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Layers of Meaning in Scripture
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Category Archives: Word of God
Famine in the Land
Amos, the herdsman turned prophet.
The visionary with the visions of things he kept talking God out of doing.
Too much! he would say, and God would agree.
Locusts forming up to devour the land.
Too much! And they were turned away.
Fire consuming the deep places in his country.
Too much! And they were put out.
Amos looked around at the men lounging around eating their fill of the richest of foods and throwing the rest to the hounds. He looked around at the women dressed in the finest of cloth and adorned with the choicest of jewels. He looked around at the leaders and their wives lying on beds of the softest linens and dabbing themselves with the sweetest perfumes.
Amos also looked at the men and women who fought with the rats for the stalest of bread, who froze when the wind whipped through the largest of holes in their shirts, who slept with the cockroaches on the hardest of stone.
He said there would be famine. A famine and a thirst and a loss of the sun in the middle of the day. But not a famine of bread or a thirst of water.
No, this famine would be far worse. It is a shortage of the words of God. It is a loss of the light of His face.
The rich and the lovely would be doomed to run from sea to shining sea, searching and thirsting for the Word of Life.
It is a loss of light, a loss of life. It is the loss of God himself.
Towards the end, God will make himself so scarce that the world won’t even know what it’s starving to death for. ~ Frederick Buechner in Peculiar Treasures
Too much!
May God have mercy and not abandon us to our own selves and desires.
Lord, we would have more of You.
The Day God is Dead
Holy Saturday.
The day God is dead.
The day we lose God Himself.
Don’t miss this. Don’t rush through it. On the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, God is dead.
One part of the Trinity, yes, but God nonetheless.
The Word of God is gone. We can no longer hear Him.
Linger in this day. Does the earth feel different? Somehow vacant?
There is, for this day, no possible way to reach God.
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.
No Most Holy Place where the high priest could meet with God.
It is finished.
He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.
No Word of God in whom we can see the Father.
No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
Remain in this day as long as you can. I don’t understand how, but somehow this day exists on which we are completely isolated from God.
Breathe in the horror of this day. God is dead. He is, for this day, unattainable. Can you catch even a glimpse?
The disciples did. They lived it for what must have felt like an eternity.
We’d rather skip past this day, this Saturday that contains Christ’s body in the tomb. Yet we must linger if we are to grasp the power of Easter Sunday. We must dwell here awhile if we are to be allowed to hold the joy of Easter Sunday.
When the Son, the Word of the Father is dead, then no one can see God, hear of Him or attain Him. And this day exists, when the Son is dead, and the Father, accordingly, inaccessible. ~ Hans Urs Von Balthasar (theologian and author)
Can you feel the terror of it? Do you sense the incomprehensible void that stretches before us on this day? What does it even mean?
Do not rush too quickly past this Holy Saturday on your way to the miracle. You may miss the deepest part of the gratitude and joy that are to come.
The deepest gratitude and joy that come only when you understand what was absent, and understand that it was only for a day.
Art credits: Preparation of Christ’s Tomb by Vittore Carpaccio; Tomb of knight Philip Keerman in Flanders, Belgium; 1912 photograph of Jerusalem Garden Tomb by Dwight Lathrop Elmendorf; Side view of Garden Tomb by Deror Avi; Jerusalem Garden Tomb by Berthold Werner
Science, Faith, and Fear
Why are so many Christians afraid of science?
So many Christians get incredibly defensive and angry when it comes to debates and discussions about science, particularly when our origin is the topic under scrutiny. People will argue fiercely and loudly against theories such as evolution or big bang cosmology.
Some would even go so far as to state that Christians cannot also be scientists.
Why do we get so defensive and angry?
Fear.
While most would not admit it, many are, deep down inside, afraid that if such theories are true than their God does not exist. They fear that God is unable to defend Himself and so they get angry in order to drive out their fear.
For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.
I have fear too.
I am afraid that this divide between Christians and science is driving people away from our faith rather than drawing them in.
How can we possibly think that science could destroy God? How can we believe that science could ever come up with a truth that would cause God to cease to exist?
We worship and serve God Who is Truth and science cannot help but point to Him.
Perhaps part of the trouble is that Christians have mistaken the purpose of science.
Science tries to figure out how things work. Science does not give ultimate explanation for the origin and existence of the universe or answer questions concerning the purpose of the universe or of our existence.
What if evolution is true? What if the big bang theory is true? Does that take God out of the picture at all?
God created our universe. The Bible is clear on that point.
As Richard T. Wright writes in Biology Through the Eyes of Faith:
Whether you believe that His gifts were bestowed at the outset of creation, or periodically over time, or all at once recently, you should see design in what He has done. What we see doesn’t prove His existence, but it does point people in the right direction, and for Christians, what we see and learn should cause us to thank Him and give Him the glory for such a wonderful creation.
Why should we fear science when science can give us more and more insight into how beautiful and complex is God’s design? Science doesn’t deny God, science glorifies God!
God reveals Himself through His Word:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching…
God also reveals Himself through His created world:
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Why do we try to throw out one of His revelations?
At the end of one of his papers, the biologist David Wilcox says this:
In our speculations, we must be limited by God’s self-revelations – both by Scripture and in His created world. As we seek to be guided by these two sources of truth, let us humbly acknowledge that our interpretations of both sources of knowledge are worldview guided and fallible. We will always need to be guided – and corrected – by the Spirit of Truth, in science or in theology. And when we get home…won’t we have a good laugh at ourselves?!
Perhaps we should trust God. Trust that He is able to defend Himself, trust that He is Truth and that science can never knock Him off His throne.
Whether you believe that the earth is young or old, whether you believe that we humans were created in one day or over billions of years through evolution, when we have debates and discussions with other Christians and with non-Christians, please remember that the most important thing to God is not our origin but that we love Him and love each other.
It is not wrong to have your opinion, to study science and debate with others about various issues, but don’t fear those who disagree–love them. In the end, our love and respect, our willingness to listen and prayerfully consider new ideas is a much stronger way to show Jesus to the world around us than attacking others or becoming defensive out of fear.
…But perfect love drives out fear…
As we think about how we love, may I end with one last thought from Wright’s book?
Over the years, I have realized that even though it is necessary to look at these origins issues and problems, the more important problems are those that are facing us today as we try to learn how to take care of the creation and how best to use its gifts. (If God were to ask us a question about His Creation,) would He ask us what we thought about how He made the world, or would He ask us what we did with it?
Art credits: DNA photo by Tomislav Alajbeg; photos of Eagle Nebula and Supernova from NASA; microscopic view of a lime tree by Kriss Szkurlatowski
The Word of God
The Word of God.
God spoke His Word and light exploded out of the dark.
God spoke His Word and our earth was filled with life.
God spoke His Word and law was given as a mirror to show His people their soul-dark, their sin-death.
God spoke His Word
and His Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, Who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
The Word of God.
Sent to us who have walked in darkness to bring us into the grace of His light.
God sent His Word, Himself, in the soft, touchable skin of a baby. His Christmas gift to us.
Joy to the world! The Word has come!
The Word of God.
Light of lights! All gloom dispelling,
Thou didst come to make thy dwelling
Here within our world of sight.
Lord, in pity and in power,
Thou didst in our darkest hour
Rend the clouds and show thy light.
Praise to thee in earth and heaven
Now and evermore be given,
Christ, who art our sun and shield.
Lord, for us thy life thou gavest,
Those who trust in thee thou savest,
All thy mercy stands revealed.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Thou didst come to make thy dwelling
Here within our world of sight.
Lord, in pity and in power,
Thou didst in our darkest hour
Rend the clouds and show thy light.
Praise to thee in earth and heaven
Now and evermore be given,
Christ, who art our sun and shield.
Lord, for us thy life thou gavest,
Those who trust in thee thou savest,
All thy mercy stands revealed.
St. Thomas Aquinas
May we worship Him alone, our light, our gift, God’s Word.
Jesus.
Merry Christmas to you all.