Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
If it weren’t for the Reformation, I wouldn’t be delivering this sermon. Yes, Protestant churches are a result of this pivotal sixteenth-century movement, but that is not what I’m talking about. When Martin Luther railed against abuses that were prevalent throughout the Roman Catholic Church, he made a crucial claim known today by the Latin term solo scriptura. Sola scriptura means “by Scripture alone,” meaning that our faith and practices should not be determined by an ecclesiastical hierarchy, meaning the papacy, but by the Bible itself. The Bible is our sole authority when we construct our theology and determine how we should govern ourselves as churches.
By Scripture, we mean the thirty-nine books that comprise the Hebrew Bible (what Christians typically call the Old Testament) and the twenty-seven found in the New Testament. We, as a church, take pride in the fact that we are biblically-based. This does not mean that we take the Bible literally. We would be in trouble if we did. As I have said countless times, we need to interpret the Bible carefully using the tools of responsible historical and literary criticism. We need to discern what the writers of Scripture were saying to their original audiences and the context which these writers and readers lived in. We then connect its lessons to our contemporary context. Some passages transcend time easily. For example, it isn’t too difficult to understand what Jesus meant when he told us to “love one another.” However, what was meant about the injunctions against wearing clothing made out of two different kinds of material? Does that really apply to twenty-first-century believers? The love command does, but I really don’t think that God cares if your clothing is fifty-percent cotton and fifty-percent polyester — at least I hope not!
Much of this comes down to two controversial terms used regarding biblical studies: inerrancy and infallibility. Inerrancy means that the Bible is without error. Scholars across the theological spectrum have shown that there are historical errors in the text, such as where and when specific rulers held power. Infallibility, on the other hand, means that Scripture cannot fail. My position — and I would bet it is the opinion of many of our members — is that the Bible does have some errors in it (it was written by imperfect human beings like us, after all), but in spite of that, the Bible cannot fail. God’s Word still speaks to us through the words on the page. Karl Barth is famous (among other things) for saying that the words on the page are not God’s words, but God speaks to us through them. This is not unlike Marcus Borg’s claim that “Everything in the Bible is true, and some of it really happened.”
If you take the Bible literally, then you are going to run into a lot of trouble. If you’ve ever sinned with your hands, then you should cut them off. If you’ve ever sinned with your eyes, then you should pluck them out. Read Matthew 5:27-30 for yourself and tell me what it says. Did Jesus literally mean that, or was he using hyperbole? I’m going with the latter.
There are many literary styles in Scripture: saga, poetry, biography, legend, poetry even census reports. We do not read and interpret all kinds of writing the same way. Furthermore, even though the biblical canon is closed, it is a living document because it is the primary way that the Living God communicates with us. There are other ways, of course, but our faith begins and ends with the Bible.
My earliest memory of the Bible, along with hearing it read in church and at Sunday school, was my mother reading me a story from a collection I received for Christmas when I was six years old. It was a gift from her sister, my Aunt Harriet. My mother used to read me Bible stories every night before I went to bed. On some nights, she would read an extra story so that we could get to some of my favorites faster. Afterward, I would drift off to sleep with images of the shepherd boy David defeating the giant Philistine Goliath with just a stone and a slingshot. I would lie in the darkness thinking of the wonder that filled the hearts of the disciples when they saw Jesus walking on the water. These stories were not just entertaining. They spoke to my young soul in ways that no other story ever did or could. It was a felt experience, one in which its truths reverberated through my nerves and my bones.
I love what the theologian Michael F. Bird says about all this. He writes, “Theology first emerges from our encounter with God through the gospel. As those who have experienced the gospel, we must take notice of God’s self-disclosure in the book that singularly attests to his character and recounts his mighty deeds.”[1] I love this definition for many reasons. God reveals Himself to us through the Bible. It is a revelation that is experiential. Think of it another way. Have you ever had an incredible experience, and you tried to relay it to someone? The other person doesn’t quite get it — they do not feel the way you felt. What do we typically say in response? “I guess you had to be there.”
No one can explain how you encounter God in the Scriptures in such a way that you will feel it too. You have to encounter him yourself. I can explain all day what riding a rollercoaster feels like, but you won’t feel it unless you ride one yourself. You need to immerse yourself in the Scriptures yourself and let the Holy Spirit speak to your heart through its chapters and verses. Let it guide you into a sacred mystery that calls you to participate in it.
My greatest encounters with the Word of God as revealed through the Scriptures are not something I can capture in a sermon. In fact, all sermons on the Bible ultimately fail, because they cannot capture the sacred essence that surfaces from a prayerful trek through its pages. It would be like someone trying to explain love to you in such a way that you would feel it as well. It cannot be done. However, it can be discovered by each person who falls in love, just as the power of the Bible is revealed to anyone who engages the text with an open mind, an open spirit, and an open heart. I encourage you to do so — to let the Bible confront you, comfort you, and change you. No other book in the history of humanity has the same power: not the epics of Homer, the plays of Shakespeare, or yes, not even the poetry of T.S. Eliot.
As we read in Paul’s Second Letter to Timoty this morning, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Saying it is God-breathed means that it is filled with the Holy Spirit.
I will give the final word to the Scottish Bible scholar William Barclay, who wrote, “Again and again Scripture has opened for men and women the way to God. In simple fairness, no man seeking for the truth has any right to neglect the reading of the Bible…Even an unbeliever is acting unfairly unless he tries to read it. The most amazing things may happen if he does, for there is saving wisdom here that is in no other book.”[2] Amen.
[1] Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 62.
[2] William Barclay, The Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon (Louisville: Westminster John Knowx Press, 1975), 200.