Category: Bible

The same words uttered by different voices can mean drastically different things.

As I have been working my way through Andrew Osenga’s The Quiet Hours Lectionary this month, I have been reading through John’s Gospel again. I don’t know how many times I have read it at this point. We worked through it as a family with the help of The Word One To One. I studied it at Cornhill. I have been using it as described, meeting with a guy who has been to the church a handful of times. I’ve preached portions of it.

Unsurprisingly, God’s word always has something new to be discovered.

They said to Him, “Rabbi” (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), “where are You staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” (John 1:38b-39a, NKJV)

And so St. Andrew went and he saw. He spent the day with Jesus. In the verses that followed, he found Simon, his brother, and told him he had found the Messiah.

A day with Jesus was all it took for Andrew to realise that God was visiting his people. This was before Jesus had done any of the signs recorded in John. Over the course of the rest of the book, people struggle to understand who Jesus is or what he has done. This is characteristic of all the gospel accounts.

But as the narrative moves toward its climax when Christ would be lifted up, there is the story of Lazarus in John 11.

Lazarus was sick. He and his sisters were friends of Jesus, familiar to him and to his followers. John even records the sisters referring to Lazarus as the one Jesus loves. The disciples are worried that Jesus might actually go back to Judea to do something with this news because the Pharisees were actively seeking to kill Jesus at this point.

We know the story. Lazarus does indeed die, and Jesus waits until that fact to go to Bethany. The ensuing scene is truly heartbreaking. Two sisters, bereft of their brother, both confess that Jesus is the Christ, but they also know that he could have prevented Lazarus’ death if he had been there.

The mourners are gathered around. Jesus is moved and troubled by Mary’s weeping. And so he says…

“Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. (John 11:34-35, ESV)

When Jesus says, “Come and see”, it is a call to believe and so have eternal life. When Jesus says, “Come and see”, it is the voice which brought all creation into existence calling his lost sheep home from the wilderness. When Jesus says, “Come and see”, he is pointing toward the cross upon which he hung.

But when the mourners say, “Come and see”, all they can show Jesus is the consequence of sin. The grave. Our legacy is one of death. Come and see what humanity has wrought in its rebellion. Come and see the fruit of free will and liberty. Come and see, and it is a grave.

It is no wonder that Jesus weeps. But, of course, the story does not end there.

For, with a word, Jesus calls Lazarus to life from death. From darkness to the light. He shows that even the worst outcome, death, is no match for the words of the one who has life in himself even as the Father has life in himself.

There is a richness to God’s word that you can only begin to experience after repeated readings and time meditating. The Bible isn’t an information book or a rule book. It isn’t a magic book or a talisman. But it is powerful.

From just about the very beginning, the human race seems to have an allergy to doing what is for its good. This is never truer than in the second week of January when the first batch of people decide to give up on their new year’s resolutions. We shouldn’t be surprised by this because we’re also bad at goal-setting. We want to accomplish everything right now. We want to skip the hard part, the boring part, the tedious part.

On Sunday, one of our preachers showed us that God’s faithfulness is most clearly demonstrated in that which looks ordinary, boring, and unexceptional (see Genesis 25:1-18). A genealogy, a list of names, is hardly something to keep you on the edge of your seat. Yet, over the course of years, it reveals that God was keeping his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Hagar.

One of the ways that we can learn this is through the memorisation of Scripture. It is hard, it is tedious, it can be boring. Yet God has commanded his people to hide his word in their hearts. When we engage in the practice of memorising Scripture, we are working the very words of God himself into our hearts and minds.

The incomprehensible God has gifted us with comprehensible words so that we can grow in our love for and knowledge of him. And this truly is for our good.

That being said, one of my big projects for this year is memorising Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It’s a short book, a good one to start with. I am finding it incredibly helpful but also incredibly challenging.

As I go through the practice of reciting what I have memorised so far, I am revisiting the material and seeing how it interconnects. I will have read Philippians hundreds of times by the time I have actually memorised the complete epistle. Even in just the first fifteen verses there are so many points that will get picked up on later in the letter.

The saints in Philippi are in Christ just as Paul and Timothy are. And so he expects that they should be united together in that truth. The faithfulness and the godliness that he expects to find in them are things which can only be given to them by God. Gospel workers don’t all have the same motives. What would seem to be a gospel discouragement is actually serving the cause of the gospel.

I would not be seeing all of this in this little letter were it not for my efforts at trying to memorise it.

There are also real challenges. It is hard work, tiring work. Sometimes I get to the end of the day and realise I did not work on memorising that day’s verse.

It is also something which takes warming up to. I can’t go in cold and expect to immediately be able to recite the verse. It is a spiritual exercise and spiritual exercise requires prayer.

If you would like to incorporate this practice into your own life, here are some resources you may find helpful:

• How to memorize scripture for life by Andrew Davis
• Bible memory tips
• I’ve mentioned this one previously, but you can also make a little booklet to take everywhere with you so that you always have access to the book you’re reading – Philippians Memory Moleskine