During Lent, Christians engage in dedicated Scripture reading as part of our spiritual discipline. Scripture serves as the “source and norm” for our personal and communal relationship with God, meaning it is the primary foundation and standard by which we understand our beliefs and actions. It’s through Scripture that we encounter God’s revelation, teachings, and guidance for our lives. However, while Scripture is central, we must remember we do not worship the Bible itself, but rather the God revealed within its pages—our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Scripture invites us into a transformative encounter with the divine, offering us glimpses of God’s love, mercy, and grace throughout history. As we immerse ourselves in the Bible during Lent, let’s cultivate a deeper love and appreciation for God’s ongoing story of redemption and reconciliation, finding renewed strength and inspiration for our lives. Fall in love with the Bible, for it’s God’s own love story for us, told in many and various ways, inviting us to embrace that love for ourselves.
Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
It’s nearly impossible to say how many books have been written down through the ages, since the end of prehistoric times. That’s what it means to live in historic times, in fact—that we have been writing things down. We likely started off writing things down to keep track of commerce; that’s how we likely ended up with our alphabet in fact, many scholars believe. The Sumerians, a culture that existed more than thirty-five centuries before the birth of Jesus in Mesopotamia, largely in what’s today modern Iraq, started making marks in wet clay as a record of business transactions. Over time, those marks took on more symbolic meaning, and down through the centuries, alphabets arose, where one symbol corresponds to a sound. Put the symbols for corresponding sounds together, and you have the symbolic depiction of the words we speak. The advent of symbolic, verbal communication…
And with that, an explosion of written stuff. As I said, it’s nearly impossible to say how many books have been written down through the historic ages, but suffice it to say it’s a lot. The vast, vast majority of books never will never be read by most people—particularly if you consider that most people over the course of history—that is, over the time of human existence that we’ve been writing things down—are long gone. But some books have left a lasting impression, an indelible mark on the course of history. They’ve shaped the very nature of human thought, culture, and existence itself.
Take, for instance, Plato’s Republic. In it, Plato explores the nature of justice, the ideal state, and the reflective public leader. You may have heard of the allegory of the cave, where prisoners don’t see reality, but shadows of reality cast on the wall—but they think it’s real because they don’t know better. This philosophical exploration highlights our own innate ignorance of higher truths and our penchant for thinking we’ve got a grasp on reality, when we really don’t know that we do. The whole book is a journey from darkness to enlightenment and mirrors the pursuit of wisdom. Plato’s Republic has profoundly influenced Western thought. It’s inspired discussions on governance, ethics, and the pursuit of knowledge and continues to shape philosophical discourse and political theory to this day, some 2400 years later.
Then there’s Confucius’ Analects. It’s a collection of sayings and teachings attributed to the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius—but not like today’s trite fortune cookie piffle that masquerades as wisdom. No—the Analects, written about 500 BC, emphasize moral values, social harmony, and proper conduct in personal and political life. The Analects has been one of the most widely read and studied books in China for the last 2000 years, and it continues to influence the worldview and values across China, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, and northern India to today.
No list of influential books would be complete without Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Published in 1776, it explores the principles of capitalism, division of labor, and free markets. It laid the foundation for modern economics, advocating for limited government intervention in business and promoting the pursuit of self-interest as a driver of economic prosperity. It’s no understatement that Smith’s ideas have influenced economic theory, policy, and globalization, and driven both the economic and political engines of many-a Western country. But like it, there’s The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848, which has also had an outsized influence on human history. Marx and Engels advocate for the replacement of capitalist systems and the establishment of a classless society. They critique capitalism’s exploitation of workers and call for a working-class revolution. Like The Wealth of Nations, The Communist Manifesto has influenced economics, politics, and globalization, and has inspired social movements, revolutions, and debates on class struggle and socioeconomic equality.
But there’s probably no book that’s had such an influence on our collective human existence as one in particular. You know which book I’m talking about—Harry Potter. Oh, not that one? Right. It’s definitely been widely read, though, and translated into many languages—like this copy here, translated into Latin even. It’s a good book, and I think it’s safe to say, even if it hasn’t shaped philosophical discourse and political theory, it’s got staying power.
In all seriousness, there is a book that probably has shaped the trajectory of human history more than any other—the Bible, whose very name, by the way, comes to from Greek and means “book,” βιβλος. The Bible, really a collection of different kinds of writings penned millennia ago, still echoes in the hearts and minds of millions. The Bible has, perhaps unlike any other book, left a lasting impression, an indelible mark on the course of history. Its stories of faith, courage, and redemption have ignited souls, shaped the histories of civilizations, and inspired generations to rise above adversity. From the heights of compassion and love, where the Good Samaritan’s kindness knows no bounds, to the depths of turmoil and strife, where misinterpretation fueled crusades and conflicts, the Bible stands as a testament to the power of words. It has been both a balm for the wounded and a cudgel for the misguided.
Yet, in its pages, we find not only the stories of triumph but also the shadows of human frailty. Wars waged in the name of God’s righteousness, injustices justified by selective interpretation—these too bear the mark of its influence. But let’s not dwell solely on the stains of history. We acknowledge it, but in the Bible’s pages lies the potential for transformation, for reconciliation, and for boundless grace. And there’s a reason for that. It’s God’s Word.
When we speak of the Bible as God’s Word, it’s easy for us to think that the Bible fell out of heaven already finished, given to us by God himself. That’s not how it was or is, though. The Bible reflects countless ages of faithful people wrestling with their relationship with God, and they set it down for others, for us, for you to be likewise inspired, comforted, challenged by their own experience of God’s presence in their lives. The Bible is a book that makes things happen—that’s one of the reasons why we can call it God’s Word. It gets things done. The Bible is God’s Word, not because of the words on the page themselves, but because of what those words witness to—the tenacious, dogged desire of God to be in relationship with his creation, and in particular with humanity, with us, with you.
And we see this most clearly in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, who for us and for and our salvation, came down from heaven and became incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became man. Or, as St. John so eloquently put it today—“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
This is the central message of the Bible. Each and every word, each and every jot and tittle on those pages witness to the love of God, in all its manifestations; witness to God’s tenacious, dogged desire to have a real relationship with you, not just a relationship for when times are good, but through thick and thin, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health—and by the way, death won’t do you and God part! The Bible witnesses to
God’s ultimate victory over sin, death, and hell—over everything and anything that would stand in his way for relationship with humanity, with us, with you. And that witness is wrapped up in Jesus, in Jesus’ love.
Even when it’s not explicitly about Jesus, where God is active, busy, doing something to create and maintain life, to create and maintain relationship with creation and in particular with us—that’s where Jesus is revealed in the Scripture—from the creation of the world, to the deliverance of Noah, to the redemption of the Hebrews, to saving Daniel in the den of lions. The Bible is chock-full of God’s mighty acts of gritty, relentless love. Yet it doesn’t contain it all, for as John also tells us at the end of his gospel, the same gospel that we heard today the summarize the Bible in a single verse, Jesus did many other things which are not written in this book. But the things that are written are written so that we come to believe that Jesus is the one commissioned by God with a purpose, very God himself among us, and that through believing—that is, acting like that really makes a difference in our lives—we enjoy everything for his sake—that is, eternal, endless life, life lived with God, life lived in love. That’s the Bible—a witness to God’s love, in its many and various ways, but most clearly, most evidently, most wholly seen in Jesus.
And so it seems to make good sense, what with such fabulous stuff in it, that the Bible is a book with staying power. In fact, it seems to make good sense why so many people call the Bible “The Good Book.” Yet, while it’s right to call the Bible a good book, of all the books, is it just a good book? Compared to the rest, it seems so much better. Maybe it’s The Better Book. But that somehow just doesn’t seem right, either. No—for all its influence, for all its impact down through the historic ages, for good and for ill, it doesn’t make sense to call the Bible just “The Better Book.” The Bible is the book that contains the words that unveil the greatest story, the greatest testimony ever written—“Jesus loves you.” For that, it seems to make good sense that we’d call the Bible “The Best Book.”
Why?
Because Jesus loves you—for the Bible tells you so.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev'd Daniel W. Spigelmyer, Jr. 