Atom“Where does the Bible come from?”
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. Luke 1:1-4
Intro video clip
The Christian faith in many ways seems to be about holding things in tension. As Dr. Lose said, when we talk about the Bible we talk about it as God’s book – from which we receive God’s hopes, plans, intentions for God’s world – and also as a human book – written by human authors, living in time and space. God’s book and a human book at the same time. Of course this isn’t even the greatest mystery that we hold in tension. That mystery is the mystery of Jesus: fully God and fully human.
Martin Luther in his explanation of the Apostles’ Creed wrote this about Jesus:
“I believe that Jesus Christ – true God, son of the Father from eternity, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary – is my Lord.”
Dr. Ralph Quere, our theology professor in seminary taught us that when Lutherans ask the question, “Is Jesus God or human?” they answer, “Yes!” Jesus is 100% human and 100% divine. Now, I’m no math genius, but I’m pretty sure that adds up to 200% which, of course, makes no logical sense! Yet it is something we receive by faith. It is a tension we hold as believers: Jesus lived a fully human life among us – ate, drank, cried, laughed, felt pain and joy, and died a human death – yet in his resurrection we see that he is also fully God.
Today, as we continue our sermon series entitled, “Making Sense of Scripture,” we acknowledge that we also live by faith when it comes to the Bible. When we ask, (slide 4) “Where did the Bible come from?” we’re really asking the deeper question, “Does the Bible come from God or from humans?”
Lutherans have historically answered that question, “yes!” But let’s make sure we’re clear about what that means. When some Christians say that the Bible is from God, they mean that God wrote it word for word, that God dictated the exact words of the Bible to human beings to write down, and therefore the Bible, word for word, is “inerrant,” or “without error.” “Inerrant” is usually taken to mean that everything the Bible says not only about faith and life, but also about science and history is factually accurate – not only for its historical time, but also for our time.
But that’s not what most Lutheran Christians – and most Christians period – mean when we claim that the Bible is from God. In fact, you might remember from last week, that Martin Luther said that the Bible is like the manger that held the baby Jesus. It may have a few crooked nails and be made of rough hewn boards because it is written by real people living in a real place with values and science particular to their time and place, but what really matters is that it holds the perfect Christ. Lutheran Christians completely affirm that the Holy Spirit was involved in the writing of the Bible.
“…from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching…” 2 Timothy 3:16
The Bible is “holy” because God uses the words of the Bible to accomplish God’s holy or divine purposes. In particular, we believe that this book points us to Jesus, the Lord and Savior of all creation. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible points us to Jesus. That’s what Lutherans traditionally mean when we say that the Bible is God’s book and is “holy other” – wholly different from any other book.
But again, we Lutherans acknowledge that the Bible is also a human book. (slide 9) The Bible is the gathered writings of ordinary people just like you and me who were so gripped by their experience of God that they had to share it with others. These faithful people throughout the ages – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi, Matthew, John, Paul, Peter and James – desperately wanted others to know and experience what they had discovered: that God is awesome, that God’s love is big enough for the whole of creation, that God has a plan for the world, that God is active and alive everywhere and that we are all invited to join in God’s mission for the world.
So…the Bible is a human book in the sense that it is the faithful confession of ordinary people of their extraordinary experience of an awesome God. And the Bible is a holy divine book because God, throughout the ages, has inspired the words of these people and used their confessions of faith to draw people to God’s heart, to birth faith in people, to transform their lives and to empower them for worship and service in the world. Divine and human…Yes! That’s what the Bible is. And that’s how the Bible comes to us.
We see all of this beautifully illustrated in today’s Scripture reading. Let’s first look at what this reading reveals about the very human side of the Bible.
Though the third book of the New Testament never says who the author is, it has long been attributed to a man named Luke. (slide 10) Luke is a physician, a Greek and a gentile – meaning a non-Jewish convert to the faith. He is not an eyewitness to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Instead, Luke is a believer because he must have heard the stories about Jesus from others.
To connect with what we talked about last week, Luke didn’t just hear the events of Jesus’ life and death. Whoever told Luke the story of Jesus didn’t just say, “Yeah, there was this guy named Jesus, a carpenter’s kid. Nice guy. Really good teacher. Got pretty popular with the crowds. Too popular for the Romans. They nailed him up on a cross.” No, whoever told Luke the story of Jesus not only shared the events of Jesus’ life, but also the meaning. Whoever told Luke the story of Jesus gave witness to their faith that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the living God who ushered in the new Kingdom of God, freeing all creation from the power of sin and death. And as God so often does, God used that confession of faith to create faith in Dr. Luke. The story of Jesus drew Luke in to God’s heart and connected him to what God is up to in the world. It changed Luke’s life.
As so often happens when someone’s life is changed by the gospel, they just can’t help but want to share the good news with others. And that’s just what Luke does. Luke has a friend named Theophilus. It seems that Theophilus had heard about Jesus, but he either doesn’t have the full story or is struggling with doubts. And so Luke takes it upon himself to write Theophilus a long letter (slide 11) bearing witness to both the events and the meaning of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. That’s what we’re reading today.
So when we’re reading the Gospel of Luke, we’re actually reading someone’s private mail. I have no doubt that if Luke knew we were reading his letter today, and calling it sacred Scripture, he would be astonished!
That’s the human side of Luke’s Gospel. But there is also a divine side. It was God’s Spirit that pierced Luke’s heart (slide 12) with the good news about Jesus. It was God’s Spirit that moved Luke to want to share this good news with his friend Theophilus. It was, I believe, God’s Spirit that has preserved this letter for millions to read. And it is God’s Spirit that continues to create faith and transform and empower lives for faithful living through Luke’s confession and all of Scripture.
Now, you might find all of that just as fascinating as I do, or you may be wondering why any of that matters. What does it matter if we believe that the Bible is both a human and divine book? I believe it matters a great deal, and let me give you just three reasons why it matters to me.
First, this way of seeing the Bible encourages us to read the Bible not as an end to itself, but as the means to come to know and love God more. We don’t read the Bible so much like a textbook, but as part of a living conversation with a living God. We don’t read it to memorize facts, but to grow in relationship with our Lord. Put another way, as I said last week, we don’t worship the book. We worship the One to whom this book points. I can memorize the Bible and remain utterly unchanged. But I can also read it cover to cover every year and it’s never the same, because God speaks to me where I am at that moment and changes me.
Second, this way of understanding how the Bible comes to us helps me with some of the intellectual struggles I’ve had with the Bible. In order to be a faithful Christian, do I have to believe that the sun revolves around the earth as the ancient biblical writers believed? In order to be a faithful Christian, shall I not eat pork or shellfish since I am told in the Bible that eating these foods is an abomination to the Lord? (Mind you, it was a good idea in the OT world since much was not understood about the bacteria in meats that must be killed by thorough cooking.) In order to be a faithful Christian, must I follow the lead of the Bible and if my brother dies, marry his widow (and what would my own wife think of this)? For me, the answer is no, because I expect that these confessions of faith will come through the beliefs, values and cultures of those who wrote them, but that not all of those values and cultural beliefs will apply to us today.
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some absolutes that I hold onto, but those absolutes are not completely in the details – the science and society of 2,000 years before Jesus. They are in the much larger story of God’s love and God’s work in the world through Jesus and that story does not depend upon the truth of science and culture of its day to be true for me and you.
Finally, and this is the most exciting part, as Dr. Lose said at the beginning, it is in in paying attention to the details and different ways that the writers of the Bible tell their story – even where they do not agree with each other – that we find amazing truths – if we allow the biblical authors to tell God’s story each in their own way. For example…why does the gospel writer, John, tell the story of Jesus cleansing of the temple at the beginning of his ministry, while Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that it happened at the end, just before Jesus went to the cross?
Video Two – Dr. Lose
Friends, seeing the Bible as both from God and from humans gives me hope. If God can do such amazing things through the faith confessions of ordinary people, maybe God can use even my confession of faith and your confession of faith to accomplish God’s will in amazing ways. Maybe, when I share what God means to me, even in my incomplete knowledge of how God is at work in the world, the power of my words to impact the lives of others doesn’t lie in my story at all, but in the One to whom my story points. Maybe we’ll be as surprised as Luke at what God is able to do through our confession of faith.
Human and divine both – the Bible is an amazing book, not only because of how it came to us, but because of how God continues still to speak to us through it. So open it, dear friends. Read it. And let God speak to you through it.
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