Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 5 verses 39 through 42:
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. 41 I do not receive glory from people. 42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.
Yesterday I watched a very tense and heated argument between two people over a hot-button issue where the Bible was invoked as "the Word of God." So I read today's Daily Lesson this morning and I wonder if the Gospel writer John would have approved. I have to think John would not have approved because for him the Scriptures were not the "Word of God" -- at least not in the way that term was being used in the argument.
For John the definitive "Word of God" was not the Scriptures but the fullness of God alive in Jesus of Nazareth. The Word of God was "made flesh". This was the ultimate expression of God's Word -- a human being fully alive with the light and life of God.
The Scriptures bear witness to this life; but they are not the life themselves. As the lesson says, we may "think" they have eternal life, but they do not have eternal life in and of themselves. The Bible points us to life in and with God, but it is not itself God and should not be confused or used as such.
In the exchange he has in today's lesson Jesus says something quite incredibly important. In a debate about the meaning of Scripture Jesus says, "I know that you do not have the love of God within you."
The exchange I witnessed yesterday had a lot of Bible verse quoting, but not an ounce of anything I could recognize as love. Which makes me think somebody had missed the whole point.
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