Prophets & Prophecy: Reading for Faith

Start by reading Joshua 1:1-9 and John 8:31-41

Welcome to Lent!  Its a great season isn’t it?  Its a time to prepare for Easter.  Now, you can probably tell from some of my previous posts that I don’t think we do near enough actual preparation.  Actually, I should say we don’t do enough of the right kind of preparation.  Arguably, its the lack of the right kind of preparation that has caused us the most trouble and has led us to the troubles we’re facing.  This is an interesting post about some of the reasons why kids leave the church.  Largely, we’re trying to hard in the wrong areas, and not enough in the right ones.

This season, during Lent I want us to be preparing in the right ways.  Mostly though, I want us to do this by taking a new look at things that we think we know.

Throughout the season of Lent we’re going to be studying the prophets and prophecy.  We’re going to be doing this for a couple of reasons.  One of those reasons is because prophecy figures into so much of who Jesus is, and just what he is supposed to do as the Messiah.  This, in fact, became one of the major sticking points for lots of folks because Jesus wasn’t being the Messiah that they expected, even though he was fulfilling the prophecies.

Now, you can imagine that if those folks who were a lot closer to knowing the original intent of the prophecies, and also spoke the language, then we should be extra careful about what we’re doing and saying.  This is the second thing we’ll be looking at during this season.  Prophecy is a very important topic, and it has so much that it can teach us. The problem is that we have reduced prophecy down to divination at best, and wild apacalypticism at worst.  If that’s all we’re looking at, then we are missing an incredible part of our tradition that has so much it can tell us.

In order to get there, though, we’ve got some things that we need to get a better handle on. Specifically how we treat passages of the Bible.  To often, prophecy gets used to bring down the hammer of judgment on others when that isn’t what it should be used for.  So, we’re going to start, in this post with getting a handle on how we use Scripture.  To do that, we’re going to go back to the very basics.  The very, very basics.

In the Bible there are 66 books.  Of those, 27 are in the New Testament, and 39 are in the Old.  Roughly 2/3’s of the Bible is in the Old Testament, and the remaining third in the New.  From this point, a lot of folks would go into the different types of books, but we aren’t going to go that direction.  I want us to get a better handle of the size of the Bible.

Those 66 books are made up of:

1189(ish) chapters, and
31,103(ish) verses

I say “ish” because those numbers should be very close, but I haven’t actually counted them myself.

Now, that’s a lot of verses. Especially when you consider the number of verses that most of us are actually familiar with.  Anytime I see a big number like that, I begin to break it down into pieces that I can better understand.  The easiest way of doing this is by figuring easy percentages.

31,103 verses
 x 10%
3,110 verses

5% = 1,555 verses

1% = 311 verses

Alright, so keep that 1% number in mind.  That’s still a lot of verses isn’t it?  But that’s at least a little more manageable.  So lets put a little more perspective on that number.  In the 1800’s, around the time of the Civil War, folks were using the Bible to either justify or abolish slavery.  Of those folks who were using the Bible to justify slavery, they were using over 100 verses.  Realistically that means there were probably between 100-150 that were being used.  If we’re generous and use the 150 number, that still only amounts to less that .5% of the Bible to justify a position that is otherwise contradicted throughout so much of the rest of the Bible.

That’s an important point to make because there are a lot of folks today who use even fewer verses than that to justify a particular position.

So how much of the Bible does one verse represent?

.1% = 31.1 verses
.01% = 3.11 verses
.001% = .311 verses

.311 x 3 = .933 verses
.311 x 4 = 1.244 verses

So, one verse is between .003% and .004% of the Bible.

If you’re thinking that’s not much, then you’re right.  It’s not.

But can we use a very few verses to make a point, or justify our position, or explain our faith to others?  The simple answer is that we can, but we have to be careful about how we do it.  In order for us to do that, then we have to go deeper with our faith, and we have to read the Bible for faith, and not just for justifying our position.

Its much easier if what we saying has broad based Biblical backing, but there are times when we can use smaller numbers of verses.  One instance when we can do that is when we have what I call summary verses.  The best known of these is John 3:16

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.

This is a verse that summarizes an incredible portion of the Bible, and in a few words explains so much of who we are.  it can stand alone because of the weight that it carries.

More often than not, its hard to find a single verse that acts as a good summary.  Three to four verses is more common.  Another example is God’s promise to Moses which first appears in Genesis 12:1-3

1The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your land, your family, and your father’s household for the land that I will show you. 2I will make of you a great nation and will bless you. I will make your name respected, and you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, those who curse you I will curse; all the families of earth will be blessed because of you.“

This is an important summary verse, which will be discussed more in the next post, because it sets up one of the foundational principles of our faith.  It then gets repeated in Genesis, the rest of the Old Testament, and referenced in the New Testament.

A third, great summary is the Greatest Commandment found in Matthew 22:37-40

37He replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. 38This is the first and greatest commandment.
39And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. 40All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.“

This is, by no means, and exhaustive list.  What’s important is that they are summarizing main themes that we find throughout scripture.  We need verses like this because its hard for us to use several hundred verses at a time.  That being said, it doesn’t give us carte blanche to just pick and choose.

When Christians are accused of hypocrisy its because we pick and choose indiscriminately.  Then, when we are questioned as to why we look at some things and not others we either give really lame excuses, or we say something along the lines of, “that’s what it says and that’s what I believe.”  If that is our best excuse, then we’re doomed.  Not only is that harmful in our attempts to share the Good News, but its also harmful to our faith.  That means we only have a very shallow faith.

When we are asked why, we need to be able to respond in a healthy way.  That means that our response needs to make sense theologically and logically. In order for it to make sense logically, then what we’re using needs to point to at least one of the big ideas that we’ve talked about before:

1. Who God is
2. How we’re saved
3. How we live
4. Our Mission

If you’re wanting to use a verse, or several verses and you can’t point them back to one of these big ideas, then you need to dig deeper.  This is challenging because it may also mean that we need to change.  If you think that it/they does/do, but then don’t agree with other verses/passages that point to that same big idea, then you need to go deeper.  If you can only find a handful of verses that are supporting what you’re saying, that doesn’t mean that you have some sort of special knowledge.  What it probably means is that we’re reading it wrong.

Then, the other thing that we need to do is that what use needs to make sense logically.  Ours, for all of its private moments, is a very public faith.  That means that what we say needs to make logical sense, so that others can follow what we’re saying.  That doesn’t mean they have to agree with it, but they do need to be able to follow the path.  If we can do that, then later, when whatever happens, good or bad, and a piece falls into place, then they can follow that line of logic and believe the Good News.

I should also say, that by logic I don’t mean trying to prove the existence of God.  What I mean is something more along the lines of

1. I have faith, because without it there is a gap in my life
2. When God fills that gap, I find that my life changes and reorients on God.
3. Then I discover that God was never gone, but that he has been active throughout my life, but I just didn’t see him.
4. Then I am humbled and realize that he is more than a God of the gap, but that he is in every part of my life.
5. I am much better with God, than without
6. For the first time I am truly free, and not held back other external constraints/sins/mistakes in my life.
7. I am more complete with God, and while the circumstances of my life may not change, the way I see them change
8. I share this with others not because I’m force to, but because I can’t help myself and I want them to know what I know now

We have a challenge in front of us.  We have a long Lenten season, but that’s a good thing.  It gives us time to prepare.  Join with me as we take this season to reflect, and change so that when we see the empty tomb on Easter morning, we see more of Christ than we ever have before.