God Speaks to Us!

The Bible is a window. Have you opened it lately?

Almost all American households have one or more Bibles. Yet more than half of the adults in these households do not read their Bibles during an average week, and only 10 or 15 percent do so daily.
“Americans revere the Bible—but, by and large, they don’t read it,” pollster George Gallup Jr. once observed. This seems to be borne out by what Americans know about the Bible. In one survey, only 42 percent of those interviewed could name five of the Ten Commandments. Only 46 percent correctly named the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It is likely that the statistics have gone down since those surveys were taken.
Of course, simple numbers are not important. What is important to know is how the Bible speaks to our lives. “Until people see the Bible as a practical guidebook for their everyday existence, it will probably continue to remain on the shelf,” says Christian trend-watcher George Barna.
So why should we read and study an ancient and (in the minds of many) hard-to-understand book? What could the Bible possibly say that is essential to daily life in the modern world?

For our time

Jack Kuhatschek, in his book Taking the Guesswork out of Applying the Bible, is quite frank about the Bible’s bad image—referring to its “age problem.”
He writes: “People wonder what benefit we can possibly derive from a two-thousand-year-old book written in an obscure corner of the Middle East. In a sense I can’t blame them. After all, much of the Bible does seem irrelevant today.”
To be sure, chapter after Bible chapter does seem outdated and irrelevant to our needs. For one thing, the Bible is a story of faraway people living in dim antiquity. It narrates the experiences of people like Noah, Moses and Paul, who lived many centuries ago. They faced problems and questions that don’t always seem directly related to our own.
Not only are the human experiences discussed in the Bible ancient, but the cultures, vocabulary and thought patterns are also dated. For example, the book of Revelation is written in what is called “apocalyptic” style. That is not a literary genre familiar to us modern folks, and it seems strange and confusing. This makes it difficult to understand the message of the book—and easy to misinterpret it.
But during the first century, apocalyptic writing was a well-known literary genre or type. The original Christian readers knew perfectly well this style of writing. They knew how to understand the message Revelation wanted to convey.

What’s our view?

We need to see the Bible’s books and literary styles on their terms. If we are to grasp the message of any biblical book, we need to hear the word of God coming from its pages in the same way the first readers heard it. We also need to understand the meaning of the story of the lives of a Noah, Moses or Paul, even as the first Christians did. After all, though our culture may be different, we have the same human concerns, needs and problems as they did.
God showed his nearness, his saving grace, and his purpose by confronting these individuals and involving himself in their lives. Their past encounters with God— when written down in what became the Christian Bible—make clear how God deals with us now.

This is the key to becoming motivated to study the Bible. We need to understand it as the book that reveals God and his way. So we should honestly and frankly ask ourselves about our view of the Bible. Do we see it as an oppressive rule book? An out-of-date and irrelevant ancient writing? Impossible to understand? Filled with boring history in the Old Testament and imponderable theology in the New?
Or do we see the Bible as a book that puts us in touch with God on a personal level? As a book that reveals God’s loving and gracious purpose for us?
In an important way, our view of the Bible depends on how we perceived our relationship with God. Do we see him as a distant God uninvolved with human affairs? Or do we see him as a living Being who has something important to tell us personally about himself and his purpose for us—and our future with him?
Here are three questions to ponder in our relationship to God and to the Bible:

• Do we believe God is interested in communicating himself and his message to human beings?
• Do we believe God revealed his purpose over many centuries through prophets (Old Testament) and apostles (New Testament)?
• Do we believe that they faithfully and accurately wrote down their revelations from God—and that their writings have been preserved in the book we call the Bible?

In his book Understanding the Bible, Christian teacher John R. W. Stott asks us: “Do we really believe that God has spoken, that God’s words are recorded in Scripture, and that as we read it we may hear God’s voice addressing us?” Do we really believe? That, of course, is the crux question. The apostle Paul, speaking of those books that form the Christian Old Testament, said they could make one “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15).
God’s word to us
Paul told his young associate Timothy: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the people of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (verses 16-17).
Peter insisted he had not followed “cleverly invented stories” when he told the church about God’s plan of salvation (2 Peter 1:16). He had been an eyewitness of Jesus’ work (as had the other original apostles) and had seen and talked with the resurrected Christ. Peter promised he would make every effort to provide for the preservation of those truths after his death. These would keep the church within the realm of faith and God’s grace (verse 15). Peter also spoke of Paul’s letters as Scripture. He said they were authoritative writings that conveyed the words of God about things vital to our salvation (2 Peter 3:15-16).
Do we agree that the Bible contains God’s word to us? If so, surely the Bible must matter a great deal as a book that can help us come to know God more intimately. How, then, could the Bible not be a book we would want to read and study on a regular basis? Have you read the Good Book lately?

Source:  http://www.gci.org/god/speaks