Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

Today was rejuvenating. Slept in. Luxuriated in a couple of massive cups of strong Java coffee at the local True Coffee shop (with extra sugar to spite the Nature article that recommends regulating sugar like alcohol and tobacco), while reading Matthew's Gospel and some more of this superb biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Then, this afternoon, a brisk walk and pleasant conversation in the sunshine with my wife.

Bonhoeffer writes to his brother-in-law:

      If if is I who determine where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way, who is obliging, who is connected with my own nature. But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not immediately pleasing to my nature and which is not at all congenial to me. This place is the Cross of Christ. And whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands. This is not according to our nature at all, it is entirely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible., not only in the New but also in the Old Testament. . . . 

      And I would like to tell you now quite personally: since I have learnt to read the Bible in this way--and this has not been for so very long--it becomes every day more wonderful to me. I read it in the morning and the evening, and often during the day as well, and every day I consider a text which I have chosen for the whole week, and try to sink deeply into it, so as really to hear what it is saying. I know that without this I could not live properly any longer.                                                                                  - Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, p. 137.

Devotion to Christ the Word, and His words

One of the challenges in my devotional life is the tension (or balance) between consistency and variety. Too much variety, and my discipline with the spiritual disciplines becomes decidedly undisciplined. Too little variety, and the freshness is gone.

The last six months or so, I've been really enjoying incorporating lifechurch.tv's Youversion app into my devotional rhythm. Ten million downloads must count for something (three of those downloads were mine).

What I particularly like is the 'Plan' component of the app. I used it a number of months ago to devour the book of James repeatedly, and am doing the same with Matthew's Gospel. The nice thing is you can read Scripture (in multiple versions) and listen to it (in multiple versions, with multiple voices and even music accompaniment when the editors think something dramatic is coming up). This is good stuff that St. Jerome and Luther would have drooled over.

The Matthew readings are two chapters a day which gets me through the Gospel in two weeks, according to my calculator. While I generally prefer to read and ponder a single paragraph, this new rhythm has proven kind of cool. I read (or usually listen) to two chapters, and then open up the text and pick a couple of verses, or a verse or a paragraph that has leapt out at me. I jot the verse(s) in my trusty little Moleskine notebook (so portable, I never have an excuse not to have it close by) and a few related observations or questions or applications or a prayer reflecting the truth of the passage.

Since I keep cycling through the whole Gospel over and over (and will be for many months), there's a unity to the unpredictability. Each time I'm in that two-chapter section, there's familiarity, yet new things to pick and ponder.

This morning I was reading in Matthew 23 & 24.
In chapter 24:35, Jesus says:

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." 

I know Jesus said it, cause the words in red. That's what I love about studying the Gospels: there's an awful lot of red. Straight from Jesus lips to my ears or my eye.

(Ok, technically the progression is from Jesus' Aramaic statements to their rendering in the Greek of the Gospels to the English translation I'm using. But here's the amazing thing. . . Jesus (and the apostles) used multiple translations and languages (the Hebrew Massoretic text; the Greek Septuagint; the Aramaic Targums), and revered them all as the Word of God. This English ESV or NIV or NLT I love to hold in my hands, or read in vivid pixels on my Android's Amoled screen, or listen to via digital recording (with sound effects), is the Word of God. Wowser!

And in this one little statement above, Jesus says something not just profound, but astonishing. The physical stuff (the earth) will pass away. Even some of the spiritual realities, like heaven, will pass away as they currently are or perhaps change (don't ask me to explain what Jesus has in view here; ask him). But one thing that will remain for all eternity is Jesus' words. Including that sentence above, that verse.

His words (in red, in English, in Aramaic, in Greek, in Tagalog and Urdu) are so momentous and significant that they will NEVER pass away.

I guess I'd better pay close attention to the red stuff. I guess the words of Jesus in the Word of God are a precious gift--to be studied and pondered and treasured and loved.

But not so I can become a bibliolater--a worshiper of Scripture. After all, the Pharisees specialized in that and they were the spiritual walking dead. No, I love these words of Jesus because they lead me to know and experience Him, the Word of God in flesh (John 1:1,14). To know and experience Him, my only Sovereign. My only Savior.