Valuing The Bible Without Worshiping The Bible

The Bible contains accurate historical information about the creation of the heavens and the earth, as well as the creation of mankind and God’s interaction with them on the earth.

The Bible contains trustworthy future information about the heavens and earth and God’s future interaction with people.

The Bible contains information about God’s plan to save the world through Jesus.

The Bible contains information about all that God has done for us in Jesus to forgive our sins, make us righteous, and bring us into a relationship with himself.

The Bible contains the message about how God has reconciled himself to us in Christ, not counting our sins against us, and through faith in Jesus we can know God personally.

The Bible contains real historical books and letters written by real people to real people that reveal Jesus to the world.

The Bible provides accurate and reliable historical documentation, which is the foundation for our belief in God, our faith in Jesus, and our hope for his return.

This makes the Bible valuable...the most valuable book in the world.

Sadly, the most valuable book in the world is worshipped by many leaders in the Christian world.

They view reading the Bible and memorizing its verses as the key to being closer to God.

Believers are made to feel guilty if they do not read the Bible daily and memorize verses consistently.

These leaders are much like the Pharisees during the life of Jesus who studied the Jewish Scriptures intently but totally missed who the Jewish Scriptures was about…Jesus.

Jesus said to them, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me.”

The Pharisees proudly wore Phylacteries on the outside of their clothing that contained memorized verses from the Jewish Scriptures.

The larger the Phylacteries, the more verses they memorized.

Jesus pointed out their hypocrisy when he said in Matthew 23:5,

“They do everything to be seen by people. They increase the size of their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments.”

The Jewish leaders worshipped the Jewish Scriptures, and by doing so, missed out on who and what the Jewish Scriptures were about...Jesus and the new testament he would establish in his blood to redeem people from the law and to reconcile us to God in grace.

In the same way, Christian leaders today miss what the Bible is about.

They miss that the Bible is about...

...Jesus and the new testament of grace established in his blood eternally

...Jesus and his blood that brought us close to God relationally

...Jesus and his blood that cleansed from sins completely

...Jesus and his death that forgave our sins fully

...Jesus and his resurrection that gave us life spiritually

...Jesus and his Spirit who dwells in our hearts internally

Unfortunately, many Christian leaders have very little understanding of the Bible.

They consistently misuse the Bible in a way that makes people feel guilty for not reading it.

They tell people that if they do not have time read the Bible then they are too busy.

They tell people they should get up thirty minutes early to read the Bible.

This is worshiping the Bible.

Since the Bible is highly valuable, the most valuable book in the world, one of the ways Christian leaders can value the Bible is to accurately handle its contents by not misinterpreting and misapplying it.

The goal of those teaching the Bible needs to be one of helping people understand it, just as Jesus helped the two men on the road to Emmaus understand the Jewish Scriptures, just as Philip helped the Ethiopian Eunuch understand the Jewish Scriptures, and just as Paul and Apollos helped those in the Jewish synagogues understand them.

We can be confident the Bible provides accurate and trustworthy information concerning historical and future events.

The writings in the Bible are real historical documents written by real historical people about real historic and future events.

The writings in the Bible are as reliable and trustworthy, even more reliable and trustworthy because of the manuscripts, as any other piece of ancient literature that is deemed accurate and trustworthy information about historical events.

Therefore, Christian leaders need to help people understand the Bible (valuing it) rather than make them feel guilty for not reading it (worshipping it).