12/8/57

Scripture: Read John 1: 1-14.

Each year’s church calendar finds the second Sunday of December marked as Universal Bible Sunday. I take it that a proper observance of the day can direct our attention toward a more understanding use of the Bible. We speak of it as the “Word of God,” and so it is --- not in some literal, word-for-word sense, but in the deeply significant sense that one discovers much of the purpose of the God of Truth, for us created people, in a study of Biblical accounts.

We speak of the Bible as “a book” -- sometimes as “the Book.” And so it is. We do well if we also think of it as a library of books -- at least 66 of them (39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament) with a great variety of subject matter and with considerable difference in value to our need. All of the books of the Book, however, bear witness to the search of man for his creator and the dealings of the Creator with his created people.

The Bible comes to us in our own language. It was not so written. It had to be translated from Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek. Indeed it has been translated into hundreds of languages and dialects. And each translation is partially dependent, for its understandability, upon the scholarship and wisdom and accuracy of the translators. The recent Revised Standard translation in the English language of our land is a marked contribution to the understanding of the American reader and student of the Bible. One hears very frequent expressions of appreciation that the Revised Standard Version has helped the reader, immeasurably, to comprehend the meaning of Scripture.

To be grasped, and made of part of one’s life outlook, the Bible must of course be read. It must be read not casually, nor in isolated sentences or paragraphs, but thoughtfully, in whole sections, and with some attention to the purpose and background of each book.

A man who has given a good deal of specialized study to the Bible, not only for his own understanding of it, but also for his ability to teach it to ministerial students, has written this couplet concerning the Bible:

To love it you must know it;

To know it you must love it.

This same writer has some interesting observations about peoples’ attitude toward the Bible. For there are some who appear to feel that it must be defended. There is much an expression: “Set for the defense of the Scriptures.” It suggests a frame of mind comparable to that which used to add to the titles of a monarch, the title worded: “Defender of the Faith.”

In a sense, the idea of being “Set for the defense of the Scriptures” betrays both fear and effrontery. The writings of the Bible have their own value and can stand, without fear of man, upon their merits. And they do not depend for survival upon the defense of any of us incomplete mortals who need to read them and absorb their meaning rather than spend our time “standing guard” over them. We need to read thoughtfully, inquiringly, analytically, open-mindedly, appreciatively.

There are those who give the impression that they believe that all necessary critical work on the Bible has been done in the past, and that now one must bend his attention to absorbing the Bible with integrated theological purpose. This is an alarming emphasis. For not only does God have yet more light to break upon man’s understanding out of His holy word, but man has yet more to learn about the nature and content of the Bible. The recent discovery of those ancient scrolls in caves near the Dead Sea will, properly interpreted, shed a great deal of light that is new to us upon the Scriptures as we thus far know them.

To the objective historian, it is not acceptable to say of something found in the Bible, “Of course this does not seem reasonable to you. You must accept it on faith. Then, having done so, you will find the faith becoming a fact.” To the historian, one is not compelled to assent to what appears to him unreasonable. But he continues his search for reasons, and for accuracy, and for workable interpretations.

If there are some truths in the Gospel of Mark that are hidden from the understanding of man, the truths are not of man’s hiding, but of God’s, in the expectation that man, the reader, will endeavor to discover them, and to discover God. Man may be not much of a thinker, but at least he must be an active explorer.

There are some who hold that we must wait patiently until God deigns to reveal Himself to us. It sounds reverent, and it has some grains of wisdom in it. But man must also be an active searcher. There have been those in both political and ecclesiastical history who say to most people, “Yours not to question why, yours but to do or die.” It is the statement of a dictator. And it is unacceptable to liberty-loving folk, whether one finds it in the political capitals of the world or in the ecclesiastical capital of a monolithic church. The words of the early American statesman, Thomas Jefferson, “I have sworn upon the altar of God hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man” are admirable. And they are as applicable to the mind of man seeking to understand his Bible as they are to the mind of man looking toward his political freedom. It may be said that there are two significant ways of regarding the Bible which are directly opposed to each other.

1) One sees the Bible as the entire, and altogether completed, revelation of God. In this view, God has revealed His whole and entire will. Everything that people are to do and believe, God has revealed to them. The way men are to worship, the notions they hold about the Creator and the creation, the moral conduct of man, the relations of person with person -- all these have been revealed, and are man’s for the knowing. The Bible may appear to be 66 books, but it is actually only one book, written by one divine author, God. The so-called “authors” are that by courtesy only. There can be no errors, no contradictions, no omissions. For God has ultimately spoken His entire will to every man in every age. All man has to do is to learn it.

The prophet is not like a teacher who tries to lead forth and persuade. The prophet is the herald who announces. No argument is necessary or proper. The hearers are simply to accept what is proclaimed. What is proclaimed is good simply because God said it. It is not that God said it because it was good! Probably Paul leaned somewhat in this direction. He was willing to condemn anyone who did not stand to the line which he had advocated. When addressing the Galations, Paul wrote: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so I say now again, if any preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which ye received, let him be anathema.” [Galatians 1: 8-9]. Paul was inclined to view opposition viewpoints not as opposition to Paul, but as defiance to God.

If those who hold to the view that the Bible is the full and completed revelation of the will of God for mankind will be consistent, they will hardly have need for other books, be they dictionaries or cook books, theological treatises or ethics texts. After a prayer for guidance, all one would have to do is open the Bible to the proper page and read the answer.

2) The other way to read the Bible is very different. In this view, the Bible is not God’s complete revelation. Many subjects are not hinted at, directly or indirectly. The Bible is a library of many books, written over a period of a thousand years by men who were not automatic Dictaphones, but authors. It contains errors and contradictions even in the earliest texts available to present-day scholars. And these contradictions are not incorporated into the text just to “test the faith of the believer.” There are two accounts of the flood, differing in detail. Could both be correct? In one account, the waters prevailed for 150 days, then gradually decreased, remaining on the earth for apparently one year and 11 days. In the other account the waters increased for 40 days and 40 nights; then after 21 days more they disappeared. In one account, one pair of each kind of animal was taken into the ark; [Genesis 6: 19]; in the other account one pair of unclean animals but seven pairs of clean. [Genesis 7: 2].

When Matthew quotes, “And they took the 30 pieces of silver” as spoken “through Jeremiah the prophet,” he slipped up. [Matthew 27: 9-10]. It was not Jeremiah, but Zechariah who said it. [Zechariah 11: 12,13]. In the accounts of Mark and Luke, the baptism of Jesus is attended by the announcement of the Holy Spirit: “Thou art my beloved son, in thee I am well pleased.” But Matthew recounts, “This is my beloved son, in whom “ ... and so on. [Matthew 3: 17].

In the New Testament accounts of the birth of Jesus, Matthew tells of the coming of wise men to Bethlehem; of their returning home by a different route so that they will not have to report to Herod; of Herod’s wrath and the cold-blooded murder to all babes in Bethlehem; of the flight of Joseph and Mary and the child southward into Egypt where they stayed until the danger was over with the death of Herod. [Matthew 2: 1-15]. Luke tells of the coming of shepherds to Bethlehem; of the normal procedures of the couple where a new son was born to a Hebrew home, circumcision and formal naming on the eighth day; presentation of the child in the temple at Jerusalem; and then return of the family north to their home in Nazareth of the province of Galilee. [Luke 2: 8-39].

Mark, Matthew and John seem to concur in the view that the resurrected Jesus appeared to his disciples in Galilee. Luke explicitly asserts that the same disciples remained in Jerusalem as they were commanded to do and obediently did. These contradictions and occasional errors are not to be interpreted as made to intrigue or to goad men into making spiritual discoveries. They are not mysteries to test peoples’ faith. They are the same understandable things that appear in the reporting of many sincere people. No author is completely free of them.

The Bible is of profoundest value as it reveals people striving to meet life’s problems and demands, as it reveals their successes and failures, their blind spots and their insights. In this quest, they made, again and again, discoveries of the profoundest and most lasting value to us and to succeeding generations of people. And these discoveries are values; not ready-made answers for our perplexities. The Bible is useless in solving a cubic equation, or in discovering when the next train leaves for Denver. The Bible is priceless for incentive to meet our problems as honestly and courageously as did many of those about whom it speaks.

The way for a man to treat a woman is not necessarily best defined by St. Paul. Paul was somewhat of the school that believes it knows the place of women; that it is subservient to that of men, and that women ought to stay in that place.

The man who chooses to look at the Bible in this second way, as a library of books, written by many authors over a long period of time, will hardly find it acceptable to be told that a thing is so “because the Bible says so.” For the Bible says many things. He will not be inclined, after he has asked the question, “Why?” to accept the answer “because God says so.” For he will still want to know how the answerer knows that “God says so.” It is astonishing that so much of what God says has been said through human brains and human mouths and human-wielded pens.

When one holds this second view of the Bible, he finds, again and again, that the ancient stories floodlight the path which he himself needs to have illumined. Insights come to him from the past. He does not try to force the Bible to sponsor his own views. He states his case with frankness, and lets the light of antiquity fall upon it for confirmation or revision. He believes that the mind of the good God of things-as-they-are is too vast to be confined between the covers of a book, even so comprehensive a book as the Bible. He believes that God is still revealing Himself today as he did in the times when the Bible was written and as He has done before and since.

He will recognize that some of the “righteousness” of men revealed in some parts of the Bible is a fearfully vengeful and bloody righteousness, as seen for instance in the latter part of the book of Esther. But he just as easily recognizes the strong, compassionate, sacrificial righteousness of Jesus and, in a measure, of some of the Master’s followers.

He is convinced of the value of continuous research on the Bible by those competent to do the scholarly work required. And he is quite unconcerned that any real discovery of truth may destroy the Bible, for he expects it to stand on its own matchless merit. He knows that what Paul thought, in views that may have been admirable in Corinth AD 55, is not necessarily exactly applicable to Chicago or Milwaukee, AD 1957.

He may read the stories of the birth of Jesus, as recounted by at least two different writers, with some questions in his mind about the viewpoints of the authors, where they got their material, to whom were they writing, and for what purpose. But he can read those stories with a poet’s understanding of their beauty, and with a disciple’s rejoicing at the coming of One whose attitude, teaching and life have all made so profound a change upon mortal existence, including his own.

A lot of the things associated in our minds with Jesus are things which are said about him. It seems to me that the basic message of the Bible, so far as its teaching of Jesus is concerned, is that there came to earth in his person one who revealed to all mankind that “the kingdom of God is within you.” That kingdom, the good life, is not something that exists only in some other world, at some future time, in a vacuum of perfection. But it is here in this world, potential in our lives, actual in the presence of pain and evil and set over against them. It is not something for which we patiently await, but something which we are to work at here and now so long as we have the breath of mortal existence. We work at it in light of the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the illumination of a Holy Spirit; in the light of history, in view of the errors and insights of experience. And while working, we look to the Bible as a source book of understanding.

This Advent and approaching Christmas ought not to be merely an emotional joy. It can be a reminder of one whose life sets upon us a finer standard of effort and achievement than anything we have yet tried. Let us open our hearts and lay hold upon it, so that we may live during all of the following year as better people.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, December 8, 1957.

Also in Wisconsin Rapids, December 8, 1963.