Wednesday, June 7, 2023
“There’s nothing
like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith
in Christ Jesus. Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or
another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes,
training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped
up for the tasks God has for us.” (2 Timothy 3: 15 -17, The Message Bible)
Case in point. Recently, I
bought a small, cheap, charcoal BBQ at Canadian Tire. But, of course, it had to
be assembled. It came with an instruction guide on how to do so. Now I am not a
stereo-typical male who thinks it is unmanly to use instructions. But I am impatient
at trying to figure the instructions out. I get easily frustrated when the illustrations
are hard to follow. Or I can’t find the right tools. This small, table-top BBQ
came with very tiny screws and nuts. It was hard for my arthritic hands to hold
them for fastening. I dropped them several times. Lost a screw. (No comment,
please.) Eventually, though, I did mange to put together a workable, serviceable
BBQ.
Some say life doesn’t come with an
instruction manual. To a degree, they are right. Some assembly is required if
one is to live a well put-together life. There may be moral guidelines,
mentors, teachers, philosophies of life, theories and recommendations as we
grow and mature, but sometimes it seems that life is a DYI project and we are
on our own. It can be hard to follow the few, confusing directions that are there for us. Sometimes,
we drop or lose the needed part for a successful assembly. Maybe, we feel that we
don’t have the right tools, the right stuff, to get it together. The path seems clear, we know what we need to
do, but somehow our life doesn’t look as good as the picture on the box. Our clumsiness
mitigates our success. We settle for workable and serviceable.
Not always, of course, but
sometimes.
Paul reminds us that Scriptures
are our instruction manual, “training us to live God’s way.” But that doesn’t make it easy or simple. For some,
it is like trying to read the instructions in a foreign language. Paul understood
that it was hard to live up to the letter of the Law. “The obvious
impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no
one can sustain a relationship with God that way… Rule-keeping does not
naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and
more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: ‘The one who does these things
[rule-keeping] continues to live by them.’” (Galatians 3: 11 -12, TMB)
Paul was very passionate about
scriptures and the good they could do but our scripture reading always needs to
be translated through the message of Jesus Christ. “I am the Truth,” Jesus said (John 14:6) It is the Spirit of God
and therefore Christ, who instructs us how to understand what we are reading in
scripture. “But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take
you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won’t draw
attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and,
indeed, out of all that I have done and said. He will honor me; he will take from
me and deliver it to you.” (John 16: 12 -15, TMB)
Scriptures are a wonderful guide
for life and we need to read them with the eyes of Jesus if we are to get the
most out of the words. This is to say that our understanding of scripture is shaped
by the Love of God as incarnated in Jesus Christ. We live out the wisdom of
scriptures by following the example of Jesus Christ. Scriptures support our
Life in Christ. They can be challenging, inspiring, corrective, educational,
remedial, aspiring, and comforting. They lead us to a better life. When we read something like the Sermon on the
Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, we are given clear, uncompromising principles which
Jesus himself has laid out for us. Through
our living by these standards, we are living in the Word made flesh.
“Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.” (Psalm 119: 105, NLT)
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