|
Rev. Roy A. Harrisville III, Ph. D.
A short word about the authority of the Word
You may not believe it to look at me now, but when I was a teenager my
father actually felt compelled to read to me the verse in the New
Testament in which the apostle declares it a disgrace for a man to wear
his hair long. At the time I thought his quotation entirely irrelevant
and meaningless. Who cares about that old stuff? I thought. But someone
cared enough to preserve even those old words. My father cared to read
them. My mother cared. The pastor at my church cared. My grandmothers
and aunts cared. My friends and their families cared. Perhaps they did
not care for that particular verse, but they cared. They cared for words
like, "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us;" and, "Come to me
all who labor and are heavy laden…" and words like, "The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want...."
Though I had squirmed in the pews on countless Sundays and caused no end
of grief for my Sunday School teachers and suffered through three years
of confirmation, still I thought the Bible was largely an old book with
old things for old people who believed in old ideas. ...this Word has
power and authority over me ... it has transformed me. Then I read it
for myself—a chapter a night of the New Testament that my parents had
given me as a confirmation present. I filled the margins with questions
and notes. I took it with me on camping trips and even dropped it in the
lake. I found that I too began to care what was in that book. I began to
care about words like "Be still and know that I am God…" and words like
"...through love become slaves of one another."
I found that I had been changed. My perceptions, my misconceptions, my
presumptions, and expectations had been altered or destroyed by this
Word, this book, this black and white ink and paper Word that burns
easily in any fire. But it had scorched me. It had burned away my naïve
notions of peace and justice, love and hate, worth and value. I found
that rather than reading the Word, the Word had read me like a book. It
had known me before I glanced at the page and then slain my pride and
hubris with its words of sacrifice and grace, and left my old world in
ashes.
That is why this Word has power and authority over me, because it has
transformed me. Say all you will about historical conditioning, cultural
conditioning, inerrancy or infallibility. They are puny concepts in the
face of the ability of this Word to change people. This Word captures
and kills, no matter how old it is. This Word transfers one from death
to life, even if by means of imperfect human hands. The authority of
scripture lies precisely and firmly in its ability to transform my life.
So, I return to the scene of the crime as often as I can and read again
the same words that have already done their bloody work and whose
terrible repetition is needed every day to slay that old presumptuous
reader. That is why this Word is the touchstone of Christian life and
hope, and the source to which we turn when we hear all those other
words, especially our own. For, only this counter-cultural,
counter-intuitive, counter-“self” Word can capture me, imprison me, kill
me, and give me new life. That is its power and authority. "For if we
have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be
united with him in a resurrection like his."
|
