THREE STREAMS, ONE MIGHTY RIVER OF FAITH
“The Teaching of the Apostles—the Bible & the Word of God”
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Last week, we began an exploration of our Christian heritage, which the Bible calls the “in heritance of the saints of light. “If you would turn to the back cover of your Sunday bulletin, you will our godly inheritance depicted as three streams—three streams, which actually flow together to make up one mighty river of faith. Now this is a legacy which is largely unclaimed. Most churches drink of one stream; many drink of two; few actually drink of all three. However, if we are to fulfill our potential and God’s plan as a Christ centered church moving into our 3rd century, then we actually need to drink of all three.
Previously we learned that the small “c” catholic stream is not the Roman Catholic Church. Rather, the word “catholic” means universal, and it describes the mystical reality of the universal church.
Now here’s a review question for those of you who were here last Sunday. This is a multiple choice question: Who is the Head of the universal church? A. The Pope B. The Bishop C. Fr. John D. Jesus.
Right, Jesus is head of the universal church, which the Bible describes as the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is not the church buildings, not the diocese, nor the denominations, but the community of baptized believers—which is you and me.
• The Body of Christ is Jesus’ hands, feet, and mouth in our world.
• The Body of Christ is also where we can partake of the second stream of the mighty river of faith, which is the teaching of the apostles. The teaching of the apostles is also known as the Bible or the Holy Scripture or the Word of God.
During the past 80 years, or so, there has been so much confusion about the Bible.
So, I would like to begin our discussion by looking at what the Episcopal Church says about Holy Scripture. In the back of your red prayer books, you will find an outline of the Christian faith, called the catechism. Please open yours up and turn to page 853. Here we have a section about the Bible, but I want to focus upon the last two questions at the bottom of the page. I will ask the question, and I would like for you to read the answer:
Q. Why do we call the Holy Scriptures the Word of God?
A. We call them the Word of God because God inspired their human authors and because God still speaks to us through the Bible.
So, the Episcopal Church says that the Bible is divinely inspired, in a unique and special manner, so that we call the scriptures, “The Word of the Lord.” God initiated the writing of these scriptures to be eternal, so that He can use these holy words to communicate to us today. The Bible is not some historic artifact, but it’s a tool that God uses to reach out to us. But, like my new chain saw, this tool can do more harm than good, if I don’t understand how to use it. So let’s move to the last question.
Q. How do we understand the meaning of the Bible?
A. We understand the meaning of the Bible by the help of the Holy Spirit , who guides the Church in the TRUE interpretation of the Scripture.
Do you know that some interpretation of the scriptures is NOT truthful? If you would open up your bulletin to page 6, I will show you what I mean.
Generally speaking, there are 3 major ways that the Bible is interpreted today.
The first group, fundamentalists and/or literalists, are often renegade, isolated or quasi-Christian groupings, which have separated themselves from the larger Christian community, rejecting much of the universal catholic stream of faith, , including the creeds, the sacraments, interdenominational fellowship, and traditions, all which contribute to our understanding of God’s word. So, we read,
1. “FUNDAMENTALISTS” and/or “LITERALISTS”
understand the divine of its revelation scripture, but underplay the Bible’s humanness. The historical & literary contexts are overlooked. So for example, the Genesis account of the story of creation and madam and Eve was never intended to be a factual historical account. Rather, it was intentionally written as a faithful theological history, designed to explain God’s act of creation and human sin. This understanding in no way undermines the role of God. Rather, it takes into account how such writings were originally intoned to be understood. Moving to the 2nd bullet--
• Can give too much weight to selected obscure passages, building doctrines which do not adequately relate to the overall purpose of the Good News of Christ.
• So, for example, please take out your scripture insert, and look at today’s second reading, which ifs from I Corinthians 7. It begins, saying, “the appointed time has grown short and it sends by saying the world is passing away.” Now, if you wren just to pick this reading out context, it sounds like doom and gloom and horror. But there’s more to the story. This section of scripture does not contain much Good News, which as we hear in today’s Gospel, is what Jesus came to proclaim. So, if you read something in the Bible which is disturbing or confusing, and you are left without hope, then you know that there is more to the story than what is revealed by that one piece of scripture. You have to know the rest of the story before it makes any sense. So, beware of preachers & teachers take a verse or selection of scripture out of context in order to manipulate and frighten people.
Moving to the next section
2. “POSTMODERNISTS” reject the miraculous and the supernatural, in seeking to make God relevant to an ever growing and changing world, which influences what people believe.
• Too much emphasis on the human origin of scripture. So, let me ask you----if the Bible is only of human origin, then PSSSSST!!!!!!!!!! Why should we believe that? We all know that you cannot believe everything that you read or hear. The Bible reminds us of what we all well know, that human opinions are like puffs of wind, which come and go, and disappear into the air. The God revealed by these folks has no power to help us, or chooses not to. Such a god is, for whatever reason, will not lift a finger to help us. Such a god, has no relevance to daily life. I would not worship such a false god.
3. “CHRIST /GOOD NEWS CENTERED” say that the Bible is both the Word of God and the words of men. God is the ultimate author.
• Jesus Christ is the Word of God. The focus of the Bible is the Good News of God’s acceptance of us offered by the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Here’s the key to the matter. The Word of God is God’s perfect communication to us. God perfectly communicated to us through Jesus Christ.
So, what this means is that the Bible is a great gift to us, and the centrality Jesus’ forgiveness and mercy is the standard by which we interpret the whole of the bible. So, of bin this style of interpretation, the church and the Holy Spirit guide us to see how God’s boundless love relates to us today.
St. Augustine once wrote that every single person has a God shaped hole in their heart. Some people try to fill it up with money, or sex, or booze, or by being successful, or by having lost so friends, or by being in good shape, or by self pity, or whatever. BUT, nothing can ever satisfy you, nothing can ever fill that God shaped hole in your heart, except God. The Bible can guide us to learn how God wants to fill our hearts on this day.
So, for example, please pick up you scripture inserts, and look at the psalm. This psalm is loaded with the Good News of the love of Jesus Christ.
• Verse 6 says that we can hope in Him.
Verse 8 says that He is as like refuge for us in times of trouble
• Verse 9 encourages us to trust Him always.
I don’t know about you, but I need a god to whom I can turn in times of trouble. I need a God whom, I can trust...in whom I have hope. There have been times in my life when troubles at work, & at home, in my finances, in my health, in my relationships, all ganged up surrounded me,PAUSE and I felt like I was going to go under. During those times, I took the guidance of the Bible and cried out to Jesus to help. And many of those times, I really did not have a human hope that even Jesus could help. I am not proud to say that too many times, I was desperate, and I resisted asking Jesus to help me. But in obedience to what God’s word says inverse 6, I chose to put my trust in Him. But when I finally cried out to Him, He helped.
• Sometimes, none of the outward circumstances changed, thing changed, but I was changed, and I had new strength to persevere.
• Other times, doors opened which I never expected.
• Still other times, things worked out so wonderfully, that I knew that Jesus had intervened to rescue me.
• And still other times, it looked like Jesus had not heard my prayer and I felt like I was left out there twisting slowly, slowly, in the wind; but later, in time, I grew to understand that Jesus had helped me in ways I could never imagine.
During our sermons on Sundays, and in some new Bible studies coming up next month, we are all learning to drink from the stream of the God’s Word, the Bible, which the Nicene Creed calls the teaching of the apostles. This is the living spiritual water for which we thirst, and which is freely offered to us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
--The Rev. John Donnelly
Christ Church Quaker Farms, Oxford, CT
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