About once a month, a friend of mine sends me a picture of his bible with some new found insight he has just read. Every time he texts me, he asks two things. First, he asks me if I already knew this information. Then he asks me if I learned this in seminary. This ritual that he and I have is an important part of my life because I love to see and hear of people who wrestle with scripture and begin to connect some dots. Every time he texts me, I know that he is coming closer and closer to God, and I cherish that he invites me to be on that journey with him as he engages more and more with scripture.
This ritual that he and I have reminds me of Acts 8 where the disciple Philip encounters an Ethiopian Eunuch. This eunuch is reading scripture and he is struggling to understand it. But instead of putting it down, he chooses to keep reading through it and engaging with it. At one point Philip comes to him and asks the eunuch if he understands what he is reading and the eunuch begins to ask Philip questions about scripture. It becomes clear in that moment that the eunuch had chosen to engage with scripture and in doing so had lots of questions. But it was also clear that he had made a commitment that he was never going to stop because he knew that in scripture, he would find all things necessary for his life.
As I have reflected on this scripture, I am reminded of the United Methodist Articles of Religion. In a nutshell, these are statements of faith that help define what we as a church believe. These articles contain our beliefs on resurrection, the trinity, original sin, free will, justification, good works and much more. (Click here for the whole list).
Recently I have been particularly drawn to Article 5. The very first line of this article states that scripture contains all thing necessary for salvation. If we want to know what is necessary for our salvation, we have to read scripture and immerse ourselves in it. And in doing so, scripture will begin to create a change in us. When scripture becomes a central part of our life, we begin to find hope and freedom from anything that oppresses us. It is because I wholeheartedly believe this, that I choose to engage with scripture as much and as often as I can. Every time I do, I find words for when I have no words and hope and strength to face the day.
Let me give you an example.
In 2013, I was diagnosed with depression. During that time, I was really drawn to Psalm 143. There were a couple of verses that simply spoke to me loudly every time I read them.
Verse 3 says: The enemy has pursued me, crushing my life to the ground, making me sit in darkness like those long dead. Every time I read this verse, I found words to describe the defeat and agony that I felt in that season.
Verse 5 says: I remember the days of old. These words made me cry every time because in my prayer life, I kept telling God that I just wanted things to be the way they used to be.
Verse 7 says: answer me quickly, do not hide your face from me. There were times in that season that I came to believe that God was disappointed in me and had given up on me.
Verse 9 says: save me O Lord, from my enemies. I had it in my mind that everyone was out to get me and I felt like my walls were crashing in all around me and my enemies were defeating me.
Verse 12 says: I am your servant. I made a decision in that season of my life that even if none of these things happened, I would choose to still follow and trust God.
You see, the more we read scripture the more we begin to see its truth become truth in our life. The more we read of the Israelite’s struggles, the more we see our struggles in theirs. The more we read of the victories of God’s people, the more we trust that we too will experience a victory. The more we read of peoples doubts, the more we hear our doubts in them. And the more we read of people’s faith deepening, the more our faith deepens. Over and over again, the more we engage with scripture, the more scripture begins to take a life within our own life.
So we read and engage with scripture even if we don’t understand, because we know that in doing so the dots will begin to connect, the stories will begin to relate and its promise will become fulfilled in our life. And in doing so, we will find all things necessary for salvation.
For the last four weeks, our Sunday night ritual in the Rivera household has come to include the watching of the newest Game of Thrones episode. Like many of you, we have gone through a roller coaster of emotions with each episode not fully knowing what exactly happened and wondering what will happen next. So I have added a second routine to my weekly schedule. On Monday mornings, I look for articles online that help explain what happened, and what could possibly happen next.
This Monday I found an article from a guy who wrote all the things he did not like from the last episode. I agreed with most of them, but there were also a lot of things that I just did not understand. He talked about how some things didn’t make sense because in the book something else was supposed to happen. He also talked about how there are characters missing that are in the books who are not in the tv series. He also mentioned stuff that happened in past seasons that came to fruition in this last episode. But the thing that struck me the most was that he put forth his theory as to how this series would end.
Don’t worry, I am not about to ruin anything because I didn’t read the end. I didn’t want to ruin it for myself!
But I will tell you the premise of his prediction. He argued that in Episode 2 of Season 3, a random character appeared who told Daenerys a prophesy about her future. This guy argues that if you listened closely to this characters words and followed the storyline even closer, you would see that two of those three prophesies had been fulfilled and that he believed that the third of those prophesies was how this series would end. I stopped reading when he said “the ending has been right in front of our face this whole time.”
I stopped reading there because I did not want him to ruin the ending for me. But to be honest, I was a bit annoyed. How in the world did he make that connection? If he is right, how did he come up with an answer while everyone else had to wait week by week? How in the world did he remember what some vague random character said? How did he have the time to even connect those dots? And he read the books too? That’s not fair. I wish I could have as much knowledge as he does.
As I was getting frustrated at all of these things, I remembered my friend who texts me once a month with a new connection he made. I realized that he has those same questions every time he reaches out to me with a new insight. When he asks me if I learned something in seminary, what he is really asking is how in the world I had time to learn what I know. There is a longing within him to know as much as his favorite authors and worship leaders and mentors because he truly believes that through scripture he can find all things necessary for his salvation. And in his question is a desire to find out how to fulfill that longing.
Perhaps you are wondering the same thing.
You see, making that longing come to fruition boils down to one thing. We must make the commitment to endlessly and deeply engage with scripture over and over again for the rest of our lives.
I have been engaged with Game of Thrones for about two years now. I know most of the main characters names and in many ways I feel like that is enough to get me through the whole story. I think that that’s how many of us feel about biblical characters too. People such as Moses, Noah, Jonah, David and Goliath, Peter, Paul, Mary and many others are very well know characters throughout scripture. We know these main characters and in knowing them we have an understanding of scripture and the good news it brings. But there is so much more to the good news if we just choose to go deeper.
You see, two years may seem like a lot of time for me, but did you know that the first Game of Thrones episode came out in 2011? For 8 years, people have been watching and re-watching this series making connections beyond the basic main character story line. For 8 years people have been coming to know the smaller characters, and their significance. For the past 8 years, people have come to memorize the map of the Seven Kingdoms and understand the history of each family. And to top that off, the first book came out in 1996! If you have been reading the books, you have been engaged with its characters and storyline and plot twists for over 20 years. When you spend that much time engaging something, it begins to make sense in a different way and the storyline becomes not just familiar but it comes to mean something.
What I was reminded as I read that article on Monday was that the guy who wrote that article has the knowledge he has, because he has engaged with this story over and over again for years. He has invested time and energy into this story and in doing so, it has come to life in his life. For him, these are not just characters on a page or a screen. For him, this story has become a part of who he is.
And the same can happen to us when we approach scripture the same way. For many years, I believed that if I could just read through the bible from cover to cover, everything would make sense to me. So I did. But what I realized had happened was that even though I understood the overall story, I had missed so much of it too.
It was at that point that I had to decide to engage scripture more fully. I had to read it and re-read it more often. I had to take time to study it and read the sub notes and commentaries and articles. I had to be open to the interconnectedness of the characters and the storyline. I had to engage scripture beyond just a “one-time-through” mentality if I wanted to grasp the wholeness of what it offers us. And in doing so, the good news of scripture has become the good news of my life.
But don’t get me wrong, I still have a long way to go. I still look at many people and how far they have gone and how deep their knowledge is and I am encouraged to keep engaging scripture so that I too can come to the place where my teachers, mentor and coaches are.
So today, I want to encourage you. Whatever it is that you are going through I promise you that you will find an answer and direction in scripture. If you are in a season of despair, you will find the power of joy. If you are in a season of hopelessness, you will find the power of hope. If you are in a season of doubt, you will find the power of faith. If you are in a season of transition, you will find the power of God’s constant presence. Scripture contains all things necessary for your life and all you have to do is keep engaging with, keep wrestling with it, keep asking questions of it. Even if it doesn’t make sense right now, keep engaging it.
It might not make sense now, and you might struggle to go deep at this time. But I promise you that the more you engage, the more you study, the more you persistently wrestle with it, the more scripture will come to life before you and make a deep lasting impact in your life. It has made an impact in the life of my spiritual leaders. It has made an impact in my life. And I know it will make an impact in yours as well.
Together on the journey,
Pastor Fernie
