We are in a new decade. As we reflect on the past ten years, with all its triumphs and trials, tears and laughter, many of us are also starting to form our New Year’s Resolutions.
My 2020 New Year’s Resolution will be to read the bible more.
Apparently, the definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing with the expectation of a different outcome. If my journal where I jot my New Year’s Resolutions could speak, it would probably roll it’s eyes at the latest entry and ask: “Haven’t I seen this before?”
It’s going to be a tough resolution to keep. Number one on my list (and perhaps others too) will be the fact the reading is hard.
It’s much easier to passively view a TV show on Netflix (or the better version, Stan), or scroll mindlessly through social media feeds and listening to music requires only ears and something to play music on.
Reading is different. Reading requires effort. It requires commitment and concentration.
But reading is an endeavour familiar to all Christians, throughout all ages. The Quran refers to Christians as “People of the Book”. Since the early days of the Faith that is what we were known for: being readers.
I propose that now more than ever, reading the bible is an act of rebellion. While others plug into social media – the most recent form of media – Christians are called to return to the oldest media form: stuff written on a piece of paper.
While others excitedly discuss the latest technological advances on the web, we are called back to a book that proclaims that the most important thing – God – never changes.
While others use their 280 characters on Twitter to trumpet their progressive sexual ethics, the People of the Book are called back to a man from Nazareth who claimed that from the beginning of time marriage was made by God to be between one man and one woman for life.
Jesus called his disciples to be different. If we want our lives to be different, we need to be reading something different to our culture’s shared texts. We need to be reading God’s Word.
Reading the bible more is going to be a tough resolution to keep. And this is reason number two: reading the bible means I’ll have to encounter God, which will be terrifying.
The bible isn’t just a story, it’s a story about a person.
In reading the bible, we don’t just learn a set of abstract facts or propositions. We encounter the living and true God. We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
We meet the one whose hands, though they made the heavens and the earth, were nailed onto two bits of wood. We meet the one whose lips, though they spoke life into existence, would cry out in agony. We meet the God who would become a man to die for men, so that they could be with God forever.
As we read the bible in 2020, we will meet God. And it will be terrifying. Because we’ll realise how unholy and undeserving we are. We’ll see humanity as it truly is – sick to the core with sin. But we’ll also see how unlike us God is. We’ll see how other he is.
But that’s a good thing.
As we read the bible in 2020, God will make demands of us that we will feel are impossible to fulfil. He’ll ask us to give up things we feel can’t possibly be relinquished. He’ll ask us to do things we feel completely insufficient for.
Yet, because we’ve met God in the bible, when the times come we will have the strength obey him. The God we meet in the bible did not spare his only beloved Son, but freely gave him up for us all. God held nothing back. Nothing at all.
So in 2020, I encourage you to join me in rebellion and terror. Let’s all try to read the bible more.
discounted thoughts. 