JOB! WHY?

I’ve read the book of Job repeatedly, in  multiple translations.  I’ve studied commentaries on it.  I made my iPad and my phone read it to me.  I’ve preached on parts of it, but…I could never see a satisfactory reason for God doing Job like He did him. 

Yeah, I know all the super-pious clichés about “mysterious ways” and what’s “not for us to know,” but why, I’d always wondered, would God deliver a 42 chapter story with more dialogue than the gospels (which contain Jesus’ dialogue) if the moral of the story was, “None of your business”?   That’s a loooot of space for “None of your business.”

But this week in Sunday School at Miles Chapel CME Church, the Holy Spirit showed us.  It’s the difference between CONFESSION and REPENTANCE.

In the final chapter, after God had just verbally spanked Job, the Lord turned to the head of the little delegation of friends who’d been arguing with Job since chapter 4.

The Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends  (Job 42: 7)

Class, how many friends came to visit Job?

The answer is 4.

Four.

Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar came over while Job was depressed and self-cutting in a pile of burned trash.  But somehere around chapter 32, a guy named Elihu showed up.  He was late, but he was young. (Now, kids, being young is no excuse for lack of punctuality.) 

Elihu thought of Job and the other 3 guys as mentors (Job 32: 6, 7), but he was seriously disappointed that none of his role models had given a satisfactory answer to Job or gotten one out of him (Job 32: 3).  In Elihu’s eyes, the 3 other dudes had condemned Job without a conviction.  And so Elihu went off on Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, but mainly Job----- for 5 chapters straight.

Job never replied to Elihu.  He didn’t get the chance, because the next voice we hear after Elihu’s argument is God ripping Job a new one in chapter 37.

Oh, here’s the thing.  Remember, God rebuked the THREE friends because their theology was wrong.   The Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right (Job 42: 7)  Chapters 37-41 was God rebuking Job for coming at Him wrong.  But God just let Elihu-------- go.

Because Elihu WAS RIGHT.

Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar assumed that Job must have done some wrong thing for God to send the tsunami of tragedy that had washed over his life. So, they argued and argued trying to verbally beat a confession out of Job.  A CONFESSION. 

They wanted Job to name the sin he had committed.  

But Job had not done any thing wrong.  He had no sins to confess.  God Himself called Job a blameless man like none on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil (Job 1: 8)

Whatever you and I may speculate Job used to be, by the time his book started, Job was living right.    

Period.  Nope.  That’s what the Book says.

Job didn’t need to confess.  The 3 musketeers were wrong.

Elihu was the only one of the 4 friends to say the right thing about God. Elihu said: For God is greater than man. (Job 33: 12)

Moreover Elihu answered and said: “Do you think this is right? Do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s’?  (Job 35: 1,2,)

Elihu didn’t accuse Job of incurring God’s wrath for doing some wrong thing.  Elihu simply said that compared to God, Job wasn’t righteous.   Elihu argued that regardless of whether Job had or had not committed an explicit sin according to the pre-Mosaic law, Job had developed a seriously over-inflated sense of his own goodness.

If you sin, what do you accomplish against God? Or, if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to Him? If you are righteous, what do you give Him? Or what does He receive from your hand?  (Job 35: 6-7)

I’ll concede that Elihu was kinda iffy about whether Job really was as sin-free as he insisted. 

Take heed, do not turn to iniquity, For you have chosen this rather than affliction. (Job 36: 21)

But that was after Job had basically said that it didn’t matter whether he was good or bad since God was gonna hurt him anyway (Job 10: 15).

Job’s problem wasn’t the absence of CONFESSION.  Job’s problem was a lack of REPENTANCE.

The Sunday school lesson for October 26, 2014 quoted C.S. Lewis’ explanation of REPENTANCE.

“Lewis said that we are not simply imperfect creatures who need improvement; we are rebels who must lay down our arms:, ‘Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the gound floor.’

This process of surrender is what we call repentance… ‘Repentance… is not something God demands of you before He will take you back  and which He could let you off if He chose:  it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like.’ “

See?

Confession is about our actions.  Repentance is about our selves: our status as human being born in sin, shaped in iniquity, and prone to screw up at any moment; standing in the light of God who is holy and perfect in every way.  We confess because we’ve DONE wrong.  We repent because we ARE wrong.

When an army loses a war, all the soldiers surrender, even the ones who were just drafted and never got to fire a shot in combat. They all recognize their lost state and lay down their arms.

Job wanted to fight with God instead of lay down his arms and surrender.

Job believed that if God would play fair, then he could argue the Lord into submission.  

For He is not a man, as I am, That I may answer Him, And that we should go to court together. Nor is there any mediator between us, Who may lay his hand on us both. (Job 9: 32-33)

But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God. (Job 13: 3)

That’s not surrender.  That’s not submission.  That is UN-REPENTANCE.

In chapter 29, Job described the one in whose presence,

the young men saw ..and hid,

And the aged arose and stood;

…The voice of nobles was hushed,

And their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth.

When the ear heard, then it blessed …

And when the eye saw, then it approved …

Because [that one ] delivered the poor who cried out,

The fatherless and the one who had no helper.

The blessing of a perishing man came upon [him]

And caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.

[He] put on righteousness …

justice was like a robe and a turban.

[He] was eyes to the blind,

And was feet to the lame.

..a father to the poor,

…broke the fangs of the wicked,

And plucked the victim from his teeth.  (verses 7-17, edited)

Reads like a Psalm to God, doesn’t it?   Only, Job wasn’t talking about God.  Job was talking about Job.

Yeah.

Isaiah hadn’t been written at the time of Job’s story, but the principle was already true.  Compared to God, we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away. (Isaiah 64: 6)

Job wouldn’t have thought that verse applied to HIM.  Job thought more of himself than he ought.

And God knew it.

Why did God let the devil reach into Job’s life---- this time?  Satan had tried to get at Job before, but God’s “hedge” kept him back.  So why did God let satan through--- this time?

God didn't just let the devil sneak through, God provoked satan to take another shot at Job.

And the Lord said to Satan, “From where do you come?”

So Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”

Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?”  (Job 1: 7-8)

Apparently, the devil had given up on Job and was looking for easier targets, but God basically dared the devil to mess with the man who was blameless like no other.

It’s like God saw something at that particular moment in Job’s life that required (pardon the pun) a Hell of a response.

Never forget that God understands us, our situation, and our needs better than we do.  And, never forget that God understands us, our situation, and our needs better than the devil does.

While satan was trying to get Job to abandon God, God was using the suffering satan delivered to draw Job even closer.

The devil meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

Oh, but what about all the other people who suffered?  Job’s employees and children who were killed.  Job’s wife who experienced the death of all her babies, the loss of all her money (her husband’s money was her money, too--- at least according to my wife), and the sudden decline of her husband’s health.    

That part, the Bible doesn’t answer directly.  But the Bible does provide an answer in principle that’s a little better than “none of your business.”

The answer is: Faith.

Not just saving faith but living faith.  Faith (as the examples in Hebrews 11 demonstrate) is trusting that God knows what the crap He’s doing in our lives and in everyone else’s life, too.   

We aren’t told the details of Job’s children’s lives.  We don’t know their righteousness or sinfulness.  We know they were all adult enough to be at a house party thrown by the oldest brother (Job 1: 18, 19), and we know that Job was concerned enough about their lifestyles to worry that they might curse God in their hearts.  Worried enough to do make that sacrifice EVERY DAY (Job 1: 5). 

We do know, by the testimony of God’s Word, which we believe by FAITH, that God God knows and understands, and that He uses even tragedy to make all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose (Romans 8: 28).

Left alone behind an unbroken hedge of favor and prosperity, Job would have continued exalting himself in his heart until he began to justify himself to himself.  And that’s the point at which “good, successful” believers begin to sin and think it’s all right.

Once you think that you wear righteousness and justice like a robe and a turban; you’re not very far away from using your wealth, power, and religious cover to do something terrible.

Just look around.  “Preachers of L.A.”   Catholic sex abuses.  Pastoral scandals. 

As good as good Job was, how bad would a rich, evil Job with 10 grown, rich, and evil children have been?

In the end, from the very beginning of the story, God saved not only Job, but countless others.  BECAUSE GOD LOVED THEM.

God loved Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, Elihu, Job’s wife, Job’s relatives, and Job’s community so much that He was willing to pick a fight with the devil to save Job from the darkness of self-righteousness and bring him back to repentance.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,  nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When Job came to repentance, God restored and doubled his wealth, his influence, and his position in the community.  God restored Job’s relationships with his wife (cause they had 10 more children) and his children (now with the hindsight to raise them better).  Most importantly, God returned Job to a place of spiritual favor, so that Job was God’s preferred intercessor on behalf of the 3 theologically wrong-minded friends.

My servant Job shall pray for you. For I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly; because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has. (Job 42:8)

Job finally spoke the thing of God that was right.  The last words of Job in his book are: I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, And REPENT in dust and ashes. (Job 42: 5-6)

Job got it and now I finally get it.

REPENTANCE.

Trust God, and never forget that God is God, and you and I are not.

p.s. I bet that when the devil realized how God had played him, he was pissed.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

 Fairfield, Al 35064

THE BEAUTY OF DIVINE IRONY

The picture has nothing to do with this blog except that I thought it was good example of irony.  But, I heard the greatest example of irony after midday Bible study at Miles Chapel CME Church, 

A couple of our “seasoned saints”  were pulling out of the church parking lot.  One smiling 90+ year old was driving,  another was riding shotgun.  As I walked past, the driver rolled down her window and shouted playfully, “Better watch out, pastor.  I went to the eye doctor this morning, and now I can’t see.”

She was joking.

I think she was joking.

Either way, it was the best irony I’ve heard in a long time.  Think about it.  You go to the eye doctor for a check-up, and you can see just fine when you get there, but after the optometrist puffs, drips, and dilates you, you leave unable to see. 

Isn’t that ironic?

It’s like what happened to the Syrian soldiers who went to see the prophet Elisha in 2 Kings chapter 6.

Elisha had the gift of healing.  He had healed a woman’s infertility  and resuscitated the child born of that miracle after he died of an apparent brain aneurysm (2 King 4: 14-37).  When the Syrian soldiers arrived at Elisha’s home office, Elisha had recently healed their nation’s head general, Naaman,  of incurable leprosy (2 Kings 5: 1-19).

But in chapter 6, Elisha the healer spends the day working on a lot of eyes.  Some leave him seeing more than they’d ever seen.  Some go to the “doctor” that morning and leave not seeing at all.

From his office in Dothan (Dothan, Israel; not Dothan off highway 84), Elisha had been feeding prophetic intelligence to the king of Israel.  God showed Elisha where the Syrians were going to set up their raiding camps and Elisha told his king.

When the Syrian king realized what was happening, he sent an entire army to invade another nation and capture this one man.  (And you thought America was the first country to do that.)

Read 2 Kings 6: 8-14.

Elisha’s servant/ personal assistant Gehazi had a fit when walked outside to see hundreds, maybe thousands of foreign troops positioned around Dothan.

(Imagine you were your pastor’s secretary and when you went outside to check the mail you saw a couple hundred Syrian tanks and armored personnel carriers interspersed with soldiers all aiming their guns at the parsonage.  Yeah.)

Gehazi said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?”

Elisha answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” (2 Kings 6: 15, 16)

Of course Gehazi probably thought the eccentric prophet had finally completely lost it because he could clearly see that NOBODY was with them. 

Nobody,  because all of Elisha’s fellow-prophets had moved out of Dothan and built houses in the suburbs along the Jordan river. (2 Kings 6: 1,2)

Gehazi could count the numbers of them versus the number of us, but he couldn’t see, at least not well enough. 

So, Elisha prayed, and said, “Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6: 17)

God gave Elisha’s assistant sight-beyond-sight (Yes, that was a “Thunderkats” reference.).

Because of Elisha’s prayers, Gehazi’s physical eyes saw beyond the visible light spectrum into the spectrum of spirit.  And then the irony started.

The soldiers charged down the hill to capture and extract Elisha, and Elisha prayed.  When Elisha the eye-opener prayed God took sight away from all of the Syrian soldiers in Dothan.  (2 Kings 6: 18)

They went to the prophet that morning and now they can’t see.

They came to lead the man of God away in chains, and they ended up being led around by God’s man.  

Now Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, nor is this the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.” But he led them to Samaria. (2 Kings 6: 19)

O.K.  You have to pause for a moment and visualize this.  Dozens and dozens and dozens of fierce Syrian soldiers in full armor, hands on each others’ shoulders, eyes closed or staring blankly around,  following and old Jewish man in a worn mantle for 12 MILES from Dothan to the northern Israelite capital of Samaria.  And all the way, their commander is asking, “Are we there yet?  Will we find Elisha soon?”

And Elisha was answering over and over, “Not, yet.  Not in the right place, yet.  Just follow me.”

All the way to the Israelite capital. 

So it was, when they had come to Samaria, that Elisha said, “Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see.” And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw; and there they were, inside Samaria!  (2 Kings 6: 20)

You and your army are charging down a hill when everything goes dark.  After hours and hours of blind marching, the lights suddenly come back on and you’re in the middle of the enemy capital, unarmed, and surrounded by the heart of the Israeli army, with the Israelite king himself standing there having the following conversation with the very guy you came to capture.

Now when the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “My father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?” (2 Kings 6: 21)

Wait.  Notice how King Jehoram repeats the question, “Can I kill them?”    

I imagine the Jehoram bouncing on his toes, cracking his neck from side to side, gripping his sword hard, pacing back in forth while staring hard at the Syrian commander, and going, “Come on, Elisha.  Come on.  Can I kill ‘em? CAN I KILL ‘EM?!”

Ironically (because that was apparently the theme of the day), Elisha said, “No.”

But he answered, “You shall not kill them. Would you kill those whom you have taken captive with your sword and your bow? Set food and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.”  (2 Kings 6: 22)

Instead of slaughtering the battalion of enemy soldiers who had made an unauthorized, unilateral incursion into sovereign territory for the purposes of kidnapping a native citizen of Israel, Elisha convinced the king to throw them a party.

Then he prepared a great feast for them; and after they ate and drank, he sent them away and they went to their master (2 Kings 6: 22a)

Right?  Doesn’t make sense to me either.

But, it did make sense to God. 

God used those crazy twists of sight and blindness to do something that His people had been unsuccessfully trying to do for decades.  God used a prophet who did eye-work on the side, to achieve what killing those Syrian soldiers would not have accomplished.

God used this ironic day in 2 Kings chapter 6 to end Syrian raids in Israel.

So the bands of Syrian raiders came no more into the land of Israel. (2 Kings 6: 22b)

There were no more nickel-and-dime raids every other day against towns and travelers.   (The very next verse says that the Syrian’s took advantage of a famine in Israel to launch one big attack, but that attack and siege ultimately failed, too.  But that’s another story.)

In the space of perhaps 24 hours, God used a Syrian invasion to give His people immediate relief from their Syrian persecutors. 

God opened the eyes of the lonely and  fearful who couldn’t see where their help would come from.  But He blinded the eyes of the confident masses who were already visualizing their victory.

You gotta love the Lord’s sense of irony.

The Holy Spirit loves to says ironic stuff like 

Count it all joy when you fall into various trials (James 1: 2);

My strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12: 9);

And, whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. (Luke 9: 24)

In fact, the gospel is the story of the greatest irony in the universe.  We humans who rebelled in a perfect world against our perfect God are saved by God coming into our broken world to live a perfect life.  For us.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. ^But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5: 7-8)

Yeah.

You gotta love the Lord’s sense of irony.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

 Fairfield, Al 35064

LISTENING FOR THE LIGHT

This morning I tried to listen.

Around 4:30 A.M.,  while the rest of my family was sleeping, I shut my laptop, closed the door of my study, turned off the lights and sat, trying to listen.

Which is harder than it sounds, at least for me.  You see, inside my head there is this constant conversation, an unceasing dialogue with myself: planning, worrying, praying, reviewing class notes, outlining sermons, anticipating questions from students, board members, church members, and random dudes I talk to on the street, cross-referencing Bible verses, revisiting conversations, praying, running hypothetical scenarios, re-analyzing research, scolding myself over missed opportunities, imagining, praying for a deeper prayer life.  I’m constantly producing all of this noise within myself.

This morning I tried to shut up and just listen.

And that’s when I began to see.

What started off as pitch blackness in my study began to dissolve into shapes, objects, even patterns on the dark comforter I’d wrapped around myself.  Out of the darkness came light.

In our narrative of the Genesis of creation we usually begin with God’s Words, “Let there be light.”  After all that was the beginning of the first day.  Only it wasn’t.  A Jewish day, a Biblical day, doesn’t begin with morning.  It begins with night.

So the evening and the morning were the first day. (Genesis 1: 5)

Before the Voice and the light, there was the long, long evening of silence in the dark.

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1: 2)

Before God spoke, He listened.

And to whom could He have been listening except Himself, the unceasing dialogue within the Trinity.  Before the light emerged from the darkness and dissolved into lesser and greater lights, before the darkness was broken into patterns of alternating night, God was there, hovering above the liquid darkness.  Not flying, just hovering.  Just sitting in the dark, listening.

For how long, did that first, long evening last?

For how many of our centuries, millennia, and epochs, did God sit there planning, thinking, imagining, anticipating, outlining prophecies, rehearsing answers to prayers, running scenarios, sketching out creation in His head, worrying through the necessary plan of redemption?  

Psalm 104 says that when God holds court, He wears light like a robe of honor and majesty.  But when He needs to just be with Himself, Psalm 18 says that He covers Himself in darkness and thinks His secret thoughts.

He made darkness His secret place;

His canopy around Him was dark waters

And thick clouds of the skies. (Psalm 18: 11)

It’s a scary thing really to sit in darkness and listen.  Without the noise and screens that distract us, we face some things about ourselves that we’d rather not face alone at 4 something in the morning.   But we need to.  If you and I are going to build and become what God so carefully planned and created us to build and become then we have to face the silence and the darkness because that has always been the way that God brings forth Light.

Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, Jesus went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.  (Mark 1: 35)

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

 Fairfield, Al 35064

THE PROMISE OR THE PRESENCE

What do we want from God?  What do we really want?  And why does praying for what we want work out so inconsistently?  Sometimes we get it.  Sometimes we don’t.  Sometimes we get what we want, but it doesn’t work out the way we wanted.  Why?

Maybe the problem isn’t with the asking.  Maybe the problem is with the wanting.

The solution lies in a crucial choice.  Go back to Exodus and consider the choice between THE PROMISE OR THE PRESENCE. 

Listen well.

If you can’t get the audio on your device, visit the main podcast page at http://revandersongraves.podomatic.com/

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

A Needful Thing (Article V, continued)

Article V - Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation

The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation;

so that whatsoever is not read therein,

nor may be proved thereby,

is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith,

or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation…

In Romans 3: 2, the Apostle Paul declared the greatest example of Divine favor to the children of Israel was that to them were committed the oracles of God. 

The Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament) is not the oracles of ISRAEL.  It is the oracles, i.e., the Word of GOD.

Of the New Testament of the apostles, Paul said:

We also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.  (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

Was Paul right?

Is the Bible, Old Testament and New, the Word of God ENTRUSTD TO the church? 

Or is the Bible the words of the men CREATED BY the church?

If the Bible is nothing more than the myths, imaginings, and theological musings of men, then the church and church-folks can change it, ignore parts of it, declare certain principles to be irrelevant ----- just because we want to.    If the Bible is just a collection of words that religious people thought up, then it is not inerrant, not eternal, not even necessary; and we can interpret its contents anyway we want. 

But.

If the Bible is the actual Word of God, then we have to handle its contents as God has said they must be handled.  If the Bible is actually the Word of God then the church, and church-folks, and church-thinkers do not own the Bible.  We are only stewards of it.

If the Bible is the oracles of God, then we are subject to it.  It is not subject to us.

Through all the mechanisms of inspiration and revelation the Bible was GIVEN  to the church by God.    

And so the Bible is not just inspirational.  It is necessary.    

Not just poetic.  Necessary.

But, generally speaking, we don’t treat the Bible as necessary.  We treat the Bible ornamental.  We decorate our speech with vaguely scriptural sounding clichés we haven’t actually read for ourselves.

We treat the Bible as inconvenient because it’s too long, too boring, too hard to understand, and/or too demanding and convicting.

We treat the Bible as something optional.  We pick.  We choose.  We selectively ignore or reinterpret into inconsequence.

We treat the Bible as everything except what it is.

The one needful text among all others.

David called Scriptures the only way a man could get his life straight.

How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.  (Psalm 119: 9)

Isaiah said the Word of God was the only thing in this life that is guaranteed.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40: 8)

Paul called the Bible altogether profitable.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3: 16, 17)

Jesus called the Bible, God’s sanctifying truth.

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17: 17)

True, profitable, guaranteed, life changing.

Absolutely NECESSARY.

Not simply a collection of narrative suggestions.  The genuine and NECESSARY Word of God.

Which means that our faith, where it is derived from the Bible (and not from traditions and preferences) is necessary for salvation.

We are stewards of the Truth, which means that   we are accountable to the true Author for how we handle it, knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:20, 21)

We don’t get to make up stuff about what’s in the Bible and we don’t get to make up stuff and put it in the Bible. 

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19)  

We don’t get to demand what the Bible does not require.  We don’t get to toss aside what the Bible demands.

Because the Word of God is NECESSARY.

For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?  Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written:

“That You may be justified in Your words,

And may overcome when You are judged.” (Romans 3: 3-4)

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

Of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation (Article V)

Article V - Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation

The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation;

so that whatsoever is not read therein,

nor may be proved thereby,

is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith,

or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.

In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those

canonical books of the Old and New Testaments of whose authority was never any doubt in the church.

The names of the canonical books are:

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, The First Book of Samuel, The Second Book of Samuel, The First Book of Kings, The Second Book of Kings, The First Book of Chronicles, The Second Book of Chronicles, The Book of Ezra, The Book of Nehemiah, The Book of Esther, The Book of Job, The Psalms, The Proverbs, Ecclesiastes or the Preacher, Cantica or Songs of Solomon, Four Prophets the Greater, Twelve Prophets the Less.

All the books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive and account canonical.

Strictly speaking, the Bible isn’t A book.  The Bible is an anthology, a collection of (in this case) 66 different books, authored by dozens of different men, and written over the course of anywhere from 700 to 3500 years depending on which scholar you prefer to believe.

Some of the Bible’s authors were highly respected priests and prophets (like Samuel).  Some were seemingly random guys who professed a calling from God, came out of nowhere, did their thing, and then disappeared back into obscurity (like Amos).  Some Biblical writers were highly educated and well-connected (Luke and Paul for examples).  Some were near illiterate members of the 1^st century working class (Peter). 

With the exception of a couple of Paul’s letters in the New Testament, you can find some “expert” who will dispute the authorship and authenticity of every book in the Bible.   Some people sincerely believe that the entire Bible is a conspiracy of fiction put together by a Catholic committee.

But I, and my church, and millions of Christians like us believe that the Bible is the actual Word of God Himself, the Holy Scripture [that]  containeth all things necessary to salvation.

How can we (and you) trust our souls to the words of a disputed ancient anthology?

See what I did there?

I described the Bible in a way that implied that every element was unreliable.  I never offered any evidence for why the testimony of multiple writers would be LESS reliable than the testimony of just one.  But if you were iffy on the topic, you’d think that it was.

Now think for yourself.  Which is MORE reliable, the testimony of one witness or the corroborating testimony of 3 or 4 dozen witnesses?

We trust the Bible.  I stake the fate of my soul and the purpose of my life on the integrity of the Bible because the authors of the books of the Bible present a single, unifying theme.  There is a common mind behind all of their works.  (And some of these writers had never read the works of the others.)

But what about the time lapse between books?  

Yeah.  The dispute over the age of books has been a major source of skepticism.  Critics point out that the oldest fragments of the Old Testament only date back to the 2^nd century B.C. which isn’t that old for a collection that begins “In the beginning….”

Critics also note that the oldest fragment of the New Testament dates 125 A.D., that somewhere around 80-90 years after Jesus was crucified.  The criticism is that these can’t be eyewitness accounts.  The witnesses would’ve be dead.

I have a copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.  (No, I’m not rambling. Stay with me.)   My books says that Shakespeare died in 1616, but the earliest copyright on the book is 1980.    How can I believe a book dated 366 years after the supposed author of its plays died?

Because I know that my copy of Shakespeare is just a copy.   All the copyright date tells me is that the original stories were completed and circulating BEFORE 1980.

We don’t have the original manuscript of any of the books of the Bible.  The dates of our COPIES do not tell us when the Bible was written. The dates of the copies do tell us that the New Testament was completed and circulating well before 125 A.D.  The dates of the copies assure us that the Old Testament is OLDER than 2 B.C.

The early leaders of the Church poured over the books, testimonies, and evidence available in the first 300 years after the Resurrection and affirmed what the descendants of eyewitnesses had been affirming for centuries.  The 27 books of the New Testament and the 39 books of the Old Testament are the Word of God, just like the big red volume on my bookshelf is the words of Shakespeare.*

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:   20, 21) 

The arguments against the authenticity of the Bible as God’s Word are based on more assumptions, presumptions, and leaps of logic than even faith requires.   

The Bible on your coffee table may contain errors in translation, after all neither Jesus nor Moses spoke English.  (Actually nobody spoke English during the time the Bible was being written.)  So, in some verses there are legitimate questions about which English term best fits which Greek or Hebrew word.

But those mini-arguments aren’t what drive churches apart.  The big, looming question is:  Did God really deliver His Word through all those different dudes in all those different settings?

No.  No.

The question REALLY is, COULD God do it? 

Is it reasonable, rational, or logical to believe that all those texts by all those people are really the product of ONE supernatural source?

In other words, is the Bible too complicated to be Divinely authored?

In other, other words: Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?  (Jeremiah 32:27)

The answer already given is:  Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You. (Jeremiah 32: 17)

If you believe that God is love, then believe the Bible that told you, God is love (1 John 4: 8, 16)

If you believe that Jesus lived, and taught, and defended the powerless, then believe the Bible that told you of Jesus.

You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. (John 5: 39)

You embrace the parts of the Bible that bring you comfort and hope and make you feel good about yourself and the future.  Well then you don’t get to redact the other parts that make you feel uncomfortable and sinful and concerned about judgment for how you live.  

Same book.  Same God.  Same truth.

Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. (Matthew 5: 17, 18)

The Bible is the Word of God, the testimony of Jesus Himself.  If you reject the Bible, you turn your back on aspects of Jesus that are non-negotiable.

Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”

When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you? …”

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.  (John 6: 60-66)

Don’t do that.  Hold to Jesus.  Hold to the Word made flesh.  Hold to the Word. 

Then Jesus said to the twelve,  “Do you also want to go away?”  But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life…” (John 6: 67, 68)

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

*To my fellow English nerds: I am aware that I open up a possible argument of whether or not Shakespeare claimed some of Bacon’s work as his own.    My point about copies and copyrights still stands.