The Lutheran Hour
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"What the Bible Is Like"
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Text: 2 Timothy 3:16-17
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What is the second bestselling book of all time? Imagine the contest for the bestselling book of all time were a race. Let’s say a marathon, 26.2 miles. If the race for the world’s bestselling book were a marathon, then the winner of that race would be crossing the finish line at just over 26 miles, before the second-place runner got to mile four, and third place wouldn’t even have gone a half a mile. In other words, in the race for the world’s bestselling book, the winner is sprinting, and the other books are crawling. According to Russell Ash, the author of the book series, Top 10 of Everything, the second bestselling book of all time is a little red book published in China. It’s titled Quotations from Chairman Tse-Tung. It was first published in 1964, and there have been around 900 million copies sold.
In first place is the Bible with over six billion copies sold, about seven times more than second place. Third place, by the way, goes to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, with just over one percent of the Bible’s total sales. The race for the world’s bestselling book isn’t even close enough to be considered a race. Over the next few weeks on this program, I’d like to talk with you about the winner: the world’s bestselling book, the Bible. The first question we’ll ask is what is the Bible like? How does it compare to other writings? Now, as we’ve seen with the foot race analogy, no comparison will be perfect. In terms of sales, the Bible has no competitors, no peers in its class. It’s beyond compare. And I believe the reason why is because it’s God’s book. That is, the Creator of the universe, the creative genius behind the world and everything in it, inspired human authors to write this book.
Now, I understand it’s possible you don’t share that belief with me. A lot of people don’t believe the Bible is God’s book. But I think that we could all agree that the Bible is a unique book. It’s one of a kind in terms of its influence, its impact on culture and the world. And of course, number of copies sold. And whatever you believe about how God was or was not involved in its inspiration and its production, we can also agree that the Bible is still a book, a text written by human authors. So, we should be able to compare it to other human writings. We should be able to ask this question, what’s the Bible like?
So what do you think? How would you compare it to other human writings? Consider four options. Number one: the Bible is like an encyclopedia set. Number two: the Bible is like a love letter. Number three: the Bible is like a self-help book. Number four: the Bible is like a news article. What do you think? How would you vote given those four options? Before you decide, let’s consider each one in turn.
Option one. The Bible is like an encyclopedia set. When I was in elementary school, my family got a World Book encyclopedia set. Did your household ever have one of these, World Book or Britannica? I loved these books. I would spend hours looking up and reading about interesting topics: blue whales, jet engines, samurai warriors.
The encyclopedia was created during the time of the scientific revolution around 300 years ago. And even though printed encyclopedia sets are mostly obsolete today, the goal of the encyclopedia is not. The goal of the encyclopedia is to record and organize all human knowledge. So, if we compared the Bible to an encyclopedia, we’d be saying that the Bible is like a reference set, made up of many individual volumes. In the Bible’s case, it’s typically numbered as 66 individual volumes, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the new. Furthering the comparison, we’d say that like an encyclopedia, this reference set gives us accurate information about God. It’s a repository of truth about God: God’s nature, God’s attributes, the record of God’s Law and promises, what God loves and what makes God mad. Maybe the Bible is like an encyclopedia set, or maybe it’s more like a love letter.
Samuel Clemens, more commonly known by his pen name, Mark Twain, wrote many love letters to a woman named Olivia, who later became his wife. During their 17-month courtship, Clemens unfalteringly wrote her a letter every week, sometimes two or three. He wrote her 180 love letters during this year and a half period. She finally surrendered and they were married in 1870. After 18 years of marriage, on the occasion of her birthday, Clemens wrote his wife whom he called “Livy,” he wrote, “Livy darling, I am grateful. Gratefuler than ever before that you were born and that your love is mine. And our two lives are woven and welded together.” What makes a love letter different from an encyclopedia set? Well, like an encyclopedia, a love letter may contain information—facts about the outside world—but that’s not what makes it a love letter. A love letter is more about what’s going on inside a person. It expresses the emotions of the heart and the intentions of the will. A love letter uses words to build up a relationship of trust, to nurture understanding and respect and admiration between one person and another. So if we compared the Bible to a love letter, we’d be saying that the Bible does something similar. That it’s God’s courtship, an expression of God’s affection, for you, for me. And God wrote it with the goal, not of organizing all human knowledge, but that we would surrender to His love. God inspired it with the goal of building trust and nurturing a relationship with us. To review, we’re trying to find out what the Bible is like.
Where would you find it in a bookstore? A guy walks into a bookstore, says to the guy at the counter, “I’d like to buy a Bible.” Guy at the counter says, “Hmm, Bible, Bible. Let me see. Try looking under self-help.” Americans love self-help books, almost as much as communist China loved Chairman Mao’s quotes. I, American that I am, have many self-help books on my shelves. Some of my favorites are the For Dummies series. I’ve got a copy of Guitar for Dummies, Home Repair for Dummies, and Golden Retrievers for Dummies. As for the golden retriever, whatever was the level below dummy, that’s the book I needed. And then there’s all those how-to books, How to Win Friends and Influence People, How to Be In the Moment, and the sequel, How To Be In the Moment After That.
It’s easy to poke fun at self-help books. But in their best sense, in their best sense, you could say that a good self-help book has something like the motive of a love letter, if not the intimacy, and the content of an encyclopedia. That is out of the author’s love and concern for others, he or she applies the best of his or her knowledge about the world and how it works to help people. If the Bible is like a self-help book that God Himself inspired, we’d be saying that the Bible is a resource to help us do life. Is the Bible like that in any way? How would you vote? Is the Bible more like an encyclopedia or a love letter or a self-help book? Before you vote, consider one more option.
The Bible is like a news article, a good news article. Whether you get your news from social media or the local paper, you know a good news article when you see one. The candidate you were pulling for got elected. The pandemic has subsided. The war is finally over. A good news article and an encyclopedia article have similar content. They are reports about real events. But if it’s truly good news and not just information, it’s different than an encyclopedia, because you have some personal stake in these happenings. You’ve been praying, campaigning, striving, and suffering for this moment. And now it’s here. Good news involves you, but it may not have the same level of intimate involvement as a love letter. And it may or may not be as transformative as a good self-help book. If we said the Bible is like a good news article, we’d be saying that the Bible is a report of an event, a happening in the world. That something good happened for you, for me, for everyone. That through this article’s central subject, Jesus of Nazareth, God accomplished something good in the world and for the world. By this Christ-event, because of Jesus’ life and teaching, because of His death and resurrection, the sending of His Spirit and His promise to return, nothing can separate us from God’s love. Good news.
So now it’s time to decide. We’ve got four options. What is the Bible like? Number one: an encyclopedia. Number two: a love letter Number three: a self-help book. Or number four: a good news article. They each say something well, but as with any comparison, they all fall short in some way. How could they not fall short? Here’s why I’m convinced that they must fall short. It’s because we’re comparing human writings with God’s words. Christians explain how the writings of the Bible are verbally inspired. That is, they are words breathed out by God Himself.
This is what one of the earliest followers of Jesus said, a Jewish man named Paul writing to Timothy his young co-worker in God’s mission.
Paul wrote, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and what you have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood, you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, with the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise, wise for salvation through faith in Christ, the Messiah, Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and is beneficial for teaching and correcting, for setting right and for training in righteousness so that the man of God, the person who follows God may be competent and equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
In other words, the Bible says exactly what God wanted it to say, to create, sustain, and mature our faith, hope, and love for Jesus, His Son, and to nurture love for our neighbors. We can’t say this about other writings. The Bible is God’s book. At the same time, the Bible is also a fully human book. We can make an analogy here with Jesus. We say that Jesus is both fully God and fully human. It’s similar with the Bible. God used the human background, the vocabulary and style of each biblical author to convey His truth. And because of this fully human character of the Bible, we can compare it to other human writings. So, of those four—encyclopedia, love letter, self-help book, good news article—which do you prefer?
Each of the four options says something true about the Bible, but here’s how they all might fall short. They could leave us seeing the Bible like a distant lake, as a reservoir, as a resource for us. But the Bible wants to pull us into the river. What’s the difference between a lake and a river? With the lake, you can keep the water separate, but with the river, we are all connected. Let’s say that we think that the Bible is a distant lake. We might be very interested in its water. We might even make a regular pilgrimage to it with our pail and get some of that water every now and then, so we can bring it back to our lives. That water might be knowledge of God, like an encyclopedia, or an expression of God’s affection, like a love letter, or practical advice on how to be more godly like a self-help book, or a good news report that because Jesus died and rose again our sins are forgiven. Those are all true qualities of the Bible’s water of life. But there’s more.
There’s more because the Bible is not a distant lake filled with religious truth. The Bible reveals the river of reality-God’s reality in which we, and all things exist. And we are caught up and held in the Bible’s ever-flowing stream of events, even if we don’t recognize it. I might imagine that I have a little kingdom all to myself and all to my people, a place where I get to say what goes and decide what’s true.
But the fact is that little kingdom is just a tiny raft in God’s river, revealed in the Bible. Bear with me as I switch metaphors one more time. The Bible’s story is the story of everything. God’s story. It’s the only reality. It’s not part of some larger story. It’s not something that you can use to apply to the larger story of your life. If you want to live truthfully, if I want to live truthfully, I must fit my little life, my little church, my little country into the Bible’s larger story. Whether you recognize it or not, you are a real-life character in the Bible like Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Zipporah, Simon, Peter, and Mary. You’re just downstream from them. But we’re all in the same story. And God is the Author of this story of everything. And in Jesus, the Author Himself has become the central character in the story He’s writing for us. That means that all events, all wisdom, all intentions, all truth, all streams lead to Jesus.
And what do we find when the river brings us to Jesus? We get good information, better than a reliable encyclopedia. The Bible gives us a trustworthy way to understand the world. Not only is the Bible the only source and judge of Christian teaching. It also provides a framework for evaluating other claims to truth. Whether those claims are labeled religious or scientific, my truth or your truth. The Bible gives followers of Jesus a way of seeing the world and everything in it. The Bible doesn’t list every fact about the world, but it does help us focus on the right facts and not to fret about the rest. The Bible offers a worldview. But it’s more than a worldview; it’s also a love letter. Through it, we get to hear God’s unfaltering affection for each of us. The Bible, God’s written Word, brings us to Jesus, God’s personal Word.
Jesus is the good Person behind the Bible’s Good News. He is the Good News, His character, His accomplishments, and His promise of eternal life woven and welded together with you. And if that weren’t enough, through the Bible, Jesus offers help, training, correcting, improving help. Not self-help, but the Holy Spirit. God’s personal help for living as His children. So, all that’s left is to be swept up in the river, and pray with me.
Dear Father, You have caused the Bible to be written so that we may surrender to Your love and be saved and live with You forever. Send us Your Holy Spirit so that we would more deeply trust and humbly follow Jesus and treasure the Bible, Your written words, hearing them, reading them, marking them, inwardly digesting them. Embrace us by Your Word and hold us fast for eternal life through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God now and forever. Amen.
Reflections for May 8, 2022
Title: What the Bible Is Like
Mark Eischer: You’re listening to The Lutheran Hour. For FREE online resources, archived audio, our mobile app, and more, go to lutheranhour.org. And now Dr. Zeigler talks with teacher, theologian, and author, Dr. Jeff Gibbs.
Mike Zeigler: So, Jeff, we’re starting a new series today on how to listen to the Bible. And I wanted to see how you responded to these five principles that I put together, five principles for listening to the Bible, trying to put these together based on things that you’ve taught me, and others have taught me. So, let’s just jump right in. Principle number one: the Bible is God’s tool for inviting community around Jesus. Now, I know you’ll like this one. Tell me, what do you think of that?
Jeff Gibbs: It is good.
Mike Zeigler: Okay.
Jeff Gibbs: My gut wants to get the word Jesus sooner into the principle.
Mike Zeigler: Okay.
Jeff Gibbs: Earlier on, so, maybe, the Bible is God’s tool through which Jesus invites people into community with Himself, or something like that. But I know that’s in your heart and mind. But I like it very much, because, A, the Bible is God’s Word; it’s effective and powerful. And even though it’s a complicated book, it does have one overarching purpose. And that is for the only Son of God to call a people unto Himself, which will be the foretaste of the feast to come, if I could say it that way.
Mike Zeigler: Yeah.
Jeff Gibbs: So, yeah, I like it very much. I like the community. The Bible is not filled with a message that speaks to me as an isolated individual.
Mike Zeigler: All right. Let’s move on to number two. The Bible is complex. It’s a library of books. So, pay attention to context.
Jeff Gibbs: I think that’s really important. One of our kids, when she was a young teenager, she was sad one evening, and I asked her why. And she said, “Because I read the Bible, and I can’t understand it.”
Mike Zeigler: Yeah.
Jeff Gibbs: And I said, “Miriam, the Bible was written for adults.” She instantly felt better. See. She could get some of it. But it’s complex. And it’s various kinds of writings. So, I think that’s a great, great principle to keep in mind.
Mike Zeigler: Okay. So, you got to pay attention to the fancy word, “genre.” Is it a narrative? Is it a psalm? Is it a letter?
Jeff Gibbs: Poetry. Right.
Mike Zeigler: Okay.
Jeff Gibbs: Yep. Yep.
Mike Zeigler: Good. Okay. So, now I’m balancing it with this next principle number three. On the one hand, the Bible complex, but principle number three is, on the other hand, the Bible is simple. It’s one continuous story of God’s kingdom coming in the crucified and risen, ruling and returning Jesus.
Jeff Gibbs: And that’s the big picture. I think both principle number two and three are crucial. And to have that am both together is crucial. It’s like any other thing in life. To get married is simple. Oh, wait. No, it’s not simple. It’s complicated.
Jeff Gibbs: See. I’ve been married to Renee for going on 49 years, and we’re still learning things, still making mistakes, still trying to grow together. So, again, it’s simple on one hand. You make a promise and you just start keeping it. Bible’s simple. But it’s also complicated. So, I like both of those.
Mike Zeigler: Okay. Number four. In Jesus and through the Bible … See. I got Jesus right up front here on this one. In Jesus and through the Bible, God wants to speak to you personally and lead you to trust Him as a dearly loved child trusts a loving Father.
Jeff Gibbs: Great.
Mike Zeigler: That’s Small Catechism.
Jeff Gibbs: Great.
Mike Zeigler: I’m sure you can hear that in there.
Jeff Gibbs: Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Zeigler: And I felt like this was important because it’s not just a big story about everything. It’s also God speaking to me, personally.
Jeff Gibbs: Yes. And God saves us one at a time. And so, that means He speaks to you personally, and to me. But, again, that’s why I like your first guiding principle is when He chooses us individually, He chooses us to belong along with others.
Mike Zeigler: Other brothers and sisters. Fifth principle: to receive what God wants to give us in the Bible, we must hold two truths in tension. On the one hand, each of us has a terrifying power to destroy ourselves. But on the other hand, God’s love for us in Jesus will never fail. What do you think about that?
Jeff Gibbs: That’s the one that strikes me as pretty complex.
Mike Zeigler: Okay.
Jeff Gibbs: Yeah. It’s not that it’s untrue.
Mike Zeigler: Yeah.
Jeff Gibbs: I almost wanted to make it a sixth principle.
Mike Zeigler: Yeah.
Jeff Gibbs: Rather than a fifth one.
Mike Zeigler: Okay.
Jeff Gibbs: So that, the fifth one might be something like emphasizing faith in the promise.
Mike Zeigler: Yeah.
Jeff Gibbs: Or something. Now, having said that, how do I live my life? Well, I have to find this balanced way between, “Oh, yeah. I have to be vigilant. I walk in danger all the way. I could destroy this.”
Mike Zeigler: Yeah.
Jeff Gibbs: On the other hand, when I look to His resources, there’s no way I can fall.
Mike Zeigler: Yeah. And that’s what I feel like I want to do with that, I want to say with that principle, and to keep it in one, it’s like keeping Law and Gospel in tension but never separate.
Jeff Gibbs: Yeah. No, I like it. Yeah. Again, of the five, it just struck me as the most obviously complicated. And you know way better than I do, that you can’t cover all the territory.
Mike Zeigler: Yeah.
Jeff Gibbs: But if people keep these in mind, this is really helpful.
Mike Zeigler: And that’s the main thing. Just trying to have a helpful way for people to approach the Bible. What are we doing when we listen to the Bible? How would you want to summarize this for a listener?
Jeff Gibbs: Well, I would say the first thing is that you do need principles. And the principles are ones that derive from the Bible itself. And so, I like these very much, Mike, because they come from the Bible itself, and from our convictions, and not just as Lutherans, but many Christians, our convictions about what the Bible actually says. I think it’s a nice invitation to the Bible that comes from the Bible itself. That’s what I would say.
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
“With High Delight Let Us Unite” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House)