Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
...............
What is the central message of the Bible? How would you summarize the whole thing? How can you grasp and understand this message more clearly? Why should you even try?
One way to answer these questions is found in Deuteronomy 6. Moses has just finished reiterating the Ten Commandments in the preceding chapter, and chapter 6 provides a culminating statement about God's law, summarizing what He has spoken and what He requires of His chosen people:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
For later generations of Jews, this verse became known as the "Shema," the Hebrew word for "Hear." It would also become famous to Christians for its place in the teaching of Jesus. When Jesus was asked by a lawyer to pick the greatest commandment in all of the Jewish Law, his response was this:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40)
Not only did Jesus quote the Shema. He also quoted another passage in the Law referring to love of neighbor as equally important. And then he went a step further and claimed that all of the Law and Prophets depend upon these two concepts.
1. Love for God
2. Love for Others
In other words, Jesus gave us at least one way to answer the question, "What is the Bible all about?" The answer is: Love God and Love Others. These two concepts can be used as a lens through which all of Scripture can be understood.
But this also begs the question, "How can I love God and love others?" And, I think Deuteronomy 6 provides some answers to this "How" question as well. The answer is: Mediate on His Word.
This passage connects the command to love the Lord with mediating on His Word. Moses describes several different ways to focus on God's command, all in an effort for us to integrate it more deeply into our lives:
Read/Hear/Memorize - And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart...
Teach - You shall teach them diligently to your children...
Discuss - and shall talk of them...
Everywhere - when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way...
All the time - and when you lie down, and when you rise...
Continuously - You shall bind them as a sign on your hand...
Visually - and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes...
In writing - You shall write them...
Privately and Publicly - on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
So, Deuteronomy 6 is encouraging us to use a variety of methods to integrate God's Word into our lives. I think that the variety is meant to open doors of creativity. There is no one perfect way to read or study the Bible, although there are some methods that a particular person might prefer over other methods.
In other words, there is freedom to be creative in how we approach the Bible, because what matters more than the method is the goal of understanding what is written so that we can be transformed to love God more and love others more.
One way to approach the Bible is to see every encounter as a pathway to being transformed. If we find that we are reading the Bible regularly, but it is not transforming our lives, then perhaps we need to try another method or approach it another way. I try to see my interaction with Scripture as following these four general steps:
1. Read/Hear…in order to…
2. Meditate…in order to…
3. Understand…in order to…
4. Transform…in order to be more like Jesus
Romans 12:1-2 reminds us that we must always be seeking transformation in our Christian life. And, this transformation can be achieved through the "renewing of our minds." Romans 8:29 tells us that God is at work in our lives, steadily shaping us into the image of His Son. And Colossians 3:10 tells us to "put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator."
All of these passages are just another way of saying that we need to be transformed to be more like Jesus, who was the perfect image of God, and who perfectly exemplified what it means to Love God and Love Others. The pathway to this transformation is through reading, hearing, meditating, and understanding God's Word.
Now, when you think about the content of God's Word, you may think of heroes and villains and battles and journeys and relationships and miracles and strange visions and prophecies and songs. You may wonder how all of that can be summarized in "Love God and Love Others." But truly, the content of Scripture is all about who God is, who we are, what God has done for us, and what He is now doing in our lives. And these are exactly the kinds of things, when mediated upon, that will inspire more love for God and more love for others.
When we meditate on what God has done for us, it will inspire our love for Him.
When we reflect and understand what He is saying to us, it will transform us to love others more.
Now, I'll give an example from my own life. There was a time when I struggled to believe that God was pleased with me. Even though I new the story of Christ dying for me, even though I had experienced His salvation and His presence in my life, I was afraid that He did not love me sometimes. On days when I could not "feel" His presence or His love, I wondered if it was still there. I wondered if I had sinned too many times or failed to live up to what He wanted in my life. How could I know for certain that He was there and that He loved me?
And this is where I can confidently say that God's Word is effective to transform us. Because at the time that I was struggling with these doubts, I happened to be meditating on Romans 5, which contains much that will inspire our Love for God and Others.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)
The method of reading I was using at the time was to go for a long walk outside and repeat verses several times out loud until they were memorized.
Yes, I was that guy talking to himself in public.
And, while I might have read this many times before, there was something about meditation and memorization that caused me to rewire my thinking. Where once I feared the uncertainty of God's love, here I found that it was altogether certain and unchangeable. For the love that God has for me is not based on my condition, nor based upon my performance, nor based upon any feeling that I might have. It is, and always will be, based upon something God "showed" or "demonstrated" in real space and time and history. It was an event that can never be undone or taken away. God's love was not primarily an experience to be had, but an event to be acknowledged and relied upon.
I can honestly say that reflecting upon this truth has changed me life. The love that I so desperately craved is altogether mine. I am known, I am understood, I am forgiven, I am accepted. And it is done. And this indeed has inspired love for God and love for others, which was the point all along.
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.
In conclusion, the Bible can been summed up as a call to Love God and Love Others. The way to do this effectively is to be transformed by reading and meditating on God's Word, which will inspire these outcomes more and more as you do them. And the method of the reading and meditating may take on a variety of creative forms and activities - whatever helps you to remember, understand, and be transformed.
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)
No comments:
Post a Comment