Many people, pastors included, view the Bible as a self-help book filled
with positive suggestions they can pick and choose from to “please God.” More and more Christians seem to be using the Bible as a nice
piece of ancient literature with many good ideas for personal improvement. They select what they think makes sense to them,
and ignore or reinterpret the rest. You will often hear them say things
like, “…one interpretation, many applications…”
Such an approach to Scripture turns it into nothing more than a rule
book. As a rule book, it serves only as milk, the same milk spoken of in 1
Corinthians 3:1 & 2. To be sure, there are standards that measure one’s
relationship to Christ, but the Bible is not to be used as merely a rule book.
The meat of the Bible is its meaning as it relates to the plan of God.
It is His revelation of His character, His love for His creation and His plan
for its redemption. Its point is Jesus, from Genesis to the book of the Revelation.
The events recorded in the Old Testament are all pictures of the coming
New Covenant in Christ. In Hebrews, about Christ we read, “The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high
priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,
and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by
men. Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so
it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. If he were on
earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts
prescribed by the law. They serve as a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven…But the ministry Jesus has
received is as superior to theirs as the covenant
of which He is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better
promises.”
It is easy, maybe even lazy, to take a piece of Scripture here and a
piece of Scripture there and to use it to produce some “theosophical” treatise on
behaviorism. That, however, misses the entire point of any passage of
Scripture. The meat is to dig down into a passage, chapter or book and to
relate it to the overall purpose of the Bible.
The point of Scripture is that Jesus is all-sufficient, in every circumstance,
for all time. He alone is the source of our salvation and He alone is the One
through whom God sees the saved as perfect and worthy of eternal life.
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