What's your Bible fuller of?

February 16, 2014
What’s your Bible fuller of?

We heard an interesting sermon this morning.  (I liked the preacher.  She preached well, sang beautifully, and was relaxed about the whole thing.  God may be perfect, but she doesn't have to be, so we don't either.)

          The preaching passage was 1 Corinthians, verses from chapters 1 and 3.  Paul is scolding those dunderheaded Greeks on the basis of a rumor.  “It has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that you’re arguing.”  If they are − if Chloe’s people aren’t just trying to stir the pot or rile the Apostle − the argument is about who one or another “belongs” to.  One is saying he belongs to Paul.  Another is saying she belongs to Apollos.  One belongs to Cephas and one even to Christ.

          Well, if belonging has to do with baptism, Paul will take himself out of the argument.  He didn’t baptize anyone, oh except Crispus and Gaius . . . and Stephanas and his family − at least, that’s all he remembers.  He’s not in the baptism business anyway.  He’s in the telling business.

          And let him tell you this . . . .

The preacher herself wasn’t much into what Paul was telling.  She was more interested in why these Corinthians were hanging on to their connections to Apollos or Cephas or Paul, not just Christ.  She thought the folks at Corinth attached themselves to one or another as kind of guarantors of their faith, that it was right as well as righteous.  Because it was from Apollos or Cephas or Paul that they learned the story.  They didn’t have Scripture.

Well, we do!  But are we then better off?  Or does it − or bits and pieces of It − become what we belong to now instead of Christ.  Whoever baptized us, a lot of us still belong to Paul, though some of us belong to the Synoptics, some of us to John’s gospel, some of us to Revelation and Daniel, and some of us to 2 Cephas 2 [selected verses].               "    "    "    "    (

          Which means we all end up belonging to ourselves.  Look again at 2 Timothy:

“All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” (OV)  

OR: “Every scripture inspired by God is useful for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (AV)

The verse is often cited as the last word on Scripture.  Well, maybe, sort of, because what it says isn’t entirely clear.  Both translations are possible.  Yes, your Bible may give the first, but we both know that it really, practically means the second.  And it’s up to us to judge what is truly inspired by God, and we will decide the way it was decided that 1 Timothy made it into Scripture at all, based on our particular purposes at the time.  I belong to Paul today, but I may need to be Cephas' tomorrow.  You can't tell what is going to happen; how can you tell who you're going to want to be?  Bob and weave.

W