Before the Book and Beyond

Touring the Musical Instrument Museum the other day, I slipped off my earphones that had been piping in pulsing, primitive music of Africa, turned around to hear the next musical exhibit, only to be arrested by an enormous map of that continent labeled The Languages of Africa. I was riveted by what appeared—in tiny print all over the map—to be thousands of them. Subsequent research, called Google! revealed that there are perhaps two thousand tongues, branching out of four main language roots. What has that got to do with music? Well, everything as music is indeed the common language of the soul of all mankind. But the rogue thought that arrested me and filled my eyes with tears was this; surely it’s bigger than a book?

Those words came winging out of the stirring recesses of my mind as, over the last few years, I have wrestled with the place of the Bible in our common Christian life. I have grown increasingly uneasy with the worship of the written word over the living Word; over the monikers of so many of our buildings that are called “Bible Fellowship” for example, when our fellowship is not in a book but in a Person. The written word is where we each go to defend our positions, our creeds and our dogmas, and those are then the issues that define us, divide us, and diminish any who would disagree with our exalted exegeses.

We have all no doubt wondered from time to time why Jesus left so little definitive directions for the nascent church—no writings of his own. I think the secret lies in the power-filled pronouncements he made, and which are recorded, in John’s gospel chapter 14. He spoke of the union of his life with ours, that we are included in the Triune life, and that the Spirit whom he would send, would convince us of that awesome fact and would lead us into all truth pertaining to our relationship with God. He did not predict a day when a book would be written that would be the conclusive guidebook for living. 

The very first gathering of the church was a motley crew gathered in a room with only one set of instructions: don’t move until the Spirit comes! And those were the people who turned the world upside down; many died as martyrs—so convinced were they of the truth, so real was the Spirit, and so in love were they with their risen and ascended Lord. They had no New Testament for none had yet been written.

Is it sacrilegious to cast aspersions in this way on the place of the Bible in our lives? Well, we have Jesus saying something very similar to the skeptical Jews of his day: You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life (John 5:39, 40). A pretty spunky statement to throw at the doorkeepers of the law, the legalists, the sticklers for the jots and tittles who put unbearable burdens on the people so they could no longer find their way to God through the maze of man made rules.

They made the same mistake that their modern counterparts have made; they have taken what was meant to be merely the written account that reveals the reality, the shadow that depicts the substance, and posited pride of knowledge, and false security in a book over the indwelling, forever revealing Spirit with whom, in Christ, we are united.

Back to the map of Africa. What I heard was this: Do you really think that I am only relying on the dispensing of Bibles before I can communicate with all these millions of people? With all due deference and gratitude to Wycliffe and other translators, the answer must surely be NO! The Spirit who hovered over the waters and created a universe is not confined to a script of any kind, and neither are we. His Love soars through time and space unhindered and triumphant using all of his created cosmos to speak. And when words fail-- he uses music!

Check out one of my highly recommended web sites, that of Frank Viola at www.ptmin.org