Hebrews 4:12-13

It’s a contentious subject we’re going to deal with this morning.

 And I began to realise just contentious it was when I started my studies in Divinity all those years ago.

Downstairs in the faculty there was a common room, and it became clear after a few days that one half of the common room was frequented by the evangelicals and the other half by those of a more liberal persuasion.

It was a bit like the trenches in the first world war without the bombs and bullets.

People were dug into their theological positions and were determined to keep them

at all costs.

 Almost every day there was a debate of some kind going on between these two

factions. And it didn’t take me long to work out that behind every single issue,

whether it was women in ministry, human sexuality, belief in miracles or the

possibility of a seven day creation, behind every issue was the same ultimate

question:

“How are we meant to read the Bible”?

 Are we meant to take every word literally as the infallible utterance of God?

 Or does God expect us to use our discernment to understand and interpret this ancient

book for our times?

 Two very different ways of approaching the Bible; and for the past two hundred years

or so, this has been the polarising internal debate of the church. Our equivalent of

left-wing and right-wing in the political world.

And for those of us who by nature like to find the middle ground and stay engaged with both wings of the church, it can be hard going.

But I believe there is middle ground to tread; a way that honours the Bible for what it is  - the inspired witness of God’s people to God’s actions in history, the supreme rule of life and faith; and yet allows it to be what it is, the work of both God and humanity. A book like no other, and yet strangely, in some ways, just like every other.

So let me begin by reminding you of a few things you already know about the Bible, and suggesting a few more that you might not know.

 We speak of the Bible as one book, but in reality it’s much more complicated than that. There are 66 books in the Bible, written by 40 different authors over a period of something like 15 centuries.

 And the story they tell is told in different ways. Some of the books in the Bible are best described as poetry, others are history; some are stories, some are prophecy. Some are biography and others are letters.

 And we need to bear that in mind when we’re reading. We wouldn’t read a Shakespearean sonnet in the same way as a Chemistry textbook.

Neither should we read the book of Genesis in the same way we read the book of Chronicles

 And it’s worth remembering that there was a sifting process by which we ended up with the Bible we now have. Some books were admitted to what’s called the ‘canon’ of Scripture, and others weren’t, for reasons I won’t go into now. And that took time.

It took nearly four centuries for the early church to settle on those 66 books that we now call the Bible, and even today the mainstream Christian churches can’t agree on which books should be included. That’s why a Catholic Bible has a few extra books lumped together in what’s called the Apocrypha.

So whatever we make of the Bible, the first thing to remember is that it didn’t come down from heaven on a platter one day. It’s been a while in the making, and human activity has been in evidence every bit as much as God’s activity. Give me 15 minutes and I can show you how the early chapters of Genesis show evidence of not one, but several authors, and someone who’s acted as editor to pull the whole story together for us. They’ve left their fingerprints in the text.

But God’s fingerprints are all over it too! There are prophesies in the Old Testament which pre-date Christ by centuries, and yet speak with amazing precision about the place and time of his birth, the nature of his life and work, and in incredible detail, the events surrounding his death.

People talk about the prophesies of Nostradamus, but they don’t hold a candle to what’s in the Bible, if people would only read it with a little less prejudice and a little more understanding.

And despite the multiple authors and the timescale of their writings, the Bible tells a remarkably consistent story from beginning to end. The story of a good creation that went wrong, and all that God is doing to redeem it.

And more telling still is the fact that millions of people down the centuries have testified that when they approach Scripture in the right spirit, God himself comes strangely near to them in a life-changing way. Draw near to God, the scriptures say, and he will draw near to you.

The God that we read about in the Bible is living and active and wants to know us right here and right now in 2016.

 And therein lies the Good News.

So with all of that in mind, I want us to turn now to this mornings readings and think carefully about a phrase that keeps cropping up in the Bible. And it’s the phrase “The Word of God”.

Now what exactly is the Word of God?

Well if I were to do a straw poll this morning, I’d say at least half of you would say “The Bible”. And that’s entirely understandable because in our tradition the Word of God and the Bible are virtually synonymous.

But when you read the Bible itself, you discover that this phrase, “the word of God” has different meanings:

Take Psalm 119 for instance. “Your word, O Lord, will last forever; it is eternal in heaven”. Now how are we to read that? If God’s word is simply the Bible, how can it last forever, or be eternal in heaven?

Well things become a little clearer when you realise that the kind of literature we’re reading here is a poem or a hymn, and very often the Psalmist uses what’s call parallelism to make his point. And parallelism is simply saying the same thing twice, but in slightly different ways.

 So lets read the parallels together in verse 89/90:

“Your word, O Lord, will last forever; it is eternal in heaven. Your faithfulness endures through all the ages; you have set the earth in place and it remains.”

 So according to the parallels, God’s word is something to do with his faithfulness. The faithfulness of a God who brings everything into existence and then pledges himself to his creation for ever.

 So when the Psalmist talks about God’s word, he’s not talking about a particular 

book. He’s saying something about who God is and what God does. He’s talking abouy

God’s self-communication.

And that’s at the heart of what John the evangelist tells us:

“In the beginning the word already existed” says John – ”and the Word was with God and the Word was God”.  

So again, this isn’t about the Bible. The Word, for John, is a person. The second person of the Trinity. The son of God who became flesh in the person of Jesus. Again, it’s all about God’s self communication.

And it’s a similar story in this morning’s reading from Hebrews. The word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double edged sword. It cuts all the way through to where soul and spirit meet, to where joints and marrow come together.

In other words, when God communicates with you – when he speaks his word into your life, it penetrates. When you find yourself challenged, or convicted, or encouraged at a deep level because of something you’ve read or heard or seen – that’s the word of God coming to you. - helping to shape your life.

 So pulling all of that together, I think we’re beginning to make some sense of this.

God’s word is much more than words on the pages of the Bible, important though they are. Those words sit there blankly until you or I read them with understanding, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That’s when things start to happen because that’s when God starts to make himself known.

The magic isn’t in the words themselves. It’s in what the words lead to, which is a connection with God,.

So when a scripture speaks right into our situation, right where we are – we are hearing God’s word to us.

But God, in his grace, uses many other ways to bring his word to us too.

When a hymn, or a prayer, or sermon stirs something powerful within us – we’re hearing God’s word to us.

When we find ourselves awestruck by the glory of a sunrise, or an autumn night’s sky, or the face of a newborn child, we’re hearing God’s word to us.

When we’re especially struck by the example of another person, or blessed by someone’s good advice, or by love given or received – in these things too, we are hearing God’s word to us.

And all of these things, all of these ‘words with a small ‘w’’ if you like, are signposts pointing us back to the word with a big ‘W’ – the incarnate, living word of Jesus Christ. They’re all witnesses to the reality and goodness of God.

Two things to say as we close 

Firstly, what about the person who’s sitting there today saying ‘ well that’s fine for you Paul – I never hear God speaking to me?’

Well let’s be clear, we’re not talking about audible voices – at least, I’m not talking about audible voices! I’m talking about a strong sense of connection or identification with something I’ve read or heard or seen or felt. Something through which I believe God is speaking to me.

And I do think a lot of this is down to our intentionality. If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear – Jesus was fond of saying.

Two people can walk through the same forest. One sees trees, flowers and the occasional bird. Another sees yew and cypress and oak, buzzard, woodpecker and siskin, bluebell, primrose and cornflower.

It’s the same woods they’re walking through; but one person has trained themselves to be attentive – and as a direct consequence they’re able to see more of what’s really going on.

To change the analogy, if you want to catch fish, go fishing. Don’t expect them to land flopping on your doorstep, uninvited. It might happen; but you’re more likely to catch something if you take yourself off to where the fish are, with a rod and some bait.

If you want to hear from God, my suggestion is that you become intentional about it. Get the bible notes; set aside time to read, think and pray. And I have no doubt whatsoever, that within a very short space of time you will be hearing from God. If you want to start, but don’t know how, then I’m more than happy to help in any way I can. Just talk to me after the service this morning.

Second thing – remember that God often speaks his word to us through the agency of other people. It doesn’t all happen in the quiet of our quiet time, though that’s a good place to start. If we’ve ears to hear God can and does speak to us anywhere.

God spoke to me through Rhona last week. I know that’s surprising – not least to her – but he did.

I convene the Presbytery Mission and Discipleship committee and three times a year we schedule a big meeting to do some planning. If everyone comes, we should have about 15.

This time round, despite frequent notifications, folk were crying off at the last minute to the point where we were down to just three or four coming and none of the folk who convene the sub-committees;

And to be honest, I was pretty fed up because I’d prepared well for the meeting and given plenty of notice that it was happening.

And my first instinct was to pull the plug on it. It would be a waste of time with just a few there and none of the convenors.

But then Rhona, God bless her, said – ‘no – you should just go ahead with the meeting. It might even be better because there’s just a few of you.’

And it was only then that I joined the dots between that situation with the meeting and the talk I’d been working on earlier that day. I’d been preparing the devotions for the monthly Presbytery meeting and reminding folk that God often shows up in situations that seem wholly unpromising and does amazing things.

I’d spent half the morning thinking about that; and yet somehow I didn’t manage to apply it to my own situation until Rhona said ‘no – you should just go ahead. It might even be better.’

And it was. We spent a full hour just talking about how things were in our churches, sharing ideas and struggles and encouragements before rattling through the business items we had to see to. It was the most open and useful Presbytery committee I’d been to in a long time. Why? Because it felt like God, and not the business, was at the centre of things.

The Word of God is living and active, says the writer to the Hebrews.

May God give us ears to hear, and hands and feet to respond, to the coming of his word – however it reaches us. AMEN