Friday, January 11, 2008

The Bible is awesomer.

Do you know who Piers Morgan is?
How about Tiffany Fallon?
Nely Galan?

Do you know who any of those people are? I didn’t either until NBC told me they were famous. Those are three of the contestants on this year’s show, Celebrity Apprentice. Donald Trump says the contestants are some of the most successful people in the world.

But if that’s true, how come I’ve never heard of them? Maybe Donald Trump was exaggerating.

And he’s not the only one. The other day I saw that the new car wash near Wal-mart had four different types of washing: Special, Premium, Deluxe and Ultimate. That’s like naming them, “awesome, awesomer and awesomest.”

We live in a world where words don’t really matter. They don’t have any meaning. Even all the cusswords have lost their teeth as they’ve quietly seeped into broadcast television. They just don’t matter anymore. They’re just words.

Where does that leave the Bible? Is it just words? Words that have been misinterpreted and mistranslated over and over again by flawed humans for thousands of years?

I don’t think so and the reason I don’t is pretty simple. I believe in Jesus and Jesus believed in the Bible.

I love how strongly he makes this point in Matthew 4. When he’s confronted by the devil, when he’s face to face with the prince of darkness, the father of murder and lies and all evil, what does he rely on? The Bible. He quotes the Bible.

It’s really an amazing thing when you think about it. Christ had all of the power of God available. He was gifted with more than we’ll ever really be able to understand. The depth of his power and majesty is unfathomable. And yet, he relied on the same exact thing we have access to. He turned to God’s word. He trusted in something that I often forget at work. He called on something that I don’t read nearly enough of. The first place he looked was honestly a place that I often look last.

I don’t know what your relationship with the Bible is. Maybe you read it all the time. Maybe you don’t, but I’ve got a ridiculously easy, new way to look at faith.

If it was good enough for Jesus, it’s cool with me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree with you about words losing their meaning. But as I grow in my faith, I find the words of the Bible taking on more meaning. Maybe because of your last statement. I love when Jesus says to Satan, "It is written..." And we have the same words today to use for comfort, for learning, for protection, etc. Now, that is cool to me.