A Means To An End
Consider this…
This week we are in the middle of a giving challenge to raise support for Fresh Coast Alliance (FCA). FCA is a prisoner reentry ministry working to transform the lives of those affected by incarceration and addiction through Gospel-centered programs.
Reminder: A donor from our church has given $10,000 to match any gift to FCA. If you would like to give to that ministry, please check it out at www.freshcoastalliance.org and if you would like to support FCA with a financial gift that will be matched by the donor from our church, you can still give by clicking here for the next few days.
As I communicated to our church last Sunday, this ministry is close to my heart. I have personally connected with two Christian men who are currently serving time at the Muskegon Correctional Facility. One of the men I have visited multiple times over the past two years, and he has become a personal friend and encouragement. He has a deep commitment to God, a passion for God’s Word, and God is using him to influence many people with the Gospel. I asked him to share some devotions for use in our church. I was deeply challenged by this devotion titled “A Means To An End” and decided to feature it this week on our blog alongside our FCA giving challenge.
Check this devotion out and consider his thoughts carefully when it comes to how you approach the Bible. This article affirms what I have taught many times in our church, “Let the Word of God always lead you to the person of God.” Be encouraged and stirred up by this devotion from my friend. Please share your thoughts in the comments and I will email him the responses as an encouragement to him.
A Means To An End
Dillon Shaw
Have you ever heard the phrase, “A means to an end”? What thoughts or feelings accompany that phrase? There could be a seemingly endless list of reasons why we do something, but the ‘why’ is essential and will fuel the ‘how.’ Without the right ‘why,’ we may perform the right activity but with the wrong heart attitude or to the wrong end. So, why do you read the word of God?
In my experience, I have encountered Muslims who read the Bible studiously. Some of these men do so righteously, because they consider certain pieces of the Bible to be inspired. And some do it for unrighteous reasons, because they desire to become well-informed of their perceived contradictions and erroneous doctrine, in order to verbally attack unprepared Christians in an attempt to dismantle their faith. I have witnessed this personally and have been the target of such attempts.
Over the last twelve years or so, I have also observed humanistic-philospher types who fancy themselves a kind of new-age Gnostic, striving for mystical, higher-level knowledge found in the hidden nuggets of mankind's collective mind throughout the millennia. They mine the Bible as though there were a magical needle in the haystack of its pages.
During that time, I have also watched countless professing Christians perform a curious act. These Christians read the Bible with a self-righteous religious fervor that would rival Saul of Tarsus and a ritualistic sense of observance that would make a Pharisee insecure. Some of them performed the act with a confusing and self-defeating inconsistency. Some had a genuine desire to ‘be a Christian,’ but the check-list religion they had been shown left them frustrated most of the time.
All of these men, Muslims, new-age Gnostics, and differing categories of professing Christians, read the Bible with the wrong 'why.' Allow me to ask you again: why do you read the Bible?
In John 5:39-40, during one of His many confrontations with the religious elite, Jesus makes an inflammatory and jaw-dropping statement. Jesus declares, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”
Wow! How’s that for a mic-drop?
Have you ever heard the term bibliolatry? The word is a combination of ‘book + idolatry’. The Bible comes from the word biblio. Idolatry is the worship of anything apart from the God of the Bible. This reality of bibliolatry may be closer than you think. Jesus’ point in John 5 was that we should be worshipping the God who inspired the book, not the book itself. The Bible is not meant to be an end in itself, nor is it meant to be a means to one of the many ends I discussed earlier. According to Jesus, the Bible is supposed to be a means to an end with that end being Christ Himself, the true source of life (John 1:4, 14:6, 17:3).
Dale Bruner, a notable Christian scholar, summarizes, “The Bible is not about the Bible. And the Bible is not meant to be an encyclopedia of religious knowledge or facts. It is meant to be the book that points to Christ—points in preparation in the Old Testament and points in presentation in the New Testament. No doubt that there is a bounty of wisdom to be had in its pages. But the life we are offered is found only in the living God who made himself known to us in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the reason for the Scriptures.”
So, allow me to ask you one more time: why do you read the Bible?
Do you read it begrudgingly as an activity that you feel you have to do, or do you read it with joyful anticipation because you know Who is waiting to speak with you through it?
Do you read the word because it gives you some sense of accomplishment or an impression that you are acceptable to God because you perform certain activities, or do you read the word to commune with God and develop a deeper relationship with Him as the sure and secure source of your fulfillment and salvation?
Why do you read the Bible?
Honestly inspect your motives, and cultivate a desire to know God through His word.
He is waiting.
Our FCA match challenge is still active for a few more days. Every dollar we give as a church will be QUADRUPLED! The opportunity to bless this ministry at such a crucial time is incredible! If God is leading you to give to this ministry, please click the button below.