2025-07-15
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
SCRIPTURE
Today instead of focusing on specific scriptures we will talk about debates and ideas that span the whole Bible.
First In the early Church. Paul, who is really a minority voice in the Predominantly Jewish church of the time, advocates for grace alone. No need to obey the Jewish laws, no need for circumcision. Paul says it is “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; It is the gift of God.” So for Paul, faith is the only thing that is needed.
In response James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the Church in Jerusalem, writes “faith without works is dead’. Show me your faith without your works and I by my works will show you my faith!”. This debate continued until the 400’s when the last remaining Jewish dominant churches were gone. But Paul’s greater influence started much earlier with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 ad. This ends the predominantly Jewish church of Jerusalem and leads to the diaspora of all Jewish people. As Gentiles become the majority in the church, Paul - the former minority voice, becomes the most influential in the Church
Lest we think debate is limited to the Greek Testament, in The Hebrew Scriptures the acceptance of foreign wives by the Jewish community is a major debate. Keeping their unique identity as God’s chosen people was an important part of the community when they left Egypt, and when plague came upon them, a whole family group who had started marrying Midianite women were killed and the plague stopped. Later, King Solomon’s many foreign wives are blamed for “turning his heart away from Yahweh.” according to his enemies. Now - Solomon’s reign is celebrated as the height of Israel’s influence in the world, and yet some saw this welcoming of foreign wives for Solomon as wrong and actually started unsuccessful rebellions against him. The banning of foreign wives is again prominent when the people return from Babylonian captivity to rebuild the Temple.
The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah talk about the sending away of both the foreign wives and their children as an act of repentance. So it seems pretty clear that Foreign Wives are all trouble right….
But after Moses’ death, when the Israelites took Jericho, one foreigner was spared The Book of Joshua says, “Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, Joshua spared. Her family has lived in Israel ever since. For she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.” And that foreign woman will soon become a foreign wife…
And what about Ruth, a foreign wife who is the hero of the book named after her. Ruth and Orpah, two Moabite women married to Israelites, are widowed and their Mother in Law, Naomi, releases them to go to their own people so they can marry. As the scripture says, At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.” Ruth’s faithfulness is remembered in the community.
In fact, the Gospel of Mathew, shows foreign wives are part of God’s plan when in Jesus’ genealogy it reads, Salmon, the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz, the father of Obed by Ruth. so Foreign wives are 2 of the 4 women in the genealogy of Jesus, along with his mother, Mary and as it says“the wife of Uriah” who we know is Bathsheba - wife of King David and mother of King Solomon
Bathsheba and those around her are right people for exploring the truth throughout the scriptures, even heroes show their frail humanity. King David impregnated Bathsheba while her husband Uriah was away at battle. Out of guilt he had Uriah brought back and tried to trick him into sleeping with Bathsheba, but Uriah refused the comforts of home as long as his fellow troops were in the field. So finally David had him killed by having his fellow soldiers retreat away from him leaving him surrounded. The child dies a few days after birth, but in another recurring theme. God takes that couple, brought together in horrible sin and their second child is Solomon, the builder of the Temple, the Wisest and Greatest King of Israel is born to David and Bathsheba. The anomaly is not that people in the Bible are human, the wonderful anomaly is that God uses fully human sinful people and the terrible situations they make and out of them God can make wondrous and amazing miracles. AMEN What is the Bible, and What Impact Does It Have On Our Lives?
What is the Bible? First, The Bible is a book (or rather a library of 66 books) written by and about humans and their relationship to God. It is often called the “Word of God.” Does that mean God dictated the Bible without human involvement? NO. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that or anything close to that. Now, there are specific attributed quotes of God’s words to specific people but those are clearly delineated. It is the Word of God in the sense that these are human words about God that include many direct quotes from God.
It is also the Word of God in the sense that it is a book rooted in the human quest to know our creator and understand what it means to be human. As such it is a book seeking Mythic Truth. It is not a Book of Scientific Truth. Mythic Truth seeks to find the truth of meaning, of purpose. Scientific truth seeks the facts 2+2 =___. Well done.. Now that also means 2+2 does not = 5 or 3. This is the nature of scientific truth. An answer usually precludes other answers. Now remembering our scripture discussion today, Which do you think is true, Faith without works is dead or you are saved through grace by faith? That is a trick question, both are true, but neither to the exclusion of the other. Mythic truth, unlike scientific truth seeks the answers…. In fact mythic truth sometimes finds the answer in the space between two seemingly antithetical ideas. The Trinity is a great example of this. Three persons who are One God… The Bible is full of these, starting in Genesis with two creation stories that cannot be hammered into one narrative that is scientifically true. And speaking of those creation stories, let’s talk about Adam and Eve. Were there two such people historically? It doesn’t matter because their story is a mythic story about what it means to be human. It is mythic because it is not limited to them, but every human since them and after us will not be able to keep the simplest of rules. We are unable to follow rules perfectly, because none of us is perfect. And what about the second humans we meet in the Bible, their sons, Cain and Abel. One is favored for his religious practice and out of jealousy the other, Cain, murders his only brother, Abel. Wow, And today in Gaza and in Ukraine and in many other places it is acted out again and again. That is another aspect of mythic truth. It does not change, it has a universal quality. Many things about humans have changed: our height, our technologies, our power over nature. But human nature has never changed. Oh, some humans rise above our nature and they are the ones that change the world. But even they are not perfect.
The Bible shows us at our worst and at our best: Our moments of great clarity and when we are chaotically confused. This is a human book that covers the breadth of our relationship with God (and one another).
But the Bible is more than a sociological analysis of humans, right? The Apostle Paul gives us a clue of how it is unique in his second letter to Timothy “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”
Inspired by God. What does that mean? Recently I walked by a chicken wing restaurant and marvelled at a poster which read, “ Featuring Chef Inspired Rubs and Sauces” Hmm, So I pictured a corporate office where a Chief Recipe Officer said to his staff, “look up great chefs recipes, pick out the top 10 cheapest ingredients, and make chef-inspired rubs and sauces!” The great chefs did not make the sauces, they just inspired those folks in the corporate kitchen!
That aside, inspiration is a powerful and positive force. Most great artists or athletes have people that have inspired them, given them the strength and vision to pursue their passion. And I think that is what we mean when we say Scripture is inspired by God. It is given to us by people who have been inspired by God to write words of encouragement, struggle, instruction, hope, love, redemption… and do amazing things in God’s name.
Psalm119 - which we sang today - is instructive in our second question - What impact does the Bible have on our lives?
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
The older I get the more I stumble, because I am not paying attention to my feet and what is down there. The scriptures- through direct instruction and the failures and stumbles of other humans - teaches us the things that can cause us to stumble on the path of faithfulness. The dangers of life that try to trip us up as we seek to follow the way of God and Jesus. And that lamp on my feet helps me see and avoid the temptations and pitfalls when they appear.
Light unto my path,
So the light is not just on my feet, but it illuminates the path ahead. Light that shows us what God has for us to do. Light that can encourage us in our moving forward in faithfulness.
The Bible lets us be in conversation with people of faith over the millenia. No matter what we are going through, someone in this amazing library of faith has faced the same thing In Ecclesiastes we find another human with deep doubts. In Lamentations we hear the deep grief of the people over the loss of their nation. We see ourselves in the one who comes to Jesus for healing saying, “I believe, but help me with my unbelief.”
We also encounter Jesus, the one who changed the human story; the second Adam, the righteous Son of David, Jesus gives us the Spirit so we might be changed, empowered to become the children of God that we were intended to be. Jesus who said, “greater works will you do in my name.”
The Bible shows us we are not alone. That we are not the first humans to experience doubt, or courage, or fear, or joy, or grief, or wonder, or suffering. Every time we read the scripture we cross the divide between the living and the dead. We, as part of the Community of Christ, can receive great strength, instruction, hope and love from those who have gone before us.
And not only do the scriptures help us see ourselves as we are, but they are aspirational. Jesus, and our sisters and brothers in him, inspire us to be more than we are today, to be empowered to do our part today and in the future.
In the Bible we find regular human beings, flawed and sometimes lost, be transformed and become people that do the impossible.
Let us explore the deep riches, wisdom and inspiration that the Bible has to offer. Who knows what might happen if we allow ourselves to be inspired by its words! AMEN