What Can We Believe about the Bible?
Sermon
What Can We Believe?
Second Lesson Cycle A Proper 23 through Thanksgiving
Object:
The words that you have just heard read in our epistle lesson for today are probably the first words that were ever written that became parts of the New Testament. Bible scholars tell us that Paul wrote this letter to the Christians at Thessalonica about twenty years after the death and resurrection of Christ and about twenty years before the Gospel According to Mark was written to collect and preserve the early church's memories of the life of Jesus. This passage can tell us a lot about the Bible as a whole.
The Bible is very important to Christians. It is the source book of our faith. There was a time when Christians reverenced the Bible and studied it as if every single word of it came directly from God. Today, many of us are not sure we can take the Bible that literally. Yet, it is still very important to us. Many of us want to ask, "What can we really believe about the Bible?" Let's explore this first chapter of the letter to the Thessalonians. It will be surprising how much we can learn about the Bible from this one brief passage.
This first chapter is basically the kind of address and greeting that was traditional in personal letters in those days. But Paul enlarged the traditional address. In doing that, he told us many things that we want to know.
The first thing we discover is that when Paul wrote these words, he had no idea he was writing part of the Bible. He was writing a personal letter to some friends who were part of a church Paul and his friends Timothy and Silvanus had helped to bring into being during their missionary work.
He was writing on his own behalf and on the behalf of his coworkers to encourage the church and to renew their witness to the good news of God's love.
We can learn two important things from that. The Bible is a product of the life of the early church. First came the Christ event, God reaching out through Jesus Christ to save. Then came the church, a community of people who had received the good news, accepted God's saving grace, and committed themselves to the purpose of God. Then came the Bible. The New Testament grew up in and through the life of the church over a period of more than 100 years. It was eventually put together in its present form to enable the church to stay in touch with the origin of its faith. Eventually, it came to be regarded as scripture, just like the Hebrew scriptures that were the Bible for the earliest believers.
We can also learn the purpose of Paul's writing. He wrote to make a witness to the saving work of God in Jesus Christ. In fact, all of the writings that were eventually incorporated into both the Old Testament and the New, were written by people who were making their own witness to God. They were all telling what they had learned through their own unique experiences with God.
Were the writings inspired? Indeed they were. In our text, Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit, the presence of the living God, was at work with him and with the church as they grew in their faith. That doesn't mean God dictated the words of the text and Paul wrote them down like a secretary. It means the living God was at work with Paul and with the other Bible writers, and with the members of the early church, and they wrote to tell what they had learned from their interactions with God.
Are any of Paul's human limitations reflected in the Bible? Yes. Paul and the others shared what they had discovered about God as best they could in terms of their own human understanding of reality. In the next chapter, Paul is going to share some personal concerns that he probably would have left out if he had known that he was writing part of the Bible. But that's all right. It simply shows us that the Christian faith is rooted in real human life just like our own. A little later in our study of 1 Thessalonians, we are going to discover that when Paul wrote this book, he was still expecting Jesus would return and bring in the kingdom of God within the next few years. That didn't happen. But that's all right. It simply helps us to know that our understanding of the saving work of God has to keep on growing like Paul's did.
The important thing is still there. The Bible writers had experienced the reality of God and they were writing to tell about it. The Holy Spirit was at work in their lives and in their witness.
In these verses, Paul also says something else that is often overlooked. He says to the Thessalonians, "... you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit" (v. 6). Those who receive the word should be open to the work of the Holy Spirit. That means we ought to be open to the work of the Holy Spirit as we read the biblical witnesses. That doesn't have to mean anything spooky. It simply means that when we read the Bible, we should do so remembering the God about whom the Bible writers wrote is still God, and the biblical witnesses can lead us into our own personal relationships with the living God. That is really what the Bible is for.
This brief introduction to Paul's letter actually includes an amazing amount of Paul's own understanding of the Christian faith. Let's look at some of the things he said.
He starts with the greeting, "To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 1). For Paul, God, the God who was present in Jesus Christ and with whom Jesus Christ is present now, is the very context of our existence. It is a little misleading to think of them being "in heaven" as we traditionally have. Now, in this space age, we know we cannot think of heaven as a place on the other side of the sky. God and the Lord Jesus Christ are with us everywhere. They are present with us wherever we are. They come to meet us in our daily interactions with life.
Then Paul gives a traditional greeting, "Grace to you and peace" (v. 1). The concept of grace is the pivotal center of Paul's understanding of God's way of relating to us. Grace means the freely given love of God for us. It is through the working of God's love in our world and in our lives that we have hope of salvation, both in this world and beyond it. Peace is the kind of wholeness that God can bring into our lives through his grace.
Next, Paul says something that is a summary of his understanding of the way in which we should respond to God's freely given love. He says he remembers before God in prayer the Thessalonian's works of faith, labors of love, and steadfastness in hope in our Lord Jesus. Later, Paul will end his very special chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13:13, by saying, "Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is love."
Faith is basic trust. It is taking God's love in and letting it shape your life. It is learning to relate to both God and life on the basis of trust. In the letter to the Ephesians (2:8), there is a summary of Paul's gospel that says, "... By grace you have been saved through faith."
Love is the shape of the life to which God wants to save us. Love is a joyful commitment of life to life. In its most mature form, it is a joyful commitment to the life and well being of self, of God, and of all that God loves.
Hope is the kind of expectancy that comes from knowing God is at work in our world and in our lives. It keeps us always open to life.
It is interesting that Paul has hidden in this earliest writing the answer to a dispute that would arise in the church much later, probably after Paul had died. Late in the history of the church, some people came to believe that salvation by faith means we are saved by being religious or by making a profession of faith. The epistle of James challenged that idea by saying, "Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith" (James 2:18). Paul would have agreed completely. When he spoke of faith, Paul was not talking about formal religion. He was talking about a whole way of living in relationship with God and with life, something that will shape a person's life and works. In these earliest verses, Paul spoke of "works of faith and labors of love."
Here we have a summary of Paul's witness to the saving work of God. There are other witnesses in the Bible. Paul speaks of "grace" and "faith." The writers of the Hebrew scriptures spoke of God working in history to save the people, or of God making a covenant, or of God demanding justice. In the New Testament, we will hear Matthew making his witness by talking about "the kingdom of God" and John making his by talking about "eternal life." Other Bible writers make their own unique witnesses to the saving work of God as they experienced it. What is this? Are there conflicts in the Bible? Not important ones. We have different witnesses telling about their own unique experiences with God in their own special ways. It is as if each of the biblical witnesses is describing a mountain from a different point of view so that we can get the whole picture. The reality they are describing is not something inert like a mountain. It is something alive and in interaction with the people who make their witness. All together, they show us how many possibilities there are for us when we enter into a personal relationship with the living God.
That brings us to one last thing that our chapter tells us about the Bible... its purpose. The Bible is not given to us to give us information, even though we have been mining it for information and digging out a lot of it. It is not meant to just answer puzzling questions about theology, let alone about history or science. It is given to us to lead us into a personal relationship with God that will change our lives and make us agents of God to change the world. Paul makes it clear that is what was happening in and among the Christians at Thessalonica.
Once a very intelligent and very cynical young college student by the name of Anthony Bloom was persuaded by the leaders of his youth organization to go to a meeting at which a certain minister was to be the speaker. He didn't want to go. He was finally persuaded that he should go because they didn't want to be embarrassed by a small turn out to hear a guest speaker. The minister's presentation did nothing to improve Anthony's opinion. In fact, his impression was so repulsive that he decided to get a Bible and read one of the gospels just to convince himself once and for all that there is nothing to the Christian faith. He chose Mark because it is the shortest of the gospels. The results were not what he expected. He said he had no sooner begun to read than he became aware of a presence standing there just beyond his reading table. He said, "... the certainty was so strong that it was Christ standing there that it has never left me."1 He became a Christian and a leader in his church. Eventually, he became an Archbishop of the Orthodox church and one who led many others into vital relationships with God. That can happen. The Bible was given to us to help us discover God in our lives and in our world. That can make a big difference.
What can we believe about the Bible? It is the collection of the witnesses of the members of the community of faith to their interactions with the living God. It is given to us to lead us into our own interaction with God. And that can lead us to the life that really is life. Amen.
__________
1. Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray (New York: Paulist Press, 1970), pp. 9-10.
The Bible is very important to Christians. It is the source book of our faith. There was a time when Christians reverenced the Bible and studied it as if every single word of it came directly from God. Today, many of us are not sure we can take the Bible that literally. Yet, it is still very important to us. Many of us want to ask, "What can we really believe about the Bible?" Let's explore this first chapter of the letter to the Thessalonians. It will be surprising how much we can learn about the Bible from this one brief passage.
This first chapter is basically the kind of address and greeting that was traditional in personal letters in those days. But Paul enlarged the traditional address. In doing that, he told us many things that we want to know.
The first thing we discover is that when Paul wrote these words, he had no idea he was writing part of the Bible. He was writing a personal letter to some friends who were part of a church Paul and his friends Timothy and Silvanus had helped to bring into being during their missionary work.
He was writing on his own behalf and on the behalf of his coworkers to encourage the church and to renew their witness to the good news of God's love.
We can learn two important things from that. The Bible is a product of the life of the early church. First came the Christ event, God reaching out through Jesus Christ to save. Then came the church, a community of people who had received the good news, accepted God's saving grace, and committed themselves to the purpose of God. Then came the Bible. The New Testament grew up in and through the life of the church over a period of more than 100 years. It was eventually put together in its present form to enable the church to stay in touch with the origin of its faith. Eventually, it came to be regarded as scripture, just like the Hebrew scriptures that were the Bible for the earliest believers.
We can also learn the purpose of Paul's writing. He wrote to make a witness to the saving work of God in Jesus Christ. In fact, all of the writings that were eventually incorporated into both the Old Testament and the New, were written by people who were making their own witness to God. They were all telling what they had learned through their own unique experiences with God.
Were the writings inspired? Indeed they were. In our text, Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit, the presence of the living God, was at work with him and with the church as they grew in their faith. That doesn't mean God dictated the words of the text and Paul wrote them down like a secretary. It means the living God was at work with Paul and with the other Bible writers, and with the members of the early church, and they wrote to tell what they had learned from their interactions with God.
Are any of Paul's human limitations reflected in the Bible? Yes. Paul and the others shared what they had discovered about God as best they could in terms of their own human understanding of reality. In the next chapter, Paul is going to share some personal concerns that he probably would have left out if he had known that he was writing part of the Bible. But that's all right. It simply shows us that the Christian faith is rooted in real human life just like our own. A little later in our study of 1 Thessalonians, we are going to discover that when Paul wrote this book, he was still expecting Jesus would return and bring in the kingdom of God within the next few years. That didn't happen. But that's all right. It simply helps us to know that our understanding of the saving work of God has to keep on growing like Paul's did.
The important thing is still there. The Bible writers had experienced the reality of God and they were writing to tell about it. The Holy Spirit was at work in their lives and in their witness.
In these verses, Paul also says something else that is often overlooked. He says to the Thessalonians, "... you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit" (v. 6). Those who receive the word should be open to the work of the Holy Spirit. That means we ought to be open to the work of the Holy Spirit as we read the biblical witnesses. That doesn't have to mean anything spooky. It simply means that when we read the Bible, we should do so remembering the God about whom the Bible writers wrote is still God, and the biblical witnesses can lead us into our own personal relationships with the living God. That is really what the Bible is for.
This brief introduction to Paul's letter actually includes an amazing amount of Paul's own understanding of the Christian faith. Let's look at some of the things he said.
He starts with the greeting, "To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 1). For Paul, God, the God who was present in Jesus Christ and with whom Jesus Christ is present now, is the very context of our existence. It is a little misleading to think of them being "in heaven" as we traditionally have. Now, in this space age, we know we cannot think of heaven as a place on the other side of the sky. God and the Lord Jesus Christ are with us everywhere. They are present with us wherever we are. They come to meet us in our daily interactions with life.
Then Paul gives a traditional greeting, "Grace to you and peace" (v. 1). The concept of grace is the pivotal center of Paul's understanding of God's way of relating to us. Grace means the freely given love of God for us. It is through the working of God's love in our world and in our lives that we have hope of salvation, both in this world and beyond it. Peace is the kind of wholeness that God can bring into our lives through his grace.
Next, Paul says something that is a summary of his understanding of the way in which we should respond to God's freely given love. He says he remembers before God in prayer the Thessalonian's works of faith, labors of love, and steadfastness in hope in our Lord Jesus. Later, Paul will end his very special chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13:13, by saying, "Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is love."
Faith is basic trust. It is taking God's love in and letting it shape your life. It is learning to relate to both God and life on the basis of trust. In the letter to the Ephesians (2:8), there is a summary of Paul's gospel that says, "... By grace you have been saved through faith."
Love is the shape of the life to which God wants to save us. Love is a joyful commitment of life to life. In its most mature form, it is a joyful commitment to the life and well being of self, of God, and of all that God loves.
Hope is the kind of expectancy that comes from knowing God is at work in our world and in our lives. It keeps us always open to life.
It is interesting that Paul has hidden in this earliest writing the answer to a dispute that would arise in the church much later, probably after Paul had died. Late in the history of the church, some people came to believe that salvation by faith means we are saved by being religious or by making a profession of faith. The epistle of James challenged that idea by saying, "Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith" (James 2:18). Paul would have agreed completely. When he spoke of faith, Paul was not talking about formal religion. He was talking about a whole way of living in relationship with God and with life, something that will shape a person's life and works. In these earliest verses, Paul spoke of "works of faith and labors of love."
Here we have a summary of Paul's witness to the saving work of God. There are other witnesses in the Bible. Paul speaks of "grace" and "faith." The writers of the Hebrew scriptures spoke of God working in history to save the people, or of God making a covenant, or of God demanding justice. In the New Testament, we will hear Matthew making his witness by talking about "the kingdom of God" and John making his by talking about "eternal life." Other Bible writers make their own unique witnesses to the saving work of God as they experienced it. What is this? Are there conflicts in the Bible? Not important ones. We have different witnesses telling about their own unique experiences with God in their own special ways. It is as if each of the biblical witnesses is describing a mountain from a different point of view so that we can get the whole picture. The reality they are describing is not something inert like a mountain. It is something alive and in interaction with the people who make their witness. All together, they show us how many possibilities there are for us when we enter into a personal relationship with the living God.
That brings us to one last thing that our chapter tells us about the Bible... its purpose. The Bible is not given to us to give us information, even though we have been mining it for information and digging out a lot of it. It is not meant to just answer puzzling questions about theology, let alone about history or science. It is given to us to lead us into a personal relationship with God that will change our lives and make us agents of God to change the world. Paul makes it clear that is what was happening in and among the Christians at Thessalonica.
Once a very intelligent and very cynical young college student by the name of Anthony Bloom was persuaded by the leaders of his youth organization to go to a meeting at which a certain minister was to be the speaker. He didn't want to go. He was finally persuaded that he should go because they didn't want to be embarrassed by a small turn out to hear a guest speaker. The minister's presentation did nothing to improve Anthony's opinion. In fact, his impression was so repulsive that he decided to get a Bible and read one of the gospels just to convince himself once and for all that there is nothing to the Christian faith. He chose Mark because it is the shortest of the gospels. The results were not what he expected. He said he had no sooner begun to read than he became aware of a presence standing there just beyond his reading table. He said, "... the certainty was so strong that it was Christ standing there that it has never left me."1 He became a Christian and a leader in his church. Eventually, he became an Archbishop of the Orthodox church and one who led many others into vital relationships with God. That can happen. The Bible was given to us to help us discover God in our lives and in our world. That can make a big difference.
What can we believe about the Bible? It is the collection of the witnesses of the members of the community of faith to their interactions with the living God. It is given to us to lead us into our own interaction with God. And that can lead us to the life that really is life. Amen.
__________
1. Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray (New York: Paulist Press, 1970), pp. 9-10.
