Matt's Sermon from Oct. 21, 2007

The Bible holds a divisive place in Christian history. The understanding of its place in worship, in daily life, its authority and factual content, have changed constantly throughout the life of the church. Are we even sure of the position that the sacred writings are intended to hold? (pause)

Today’s reading from the second letter to Timothy helps us to understand what exactly we are to do with scripture. The author speaks of the “sacred writings” which Timothy has known since childhood. These sacred writings are the writings that make up the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, which is the only Bible available at this point.

These sacred writings of the Hebrew scripture are able to instruct us for salvation. Exactly how they are able to make us wise is given in the next sentence. They are useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. They are useful for teaching in the general sense of education, history, education, ethics, morality, but also for teaching about relationship with God. They are useful for reproof and corrections, terms which are specifically situated in the context of this letter, where the author firmly encourages Timothy to fight against those who are teaching unsound doctrine in the early church. And scripture is also useful for training in righteousness, that is, it is useful for learning about the right actions and deeds we can do in relation to others.

The key word in this text that establishes the authority of scripture (pause) is “useful.” This is the Greek word ophelimos, which means, among other things, useful, beneficial, serviceable, or profitable. It never possesses the connotation of necessary or required or essential, but rather takes the position as something that can be of good service to us. Scripture is useful.

This is certainly not the perspective on scripture that we are used to in this age. But it is important to remember the setting in which the author is writing. The authorship of this letter is debated, but it is written probably sometime in the first or second century. In this period, access to scripture is nowhere near what it is today. Local synagogues would have had some, rarely all, of the books of the Hebrew Bible. Only the richest of individuals would have a personal copy. And most credible estimates of literacy peak at about 15% of the population. The author is certainly aware of the scant availability of the texts, the general lack of literacy among people in this period, and the difficulty of accessing, reading, and interpreting these texts, even for those who are literate. For him to say that scripture is anything more than an aid to a life of faith, to say that the reading and internalizing of scripture is necessary for salvation, would be to condemn a majority of the church in his time.

But now, since the reformation, with the invention of the printing press and the advent of public schools in the western world, a majority of people are literate and have access to the text. And with this change has come a change in the authority of scripture and the understanding of its significance. Now, when seeking to verify the authority of scripture, scripture is cited, and it all focuses on a single phrase, the verse from our reading today: “All scripture is inspired by God.” It appears clear, but when we take a closer look at the text, some questions may arise.

First, the phrase translated as “inspired by God” is actually a single Greek word, theopneustos, which, literally translated means God-breathed. Unfortunately, the word is so rarely used in the corpus of Greek literature that saying what it definitively means is impossible. “Inspired by God” is, I suppose, one possible understanding, but it is limited because of our preconceived notions of what inspiration means.

I prefer the phrase God-breathed, as there is a precedent for understanding what it means to be breathed on or into by God.

In the second of the two creation stories, we have this passage, “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust, and breathed into his nostrils.” And in the Gospel of John, Jesus breathes on his disciples and says “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Look, (pause) we, too, are God breathed. We have the breath of God in our lungs, we have received the Holy Spirit from the breath of Christ. As the book of Ecclesiastes notes, “All have the same breath.” But notice (pause) that despite being God-breathed, we are not infallible or inerrant or even right most of the time. Notice that Adam, after being inspired, in the original sense, by God, after being God-breathed to life and thus to action and to activity, promptly does the wrong thing.

So what does this make Adam? Does the fact that Adam is inspired but imperfect render him useless? No, Adam is useful. Adam’s story is useful. Adam’s story is an allegory for humanity, explaining aspects of the human condition and our human responsibility to the world around us. Thus, the story of Adam is “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work,” exactly what this letter tells us today. The Bible, just like the people who are in it and their stories, just like all people throughout history, just like us, has been given life through the breath of God. But just like us, it should not be worshiped; if we hold it too dearly, we are committing idolatry. We are pushing God to the side, to the background, and acting as if the Living God has already finished speaking. The Bible is not God, and it does not hold the authority that is God’s alone. So read the Bible, and use it to learn and to grow in relationship with God, but never hold the Bible so close that you drown out the active voice of God speaking to us through ourselves and all the people of the world.