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The Word of God for the People of God

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Chapter One

We are parched for a word from God. As Westerners in the twenty-first century, many of us will look under any rock, search any trail, or explore any website in pursuit of promises of a transcendent word. We yearn for a word that will break into our lives, which are often comfortable, yet leave us in stress and fear. We hunger for a word that would bring a personal touch from someone other than the almighty market or the ever-just meritocracy around us. We crave something larger than what is offered by a world in which good things have become ultimate things, in which our own interests and desires shape what comes into our minds and what goes out. We are thirsty and hungry, hoping for more. We long for a word from God.

However, when we are honest with ourselves, we also long for a word from God that conforms to our own plans and wishes. We want a word from God that endorses our own decisions and priorities. We want to be affirmed by God in what we are already doing, not confronted and called to repentance. We want God's word, but on our own terms.

For those who bear the name of Christ, the broad contours of this cultural situation should give us reason to pause. We do not live in countries in which the Bible, as the written word of God, must be acquired secretly via the black market. We do not live in countries in which preaching, as the proclaimed word of God, must be done in clandestine meetings in basements after dark. The word of God is available — present around us, so it seems. It is on the shelf at home or available at the click of a mouse. Yet, if the word of God is so widely available, why is our longing for it so often unsatisfied? Why does it seem so elusive? Why is it that, in our efforts to receive God's word, we often end up speaking a word that does not seem to be from God, but a word from and controlled by us?

The word of God is commonly spoken about in the New Testament in terms of seed imagery: the seed is spread, takes root, grows, and bears fruit. There is something in the word of God that is larger than ourselves; we are correct in longing for a taste—a touch—from a reality outside of ourselves. The encounter with God's word leads to a kind of flourishing, such that "faith and love" spring up from the "hope" that comes from "the word of the gospel" bearing fruit (Col. 1:3-5). The word of God is "alive and active," a reality that saves us from our delusions and self-deceptions by penetrating "even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" (Heb. 4:12). The word of God takes root, grows, and flourishes in a way that gives life. Just as God spoke to give physical life to creation, so also God's word brings life through a second birth by the Spirit to those who believe (Gen. 1:11-12, 20-26; John 3:3-15).

A seed has potential to grow, flourish, and bring new life. But why doesn't it always do so? In our context, how could it be that Scripture and preaching could be ever present, but they are not always accompanied by new growth and transformation?

To address this, we will find it helpful to take a closer look at how New Testament writers use the image of seed for the word. In all three Synoptic Gospel accounts of Jesus' parable of the sower, the seed falls on different kinds of soil (cf. Matt. 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20; Luke 8:4-15). Some falls on the path, and it is snatched by Satan. Some falls on rocky ground: it is received with joy, but it takes no root because it is not received for growth and flourishing. Other seed falls among the thorns, which choke its growth: the thorns are "the cares and riches and pleasures of this life" (Luke 8:14; the language is very similar in Mark 4:19 and Matt. 13:22). Again, the seed bears no fruit. Finally, some hear the word and accept it. For these, the word bears abundant fruit in their life (fruit that is thirtyfold, sixtyfold, or a hundredfold in the Matthew and Mark accounts).

Why does the seed of the kingdom, which the parables call the word of God, not always bear fruit? These parables suggest a few reasons. In these accounts, Jesus himself is the sower. He seems to be sowing seeds indiscriminately: throwing seed all over the place, not simply targeting the soil that appears most likely to be responsive. The word of God is proclaimed to all who can hear, but it does not always bear fruit. When asked to explain the parable of the sower, Jesus responds that some will simply "hear" the parables of the Kingdom, but "not understand." Some will "see," but "will not perceive." The word of God could be right in front of their eyes, but they would not see it, accept it, cling to it (Matt. 13:13; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; and parallels in John 12:37-40).

This is a stark lesson for today's Christians who want God's word to reverberate over the airwaves. The word of God does not always produce results. People may know the language, the idiom, and have high academic degrees; but they don't necessarily comprehend the word that is proclaimed. The parable does not tell us why; but it does imply that there is something more going on than simply a cognitive understanding of written or spoken words. As a theme taken up in John, we are told, "No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above" (John 3:3). After healing a blind man who then professes faith in Christ as the Son of Man, Jesus says, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind" (John 9:39). Something much bigger is going on in receiving, understanding, and believing the word of God than human linguistic understanding. Making the word available on the internet or in a mailbox is no guarantee that someone will have a transforming encounter with God's word.

Since there is nothing automatic about receiving the word of God, this event is in many ways a mystery. Yet it is not a mystery that leaves us gawking on the sidelines; rather, it is one that invites us to participate in what God is doing. Paul adapts the seed imagery in this text: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth" (1 Cor. 3:6). Does Paul want credit for his passionate and strategic preaching of the gospel? In a word, no. "So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth" (1 Cor. 3:7). We should not be discouraged by the fact that hearing the word of God involves much more than our own talents and strategies. We should be encouraged. God's transforming word is not so neat and tidy that we can package and market it, expecting it to sell. Its potency and fruitfulness has more to do with God's hand than our own. We live in a world with a living God who is beyond both our hopes and our attempts to control. We need not be burdened with the task of constructing and marketing the word of God; instead, we find ourselves in the exciting yet dangerous place of being addressed by the living God, who will not leave us to ourselves.

Yet the Bible must be read, the gospel must be preached, the word must be taught. All of this happens in and through human beings like you and me. God does not bypass our human capacities, simply speaking to us by the Spirit without regard for Scripture or the work of our human faculties. Augustine says that God's voice to us "could certainly have been [given] through an angel, but the human condition would be wretched indeed if God appeared unwilling to minister his word to human beings through human agency." Augustine points to an incarnational view of divine and human agency, such that attributing a work to God does not mean that human faculties are bypassed or subverted. On the other hand, we should not think that the word of God is a word under our control in such a way that if we were persuasive and savvy enough, it would always be effective. This flies in the face of how the Gospels speak about this word, which is a seed that Jesus flings freely and recklessly, knowing that not all of it will bear fruit. We receive the word of God that brings growth and life only when the Spirit enables us to see, hear, and perceive (John 3:3). Our reception of the word of God is enabled by the work of God.

Neither Building Blocks nor Smorgasbord: Scripture and the Journey of Faith

How exactly does the Bible as a book fit in with the image of the word of God as that which brings fruit to our parched and aching lives? I have suggested two aspects of a response to that question. Although Christians speak about the Bible as the "word of God" written—the inspired word of God—exposure to the contents of Scripture does not necessarily lead to a transforming encounter with God's word. Second, more positively, the contents of the Bible need the work of God the Spirit for the word to bear fruit. Although God does not bypass our human capacities, the reception of God's word is not simply a matter of human persuasion.

But these reasons do not fully answer our question. The Bible is a book; it is not the fourth member of the Trinity. It is not God. If we were to draw on a classical list of divine attributes—eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful — these words would not apply to the Bible in its capacity as a book. Yet the terms would apply to the one whom Christians have traditionally considered to be the primary author of Scripture, God himself. The book itself is not God, but it is God's instrument for transformation. How does this happen?

First, let's narrow the field by considering several examples of how the Bible is used in Christian ministry. The first two tend to resist God's transforming work through Scripture, while the third sees reading Scripture as part of a journey of transformation.

The first is the blueprint and building-block approach: people read particular passages of Scripture as if they were the concrete blocks of a building. They translate each Scripture passage into a set of propositions that can then be fit as blocks into our building's blueprint. The propositions in Scripture are facts that need organization, and the system of theology provides that organization. In a sense, we already know the extensive meaning of Scripture; our system of theology tells us that. There is thus no need to look into history, or other cultures, to see how others "hear" Scripture. Instead, the task of interpreting Scripture is to discover where in our theological system this particular Scripture passage goes. This approach to scriptural interpretation has a long history in American Christianity, and it still shows up in many Christian environments today. Indeed, when topical sermons or topical Bible studies do not wrestle with the particularities of the biblical witness, biblical texts can easily become building blocks to fit into a preestablished blueprint.

The temptation with these practices is to read Scripture impressionistically. Pastor Larry needs a message on how to face temptation. The idea he would like to portray is that the key to overcoming temptation is taking away the source of temptation. Larry does a Scripture search until he finds a passage that fits his original idea, such as Jesus' admonition in Matthew 5:29 to "pluck out" your eye if it causes you to sin. In the sermon Larry uses this Scripture text, along with some compelling illustrations, to fit his predetermined goal for the sermon: to recommend removing the source of temptation. Notice that Larry did not go to the Scripture passage to find out how to think about temptation. He did not approach Scripture as a learner who was ready to be reshaped by God in the process of struggling with the text. Larry thought that he already had a detailed blueprint of the building. What he needed from Scripture was a tool, a block in the building to fit his original idea. Blueprint sermons often end up being like after-dinner speeches that champion a particular cultural virtue (such as "try hard to make good decisions"), peppered with biblical illustrations.

Scriptural interpretation should not be like fitting concrete blocks into a building's blueprint; but neither should it be like eating at a smorgasbord, which is a second common approach. Imagine a huge cafeteria loaded with food of many kinds for many tastes—from fried chicken to falafel, vegetable wraps to sushi. Now imagine that you are at this smorgasbord with the members of a small Bible-study group from your church. Can you imagine what some of the other members of the group would choose to eat? Would there be patterns of food on the plates that you could describe according to the age, gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status of the eater? I suspect that there would be certain patterns. And in the filling of these appetites at the smorgasbord, there is a direct correspondence between the identity and desires of the eaters and what they load up on their plates.

The smorgasbord approach to the Bible is, in some ways, the opposite of the blueprint approach. The smorgasbord approach dispenses with the idea that we have a detailed blueprint of what the word of God means by translating Scripture into propositions that can serve as building blocks. In contrast, the smorgasbord approach says that we don't have a "map" at all. Each of us brings something different to the Bible, and each of us gets something different out of it. Instead of trying to develop a map of Scripture, we should just keep helping ourselves to the smorgasbord of Scripture to feed our various longings.

The smorgasbord approach to the Bible takes on several different forms. It has a popular and pietistic form that scours the content of Scripture without a map and then identifies whatever it finds there as "the word of God." Thus, the dietary laws in the Old Testament are God's key to a healthy and happy lifestyle. Examples of this approach abound in Christian publishing, as is demonstrated by titles such as The Bible's Diet, The Bible's Seven Secrets to Healthy Eating, and The Maker's Diet. Another example would be those who read the creation narrative in the first chapter of Genesis as a descriptive geological history giving us the answers to our many questions about the history of the earth. For these teachers of Scripture, the word of God is not about building a structure of systematic theology but about finding God's answers to our own particular human queries and conundrums, from how to lose weight to how to manage personal finances. There is no map, just discoveries that meet our appetites, questions, and needs.

The smorgasbord approach also has a less pietistic, more rationalist version. This approach valorizes moments like Martin Luther's stand against the tradition of the Roman Catholic church, "Here I stand." Luther is seen as the solitary individual who takes what he finds in Scripture and throws it against the map of the Catholic church's theology. Tradition—and systems of theology—hide the true meaning of Scripture from us, this view declares. What we need to do is to search beneath the layers of tradition to find the true meaning of Scripture. Underneath the church's attempt to rationalize and repress the meaning of Scripture, we will find the word of God. Examples of this approach are widespread, as the number of recent titles on Jesus attests: The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus by Amy Jill Levine; The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything by Brian McLaren; The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus by Robert Funk. What do these very diverse authors have in common? They think that the real message of the Bible has somehow been "hidden" by church tradition. Thus do they see tradition as something that obscures God's word from us rather than a Spirit-filled means of imparting the word.

In this book I wish to articulate a middle way between these two extreme approaches. I agree, along with the first approach, that Christians always bring a basic theological map to their reading of Scripture. It is impossible to leave a map behind; but the map is not a detailed blueprint. It does not tell us every stop we will make on the journey of reading Scripture; rather, it gives us the broad outline for our journey. It does not give all of the answers into which each particular text will fit. To put it differently, Scripture passages are not wholly determinative on their own, fitting seamlessly as propositions into a preestablished system of theology. The word of God in Scripture is something that encounters us again and again; it surprises, confuses, and enlightens us because through Scripture we encounter the triune God himself. Scripture interpretation is not just putting together pieces of a puzzle. Instead, it is a joyful journey of struggling with Scripture and its author, God, who calls our lives, our priorities, and our preconceptions into question. Like Jacob wrestling with the angel, we struggle with Scripture until God blesses us with it.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Word of God for the People of God by J. Todd Billings Copyright © 2010 by J. Todd Billings. Excerpted by permission of William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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