When we’re
trying to get to know someone that we like, one of the first things
that we have to do, is to try and find out a little about them.
We find out where they’re from, what they do and gradually
we begin to form a picture of them. No one is just a person in an
empty space. To know them we need to spend time with them too.
A friend of mine was
waiting for a ride to work and she was offered a ride by another
guy from work that she had seen a few times. Before he dropped
her off he had asked her out on a date. But then she wanted to
find out a little more about him, to check him out, as it were.
She needed a picture of him to see what kind of person he was.
The Lord also wants us to
get to know him just as we would anyone else and so He has given us
the Scriptures, the Bible, so that we can get to know him, check him
out, see what kind of a God he is.
One of the best
descriptions I heard of the Bible is to say that it’s a collection
of love letters from God to us personally. They are addressed
to us personally and
they teach us who God is and how God relates to us. It gives us
a picture of what God is like in a way that we can understand.
The Word of God is sacred
to us because it teaches us the truth, which everyone is looking and
searching for, even unknown to themselves. Different cults and
movements like the New Age movement, offer us ‘half-truths’, but
these are no good. There is only one truth and the Bible
teaches the truth, because it comes from God. The Word of God
is so important that we give the whole first half of the mass over to
it, with three readings and then the few minutes I spend speaking, are supposed to be based on the readings. That is how important we
consider the word of God.
In the Eastern Catholic
Church, they have two tabernacles, one for the Eucharist, because it
is the living Jesus in the form of bread, but they also have one for
the Scriptures, because it is the living Word.
We consider it a privilege
to be able to receive Jesus in Holy Communion and so it is. We
even fast for an hour before receiving Holy Communion to show our
respect for who it is we are receiving. It is also a privilege
for us to hear the word of God, even though we probably don’t look
at it like this. I think something we need to continually ask
ourselves is ‘Do I believe that this really is the Word of God?’
If we believe it is, then it should be something we continually turn
to. Of all the things we listen to each day—TV and radio
programs, newspapers, thousands of commercials—what could possibly
be more important to be filled with than God’s own word?
In Russia during Communism,
it was illegal to have a Bible of any kind. And young men and
women used to travel long distances to be able to spend time learning
off parts of the Bible, so that they could go back to their own
people and bring the Word of God to them. Here we have it
handed to us on a plate, but a lot of the time we just consider it
‘boring’. Perhaps it’s not the word of God that needs to
change, but rather the way we look at it.
Do you have a Bible in your
own homes, and if so do you ever look at it? God will speak to
you through it, but He can’t do this unless you read it. The
Bible teaches us the truth and God wants us to have this truth, but
He’s not going to ‘shove it down our throats’, it is an
invitation.
In the Gospel it says the
disciples hearts’ burned within them when Jesus explained
how the Scriptures all pointed to him and spoke about him. This
is because the Word of God is something alive that can have a
profound effect on us. So if you want to know a little more
about the God you believe in, and about what he has to say to you,
read his letters to you, especially the New Testament and he will
speak to you, just as he spoke to those disciples along the road.
“Were not our hearts burning within
us while he spoke to us on the way
and opened the Scriptures to us?”
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