is a Bible fact contest for Youth. (It’s actually a Trivia contest, in my view.) I was never a supporter of this! Others have calculated the exact date when the earth was created, beginning with Bishop Usher back in the 1600’s. I can’t recall it exactly now, but it supposedly happened in September… They used to print Bibles with the “Usher Chronology” in footnotes giving the exact date of every big event, and in fact British missionaries had these editions of the Bible in the mission fields of China in the 19th Century, where it was pointed out to them that Chinese civil records go back to times before the earth was created; their missionary efforts were largely unsuccessful in Chine, I can’t imagine why… You might be interested to know that the Usher Chronology is where the 6,000 year old earth theories come from.
Some of the greatest Biblical scholars in the world are atheists, who treat the Bible as literature. Literature is what they were looking for, and literature is what they found. If you want to find passages to explain the end of the world, you can find them, too. You can find history if you want. You can find contradictions if you want, and you can definitely find sex and violence if that is what rocks your boat! And, of course, if you are looking for facts, details and minutia, there are lots of those as well. If these are the kinds of things you expect to find, you won’t be disappointed, but in the greater scheme of things, you will be wasting your time!
The Bible is God’s revelation to Mankind, and what it reveals is Jesus Christ. Whatever else you want to find will not make the Bible of any use to you at all, except that you might be able to amaze friends and family with your knowledge. However, if that’s what you really want to do with your time and energy, might I suggest you learn something that will be useful to you instead… maybe algebra for instance? Surely algebra would be more useful than demonstrating a total and complete misunderstanding of the Bible!
On the other hand, if you want to find Jesus Christ, if you want to find out how to live your life in grace and truth, if you want to inherit eternal life in Christ and overcome sin and death in a life of victory… the Bible is the book for you! And if this is what you want to find, then I have one word of advice for you: Don’t let anybody pull you off track by wasting your time with all that other nonsense!
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What do we Expect?
Expectations!
How incredibly powerful this one little word is. Your post, the title itself… the Lord took this in an utterly “unexpected” direction for me as I pondered, and I thought you might enjoy the trip. The title, as read by most people, would seem like… “What do we expect from THE BIBLE”. But my reflections sounded more like… “What do WE EXPECT from the bible?” Entirely different syllabic emphasis.
Without getting lost in detail and footnotes, let me just air this thought for consideration. You, as all readers, are welcome either to ponder and affirm this as true in and for your spirit, or totally cast it aside if it does not ring true. But through years of ministry and counseling, I have discovered…
“In any and every encounter or relationship, we, as humans, tend only to see, perceive, hear, and experience that which we EXPECT to experience. Events that ‘surprise’ us, tend to be perceived and reported subject to a great deal of factual error (such as accident or crime reports). Emotionally, we experience ‘negative’ emotions (anger, sadness, disappointment, fear) when we hold one set of expectations for an event, and the actual outcome is ‘less, or lower’ than anticipated. We tend to experience ‘positive’ emotions (joy, love, gratitude, awe) when our expectations are exceeded.”
Here’s a piece of research that changed my life when I was in my graduate studies as a counselor. “There is an 80% correlation between ‘pre-therapeutic expectation of outcome effectiveness’ for any given school or style of treatment, regardless of modality.” That is, no matter which of the 15 or so types of dynamic therapies a client undergoes, 8 times out of 10, if they expect to complete treatment with a positive outcome and improvement, they do so; and 8 out of 10 times if they expect counseling to make no difference to their situation, it does not. Didn’t matter if that was Freudian Psychoanalysis, Behavior Modification, Adlerian, Gestalt, Transactional Analysis… didn’t matter. “Intake expectation was far and away the strongest predictor of discharge outcome.”
As a counselor, for decades, that truth struck deep in me. And I never EVER began actual “work” with any client, until I could determine whether they BELIEVED and EXPECTED that this work would help, and change their situation. Until I had that, my focus was to improve their expectations, rather than begin the work on the specific issue.
That just came leaping to mind today, after reading your post. The old saw, “For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, none is sufficient.”
You, Don, know… far better than most here, my view on “The Holy Bible” as a document, a book. But for me, this fully sacred text is almost what we would think of as “magical”… a “dimensional portal”… where we, as finite, four-dimensional, little creatures as frail and faulty as we are… can encounter and engage FULLY… with the Presence and Person of Infinite Holy God — Omniscient Omnipresent Omnipotent Omnidimensional Omniconscious God — from our universe to His Omniverse. And THAT… I submit… is just plain flat AMAZING.
Why is this so? Because here is this “physical object”… two covers, white paper, black ink marks… this finite simple “book/thing”… that sets down symbolically the Word(s) of God (utterances of Jesus and God through historical revelations of the Holy Spirit)… ALONG WITH HIS PROMISE and ENDORSEMENT that when we “seek Him” here, He Himself will teach and reveal through the Living Word of His Holy Spirit.
So why is it then…
Why is it that some people can “read the Bible” and find nothing more than a series of dead historical reports… fodder for argument on philosophy, comparative theology, history, or literature? And others can enter into this Omnidimensional Portal and experience rhapsodies?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I believe you hit the nail on the head, Don. The difference is “What do we expect…”
I hope this offends no one, but the very power of God on earth, among men, can be “limited”… but only by a single thing, a single factor. The factor is: Faith. Look at the 6th chapter of Mark, the very beginning narratives and the ending narratives, and look at the progression through the chapter. Jesus is very very clear here, as is the inspired author of the chapter. Jesus’ “potency” is conditioned by the faith of the people surrounding Him, and grows from “He could only heal a few…” at the beginning, to mighty works at the end. Did Jesus change through the chapter? Of course not. But clearly the “dunamis” changed, and the chapter identifies only one factor to explain that.
The Power of Expectation…
9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened. 11 Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? 12 Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” [Luke 11]
Here, it seems Jesus Himself teaches of “expectation”.
Anyway, thank you Don. I think “debates” such as have been discussed, are really an “Apple/Orange” situation. If one approaches the Bible expecting an “encounter with God”… to “seek, ask, knock, know”… God honors that, and the encounter happens. If one does not…
But it’s important to note, merely pinning the label “Christian” on one’s lapel before approaching the Bible doesn’t define one’s expectations of encounter. I know countless Christians who diligently sit before their Open Bibles, NOT seeking an encounter with Holy God on HIS terms… but rather seeking to “Master the Bible” on their own. They’ve been taught to see scripture verses as “darts”, “weapons”, to be collected and mastered (largely through memorization)… not that the verses CHANGE THEM… but that they learn to “handle and wield them with dexterity” in order to defeat and wound others they define to be “the enemy”… whether that is non-believers, or other Christians not of their culture and traditions.
Approaching the Bible as one would approach caged animals… complete with whip and chair, to “train them to do one’s bidding and obey”… well, the Holy Spirit really has to struggle to get heard in such encounters.
I have found in my own walk, that what I “bring away” from an encounter with God in the Bible depends a lot on how I approached the encounter in the first place. When I go to meet Him, to seek, knock, ask, know Him… on His terms… I come away changed. When I go out of “duty” or “habit”, or to “get some verses down because of an argument I’m in”… or in ANY way… to MASTER the BIBLE… well… at best, there’s “no magic there”, at worst the Father has to pull this Kingdom over for a “little chat in the woods” for a bit.
“What do we expect?”… What a marvelous question. It’s not just “The Book” that is holy… the physical object. It’s not the black marks on the white pages. But rather, it’s that when we sacredly reach THROUGH the black marks of the object, our minds and spirits can encounter the LIVING WORD(S)… the “Speaker” of the utterances, and the “Teacher” of the utterances, and Giver of understanding and wisdom…. ON HIS OWN TURF! But ONLY when we EXPECT to find Him there!
Isn’t that amazing? Wow! Grace — LM
Little Monk, thank you for this comment! I hope everybody reads it!!
You are so right! You’ve represented my point exactly, in a different way than I did, but exactly. Writing for a Christian audience, I really wanted to have people ask themselves what they EXPECT, and really think about that. People, if all you want to find in Scripture is debate points or details to impress or convince someone else, you are really abusing what God has given us! God loves each one, and wants RELATIONSHIP with us; isn’t that worth a little effort and maybe even an attitude adjustment, on our parts. I don’t know about anybody else, but the effort and attitude adjustment changed everything for me!
Thanks again, LM… and by the way, you now have the all-time record for biggest comment here, congratulations! When I pasted it into Word and blew it up so I could read it, it was 92 pages, (I kid you not) smashing the old record! And every bit of it was well worth reading, Thanks again!
O my. And that’s not even counting the ones I DON’T put here, but make into their own posts and link back. * cough * Sorry. I’ll… I’ll hush now. * grins * Grace — LM
Too funny! Always a joy!
Great post, great comment. I’ll need to steal the ideas in an upcoming sermon or counseling session…
Thanks Jim… and steal away!
Nothing could please me more. 🙂 I was trained to believe this odd thing. “If what I say or write is Truth, it’s not yours really… it’s ‘owned’ by Him, and only He deserves credit. If it is not Truth, it’s all mine, and should be thrown away.” So, if it strikes you as true, pray it through, and make it your own.
Further, my blog has a Category called Sermon Seeds precisely for pastors, preachers, teachers. Each looks at some scripture or other from a ‘different view’… so please feel free!
Blessings and grace to thee! — LM
Reblogged this on Citizen Tom and commented:
I have been blogging since 2006. One thing have learned over the years is the difference a good comment can make. With a thoughtful comment, what was a good post can become quite profound.
Only God knows the Truth. Our intellects and our perceptions are just too limited. Nonetheless, when we put our minds to together and consider each others point-of-views, we can get much closer to the Truth than we can on our own.
What makes What do you expect from the Bible? a great post? Check out that first comment written by Little Monk.
Thank you, Tom. Don just writes so well, when I finish one of his posts, it almost always takes me somewhere new in prayer or in Him that I just haven’t seen before… and prompts response. Grace — LM
Couldn’t agree more, Tom, thanks both to you and LM!
Reblogged this on Dead Citizen's Rights Society.
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Reblogged this on cathyjodc and commented:
Very well done…..
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Excellent! And many thanks for your support.
Thanks!
It takes a really inquiring mind to make sense of the bible…and yes you can find anything you want in it…but for me…when i read something in it….i want to find my own meanings and not those i have been taught….and believe me there is sooooo much more to the bible than one would think…and thanks for wanting to follow my thinking….
Truly said, thanks
Thanks for your LIKE. I think I’ll tell you something funny I read yesterday. It was in a review of a book written by Bible critics. One of them thought that religious people should not do biblical criticism because they were too biased.
Now that one IS funny!