Musings on Spiritual Matters

My friend Greg Tidwell posted this quote from Martin Luther.  It reads “They do not believe they are God’s words. For if they believed they were God’s words, . . . they would tremble before them as before God himself .” This is a powerful quote, but one that is not believed by some.  Maybe you have heard of the church of Christ joke of somebody reading love letters from a husband in bed, it goes that he has returned home from perhaps war, and the wife wants little to do with him because she has his letters instead.  He mentions to her to stop reading the letters and spent time with him.  I believe this is how this joke goes.  Of course it is not told well, and proves the fact that I rarely tell canned jokes because this is definitely not a skill I have.  Of course church members are to laugh at this joke because of the accusation that those in the church are more in love with the Bible than with Jesus Christ.  People have been accused of loving the word of God over Jesus.  But really this is a false dichotomy.  There is no “either/or” situation.  There is no you love the word of God over love for Jesus Christ.  It is really one and the same.  This is evident in the Gospel of John.  The apostle John is writing to a generation that has not experienced Jesus in the flesh.  There is no personal experience that these disciples have had with the risen Lord while he was on earth.  So John is writing to present a case that testifies that belief in the words of God are just as valid as belief with one’s eyes.  Essentially, if you have read the account of Jesus, this knowledge is as good as knowing the bodily Jesus himself.  The words of God testify of Jesus.  In reality, today this, like John’s audience is all we have of Jesus.  And the word of God is sufficient to witnessing Jesus on earth.  So when we read of the word of God we are experiencing God himself through the text.  So Luther’s quote is powerful, because he hit on an eternal truth.  Reading the word of God is like standing before the Lord himself.  So when the word is read, listen, God is speaking to you.

Related posts:

1. “In Your Face”
2. Dummy Down Word
3. Review of “The Intrusive Word”
4. JUST FACE IT!
5. Review of “The Word Militant”

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This entry was posted by Matthew on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Church News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.