God Revealed Through the Scriptures

One of the great opportunities we have as part of a church for the unchurched is introducing people to the Scriptures.

Like a love letter, The Bible is designed to connect us to the One who loves us.

Filled with history, poetry, songs, prophecies, and letters, the Scriptures reveal God’s character.

The goal of the Scriptures is not to get more information. The goal is transformation – understanding who God is and living a new life under His leadership and with His guidance.

Applying the Bible means trusting God and trusting God means a real relationship with God. That is the goal of the Scriptures.

Our Resistance

But some of us get tripped up by the Bible. These thoughts come to mind:

“The Bible is an ancient and irrelevant book with an archaic view on women, sex, and violence. The Bible has been misunderstood, misinterpreted, and even used to hurt or oppress people.”
“I’ve tried reading the Bible! I can see some value in it, but most of it doesn’t make sense. The Bible is too old and too long and too confusing to understand or apply to my life.”
“I want to read the Bible, but I am just so busy!”

For just a moment, whatever resistance you may be feeling, or whatever your experience has been with the Bible. I want you to consider having an open mind.

What if what keeps us from experiencing all the Bible has to offer has more to do with our view of the Bible than the Bible itself?

Some of us have hit a ceiling in our spiritual growth. We think we have arrived, or we think that this is all there is. We come to closure too soon on who God is in our life or what God wants to do in your life.

We need to become more open-minded to the possibility that God has more for us!

Some of us have rejected the Bible because of what others have said negatively about the Bible.
Let me ask you: what if what you’ve heard was not true?

Some of us have been inoculated to the Bible. We’ve heard just enough to think we know it all.
What if I told you, you haven’t even scratched the surface!

Some of us think it’s important, but we can never quite make spending time in the Scriptures a priority.
What if I told you, if you make spending time in the Scriptures a priority you will be more fulfilled and faithful in all of your other priorities?

Let me acknowledge:

The Bible has been misunderstood, misinterpreted, and even used for the agenda of people who did not have the heart of God or were a product of their times.
The Bible can be hard to understand. Some passages were written so long ago and seem so different than our day and time.

To make matters even more complicated, many of us have given up on the Scriptures, haven’t understood the Bible, or haven’t made spending time in the Scriptures a priority because there are spiritual forces opposing us. The darkness in our heart, and the darkness in the world around us does not want us to discover the mysteries that are revealed in the Scriptures.

We can trust that what we have as the Bible is a trustworthy document. In other words, we have enough proof that what we have is what was written.

We have more proof that the Scriptures are authentic than our grandparents or great grandparents did. Discoveries in science like carbon dating and discoveries in archaeology like the Dead Sea Scrolls or the fact that archeologists have found cities mentioned in the Bible that skeptics did not believe exist.

Consider this:

The Bible is not a giant “Don’t Do” List – a book of rules to make us feel guilty.
The Bible is not a series of boring stories that have no relevance in our lives.
The Bible is not what you probably think it is.

Erwin McManus puts it this way: The Scriptures are a portal into God’s presence!