Love of the Bible

Falling in Love with the Bible
I have been writing a sermon on the Bible this week. Which has made me think about what I like about that Bible and what I think about the Bible. In high school I loved the Bible. I carried it everywhere I went. All my pants and shorts have cargo pockets to fit my Bible. In College my faith took a hit. Everyone was Christian and we never talked about Christianity. It was like the faith was handed to us and it was never something we had to wrestle with. We were all Christian so it did not matter. I still viewed the Bible as authoritative but I did not have the same passion I had in high school. I knew I was called into ministry so I went to seminary. While in Seminary I had a course over the first summer about the Bible in pastoral care. I was worried it would be about how the Bible will explain all psychological problems as sin issues and the Bible will fix those problems. Well the course was taught by an Anglican priest and it changed my life.

The professor brought up Psalm 119 and held it up for the class to look at. And he said something that was stunning ‘the psalm was an erotic love for the Bible.’ That the author loved the Bible like he loved a woman. It was amazing. I guess I had not seen someone in love with the Bible for a long time. That started a little kernel of passion for the Bible in me. I started to look at the Bible like I did in high school. I started to turn my emotions to the Bible not just my intellect. I think all Christians should turn their emotions to God as well as their minds. So when my emotions started to get into the Bible I started to see my relationship with God was getting deeper. I was able to turn all of me to God and God started to get more of what He deserved, not just some aspect of me.

So in working for this sermon I am trying to explain how to talk about love of the Bible without being moralistic or judgmental. It seems to be a fine line and I don’t want to say “read the Bible or else” and I don’t want to say “the Bible is nice and you should sometime look at it.” I am still shaping the direction this is going but the highlight for me is going to try to be communicating my love for the Bible.

One a side note I started to use a daily lectionary for my Bible reading but if you ask me I will deny it and tell you how lectionaries are evil.