Are you Defending the Bible?
“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”
We just wrapped up a Bible conference at my church this past weekend and it was a blast. Tons of breakouts about the Bible and people showing genuine interest in discovering more about this book that has quite literally impacted every human on the planet.
It reminded me that there are few documents in our world that have truly changed history. There is another example, although to a much lesser degree, the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution is the most well-guarded document in our country.
As one of America’s founding documents, it reminds me of the Declaration of Independence from the movie, National Treasure! This piece of American culture and history is protected behind hermetically sealed bulletproof glass, it always has at least two armed guards and is watched night and day.
There is a story of how a reporter went and interviewed two of the guards. They asked them the typical questions you might expect,
“Do you take this job seriously?” “Oh yes, of course, we take it very seriously” and so on. But then the reporter asked them this question, “Have you ever read it?” And to their embarrassment, the guards looked at one another and realized that neither of them had actually taken the time to read it. They spent so much of their time around the document, guarding the document, defending it, and yet they had never actually read it.
The sad truth is that there are many Christians who treat their Bibles the same. Oh sure, they defend what they believe it says. They defend the book from all sorts of cultural attacks. They will even cherry-pick verses to use as tools to defend the book itself. Yet they don’t read it and apply it. They’re stuck playing defense for a Bible that doesn’t need it.
God did not call you to defend the Bible, he called you to apply it to your life. As followers of Jesus, we cannot get so caught up in defending the Bible, that we never read and obey the Bible. It is God’s word, not yours, it is powerful enough to stand on its own.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have reasonable explanations and research for why we trust this book, but it is not the main reason for our interactions with the Bible.
James puts it this way,
“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.“ - James 1:22-25 NIV
You know what’s the scariest part about that passage to me? It is possible to spend your whole life, reading and defending the Bible and yet still end up deceived. It's possible to attend church your entire life and still not get it. We can’t just listen to the Bible but we must also practice the Bible. We must allow God’s word to shape our lives. We must not simply defend the Bible but we must actually engage with the Bible. If you want to change someone’s view on the Bible, live it out and trust that the love, truth and grace with which you live will be evidence enough.
God’s word, the Bible, is the revelation of God himself to us. The Bible lets us know who all of creation is about, God. It is then that we must decide what to do with the message we have received. Do we just hear the message, or do we actually allow it to transform our lives? God’s word is transformational and can and will change your life. If you let it.
