Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Scripture: 2 Timothy 3.16 (Common English Bible)
Every scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing mistakes, for correcting, and for
training character.
Devotion:
In the 1700s when our forefathers were establishing the Constitution of the United States, they did something really smart: they built into our government a way to continually interpret and reinterpret the founding documents. The legislative branch is meant to discern new laws and ways of governing and supporting the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for all people. The executive branch is meant to hold the legislators in check when they can’t get things done or when they go too far. And the judicial branch hears legal cases to determine the best spirit of the law in these cases. It is because of this room for the Constitution to breathe that the United States has continued to be a beacon of freedom in the modern world. We are not the same as we once were all those years ago: we have abolished slavery and given women and people of color the right to vote. We, as citizens today, take the Constitution and founding documents seriously because we believe in democracy and in our great country. Because we take them seriously, we work to discover how we the spirit of the law might be interpreted best today.
The same is true of scripture. This scripture in 2 Timothy is often used to promote taking the Bible literally all the time. This scripture is often quoted when people say, “The Bible is clear.” The truth is that we must take the Bible seriously; the Bible is how God chose to reveal God’s self to us, to teach us about God’s character and God’s desire and design for humanity. But we must be wary of taking it too literally; without room to breathe and move and be interpreted, the Bible will become too rigid to walk through the centuries with us. Like the various branches of government interpreting the Constitution, we need to hold ourselves accountable to prayerfully following the Holy Spirit in interpreting scripture today.
How do we do that? What does that mean? Join me on Sunday morning at 10am as we explore and wrestle with this idea together.
Every scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing mistakes, for correcting, and for
training character.
Devotion:
In the 1700s when our forefathers were establishing the Constitution of the United States, they did something really smart: they built into our government a way to continually interpret and reinterpret the founding documents. The legislative branch is meant to discern new laws and ways of governing and supporting the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for all people. The executive branch is meant to hold the legislators in check when they can’t get things done or when they go too far. And the judicial branch hears legal cases to determine the best spirit of the law in these cases. It is because of this room for the Constitution to breathe that the United States has continued to be a beacon of freedom in the modern world. We are not the same as we once were all those years ago: we have abolished slavery and given women and people of color the right to vote. We, as citizens today, take the Constitution and founding documents seriously because we believe in democracy and in our great country. Because we take them seriously, we work to discover how we the spirit of the law might be interpreted best today.
The same is true of scripture. This scripture in 2 Timothy is often used to promote taking the Bible literally all the time. This scripture is often quoted when people say, “The Bible is clear.” The truth is that we must take the Bible seriously; the Bible is how God chose to reveal God’s self to us, to teach us about God’s character and God’s desire and design for humanity. But we must be wary of taking it too literally; without room to breathe and move and be interpreted, the Bible will become too rigid to walk through the centuries with us. Like the various branches of government interpreting the Constitution, we need to hold ourselves accountable to prayerfully following the Holy Spirit in interpreting scripture today.
How do we do that? What does that mean? Join me on Sunday morning at 10am as we explore and wrestle with this idea together.