Chris Molloy
I am convinced that the Bible is true and essential for the fullness God intends in every dimension and every stage of life. I could not live a life in Christ without this living book.
What I find deeply encouraging and motivating is that when we come to the Bible prayerfully, we do more than read words on a page. We encounter the Holy Spirit, poised—in love—to reveal Jesus and the Father to us, and to be our teacher. The reality of personal encounter with God infuses the good routines of Bible reading, study, and meditation with personal meaning. Obedience, then, seems like the only reasonable and worthy response.
There are good arguments for the truth of scripture. The most convincing proof for me is that the author himself is “the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Truth here means much more than veracity or trustworthiness. Jesus is pointing us to himself as the true embodiment of the fullness of God, and to his work on the cross to confront and defeat death—to launch a new reality of his kingdom on earth.
The Bible, at its heart, is a love story. Jesus’s earthly life, death and resurrection represent the pinnacle. And like any great love story, it only makes full sense when read in its entirety. This one has many twists and turns and rewards repeated reading. For me the resulting “big picture” amplifies confidence in God’s love, his wisdom, his power and his good intentions towards me. This grows my confidence concerning the path ahead.
In my experience it is easy to view the “external” truths of God’s kingdom as a comfortable spectator whereas God wants us to be participants. To make us effective participants, God desires to transform the less comfortable territory of our internal worlds. We cannot overstate the importance of heart issues in character formation. “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23).
I have found that years as a believer offer no protection against deceiving myself and others concerning the true state of my heart. In his first letter, John opens his commentary on light and darkness (1 John 1:5-10) with a striking recollection of Jesus teaching: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (v. 6). He then develops the argument that self-deception and misrepresentation of personal sin is the same as calling God—who is light—a liar. This is serious! It is, in fact, the very essence of what went wrong in the Garden of Eden. When we make God out to be a liar, “his word is not in us” (v. 10).
Amazingly—in this darkest of places—we find “the blood of Jesus, his Son [who] purifies us from all sin” (v. 7). As we own up to our true state, we embrace his forgiveness and are freed to fellowship with God and with one another without shame or doubt. God’s word in us disarms the lies that keep us from experiencing his goodness and points us to the one who puts things right. No matter how badly I have let God and people down, he is still there, accepting me as I am, ready to pick me up and begin again. He knows all about forgiving seventy-seven times.
So how do we get his word “in us”? This brings us to the more intimate parts of the love story. For me these include the Psalms, which help connect my heart with the heart of God. We are well provided for here. Pretty much every significant emotional state finds expression in the Psalms. They channel our thoughts and emotions in synchrony with those of the psalmist. These poets explore their present reality with honesty then enlarge their focus to the greater context of God’s overarching purposes, his power and his intimate involvement in their lives. I am taken with the psalmist to a renewed perspective helping me to reformulate my own personal story from within.
Deep change, I have found, can be a long process. Perhaps that is why the deep things of the heart in scripture are set to song, to be revisited time and again. And what may begin as a lament ends as praise. I find that both can be savoured with a joyful heart.