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Murder, violence, sex, deceit, intrigue,
sin, greed, hatred, etc, etc
ending with the young people holding up a book - it's all in the Bible! Don't keep it
for Sundays.
A reminder that you can find every human
condition in the Bible, though the young people, unsurprisingly,
concentrated on the 'juicy' bits.The Bible has been misused by a lot of people, including quite a few Christians, to prove any argument or viewpoint. Fundamentalist believe it is the literal word of God and at the other end of the scale there are those who think it is a nationalistic history full of ancient taboos which ought to be regarded today as obsolete. Professor Keith Ward, in his new book The Word of God sees the Bible as a
puzzling document, taken as the final
guide to life by millions, yet denigrated by and offensive to many
others.
He goes on to say that it is a very mixed set of documents by
many different writers from many different times, which records the
struggle of many people in one particular religious tradition to
respond to their discernments of a transcendent spiritual power.
For Keith Ward the power of the Bible is
Spiritual and that view makes it a very special kind of book. A
nun I once knew, Mother Mary Clare, said that the Bible is the record
of God's love affair with humanity. I rather like that,
especially because Love rarely runs smoothly and there are set-backs
and wrongs which need forgiveness and new beginnings as well as the
discovery of deeper joys and insights. It also leads us to the
central act of the Bible which is God's love shown to us in Jesus
Christ, a sacrificial love by which we are saved. In Jesus and in
the Gospel, God claims us for his own and the Old Testament is the
record of the journey (physical and spiritual) God's people make
towards God's heart and the Kingdom where he gathers us all as His
children. The New Testament is the working out of the Saving Love
of Jesus in the life of the Church.For me, the Bible is a Sacrament. One definition of a Sacrament is a True meeting with Christ for a particular purpose. I meet God in the Bible's pages and the particular purpose in meeting Him is to experience His immense and unconditional love for me and, drawing inspiration from the People of God I meet in its pages, seek to respond to that love. The Bible is therefore a sacred book because it tells me of God, who He is, how He acts and what He has to say to my heart. I think if we approach the Bible with the reverence that we would approach God himself and see within its pages encouragements to live the Christian life, individually and as a Church, we will gain a pearl of great price. The Bible is not to be used against others, nor to bolster our own opinions, views and prejudices. It is to be used to grow closer to God, in all his majesty, richness and joy.
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