Itʼs not often in Scripture that we hear about someone who has grown up in the church.
Thatʼs not surprising, given that the books of the New Testament were mostly written in
the first fifty or so years of the churchʼs life, and so many of the people whose stories
are recorded were adults when Jesus came on the scene, and so were adult converts.
Most of the disciples and the leaders of the early church appear to spring fully grown out
of nowhere, confident and full of faith, ready to go out preaching from day one. All it
takes is a word from Jesus and they are ready to go, with none of the struggles and
fears that most of us have experienced as weʼve tried to work out what it means to be a
Christian.
Recently our lectionary has had us read the Epistles to Timothy. And they are written to
someone just like us.
Timothy didnʼt ever get to meet Jesus. He learned his faith not directly from Jesus, but
in much the same way as many of us learn ours, from his family. And when he needed
help, he was advised to turn to the Scriptures, the sacred writings that would remind him
about the God he worshipped and recall him to his faith in Christ.
Scripture is still the touchstone of faith, the place we can go to receive encouragement
and wisdom, as 2 Timothy reminds us,
“All scripture is inspired by God and 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.”
“Scripture” in 2 Timothy probably meant the Old Testament. Later the Church realized
that the first writings of the early Church, the letters that were passed around from
community to community, the stories of Jesus that had begun to be written down, were
somehow distinctively authoritative. In them, God spoke. They are what we now know
as the New Testament. Old Testament and New Testament together form our Bible.
The Bible is inspired by God, God-breathed. From the time of creation, we know that
when God breathes on something, God brings that thing to life. Not just once, but
continually.
And so when we read the BIble, we know that God inspires these words. God breathes
life into them, even now, so that they are not just dead letters but alive, the living and
active word of God.
And as the living and active word, when we read Scripture, we are invited into a
conversation with God, a conversation where the Spirit of God is active and alive in us,
inviting us into truth. We may discover that we need to disagree with the Scriptures, to
argue with God just as Abraham did in the book of Genesis, or to shout at God just as
the psalms so often shout lament and scream.
We may find contradictions in Scripture, because God needed to have different
conversations with the people at different times; we may find principles that we then
need to apply in different ways today. We may find commands that Jesus ignored, and
new ways of living that he commanded. We may find things that turn our stomachs, and
things that fill us with joy.
But when we read these living, breathing, scriptures, we are able to join a conversation
with our living and breathing God, and be encouraged and equipped for the life of faith.
