Key Bible Passage(s):

Luke 24:32 & 45; II Peter 1:23-2:2; II Cor.3:15-4:6; Ps.45

Tier 1:

The Bible is a book that grows with you. It can be easy to feel intimidated, but in fact, there is plenty in the Bible that the newest Christian can begin to understand straight away! God is a brilliant communicater, and just to make sure, He has given us His Holy Spirit to enable us to engage well with His Word. The key attitude is one of humility, starting with the assumption that God knows better than we do; and to come with a heart that desires to know God and His vision for our lives.

Tier 2:

There are lots of obstacles we create for ourselves when we come to read the Bible. It’s worth noting these, and learning to discard them! The Bible itself gives us all the information we need to make sense of it, and in spite what can appear huge differences in history, geography and culture, people are basically people, and the issues God has to deal with in us haven’t changed over the centuries. Christian life and faith are constant in any culture, so we can often feel a surprising resonance as we read of God working out His relationship with His people.

Tier 3:

God’s word is so accessible that the Lord expects even children to be able to make sense of it. But as we noted above, the Bible is a book that grows with us, and so as we mature - as people and as Christians - we will find that we become aware of deeper levels of meaning, and richer insights in passages we thought we knew quite well. In this session we’ll take a couple of examples of how a passage ‘layers up’ meaning as we grow in our awareness of the rest of the Bible.

the unspoken desire of any authentic congregation:

We need help in keeping our beliefs sharp and accurate and intact. We don’t trust ourselves; our emotions seduce us into infidelities. We know we are launched on a difficult and dangerous act of faith, and there are strong influences intent on diluting or destroying it. We want you to give us help. Be our pastor, a minister of Word and Sacrament in the middle of this world’s life. Minister with Word and Sacrament in all the different parts and stages of our lives: in our work and play, with our children and our parents, at birth and death, in our celebrations and sorrows, on those days when the morning breaks over us in a wash of sunshine, and those other days that are all drizzle. This isn’t the only task in the life of faith, but it is your task. We will find someone else to do the other important and essential tasks. But this is yours: Word and Sacrament.

One more thing: We are going to ordain you to this ministry, and we want your vow that you will stick to it. This is not a temporary job assignment but a way of life that we need lived out in our community. We know you are launched on the same difficult venture in the same dangerous world as we are. We know your emotions are as fickle as ours, and your mind is as tricky as ours. That is why we are going to ordain you and why we exact a vow from you. We know there will be days and months, maybe even years, when we won’t feel like believing anything, and won’t want to hear it from you. And we know there will be days and weeks, and maybe even years when you won’t feel like saying it. It doesn’t matter. Do it. You are ordained to this ministry, vowed to it.

There may be times when we come to you as a committee, or delegation and demand that you tell us something else than what we are telling you know. Promise right now that you won’t give in to what we demand of you. You are not the minister of our changing desires, or our time-conditioned understanding of our needs, or our secularised hopes for something better. With these vows of ordination we are lashing you fast to the mast of Word and Sacrament, so you will be unable to respond to the siren voices… even when they are ours.

There are many other things to be done in this wrecked world, and we are going to be doing at least some of them, but if we don’t know the foundational realities with which we are dealing - God, Kingdom, Gospel - we are going to end up living futile, fantasy lives. Your task is to keep telling the basic story, representing the presence of the Spirit, insisting on the priority of God’s Word, speaking His command and promise and invitation…

taken from: Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor, 138-139

I interpret as I should, following the command of Christ: Search the Scriptures, and Seek and you shall find.

… if, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and wisdom of God, then ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.

Jerome