Monday, November 21, 2005

Enjoying your Bible lately?


How are you doing in your own personal study of the Bible? Does it sometimes seem like a wearisome task? When personal Bible study becomes burdensome, and everywhere on the web people are downplaying the Bible and its profundity, I found these words particularly refreshing and encouraging. Hopefully you do too.

"In addition to all its other virtues, the Bible delights the people of God. Its pages brim with adventure, humour, and pageantry. It is a book of aesthetic beauty. Surely, God gave us this marvelous message to enjoy!" People savour the "artful narrative of the intrigues of Joseph and his brothers, and they admire Nathan's cunningly simple parable to King David. They appreciate the masterful poetry in the Psalms and delight in the parables of Jesus. The Bible's diverse literature--OT epics, strange apocalyptic prophecy, tightly reasoned epistles, the skillful sustained argumentation in Hebrews--inspires and captures our interest. The Book itself arouses intellectual and emotional enjoyment. It invites us to appreciate its multifaceted beauty. But above that, the Bible's beauty and the pleasure it promotes reflects the beauty and personality of the God who inspired it. Its beauty sings his praises just as the stars and planets do (Psa 19)."
--From Klein, Blomberg & Hubbard, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, rev. ed., pg 475.

I think its particularly interesting that God would speak to us using written words that we will enjoy and delight in. He could have made the Bible boring, but he delights in giving us joy... and he gave us the Bible which inspires us to delight in him... What a great God!

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