Month: November 2020

A few years ago, I was going through some things at my childhood home, and I found what I imagine may have been my dad’s very first Bible. His name is embossed on the front, and on the inside cover I read that it was given to him by his parents on Christmas Day 1939, when he was 11 years old. The leather’s pretty worn around the edges. There are no notes or underlining in it. Maybe that kind of thing was frowned upon back then. But apparently the Word found its way into his heart, because when he grew up, he became a Sunday school teacher for one of the adult classes at my home church. It’s a class very similar to the Home Service class here at Keith Church led by Neal Ensminger for so long. My dad taught the class every other week, just like Rick Lay and Sara Armstrong do, for nearly forty years. Perhaps my dad’s lifelong knowledge of and love for God’s Word got its start with this Bible.

When we were going through things, I also found his father’s Bible, my grandfather’s Bible. Unlike my dad’s, my grandad’s is filled with all kinds of things – notes from sermons he preached (he was a very active lay speaker, like Tim Womac, Austin Fesmire and Sarah Prince and some others are here), sermons he’d heard, lessons he’d led, news clippings, pamphlets, flyers. It’s clear he was an avid reader and student of God’s Word. 

We also found one of the Bibles of his father, my great-grandfather and one of my namesakes, David Graybeal, who was born in 1866, the year after the Civil War ended. He was a farmer and a teacher who became a licensed local preacher later in his life. Perhaps he used this Bible when he was preaching. Or perhaps he kept this one at the family home, because the back of his Bible is full of family information – people’s birthdays, marriage days, death dates, the family tree.

The question, of course, is what to do with all these Bibles? They’re all the same version – the King James or the Authorized Version. That was really the only version available back then. But I don’t need multiple copies of the same version, especially since I’ve got virtually every version of the scriptures I’d ever possibly want to read, in any kind of language, all available to me at my fingertips, on my phone, on the Bible app.

But I can’t get rid of these Bibles. I’m still going to hold on to them because they are so meaningful to me. They are some of the only physical connections I have to those who have gone before me. But still the question remains: what do we do with these Bibles? Or more specifically, what do we do with THE Bible? What is this thing that I’m holding in my hand? 

Obviously it’s a book. It’s often referred to as “The Good Book.” But what kind of book is it? It’s actually a book of books – a library of books. There are 66 of them in our Protestant version; there are more in the Catholic version which includes additional books called the Apocrypha. And these books are written in several different styles by several different authors over several hundreds of years. There are books that contain laws and commandments, genealogies, family histories, political histories, religious and political commentary. There are books of poetry, short stories, wise sayings and songs. There are letters, short ones and long ones. There are those special biographies of Jesus we call the Gospels. And there is that strange fantasy-like book at the end called Revelation. The Bible is a lot of different books about a lot of different things.

Some people treat it like an owner’s manual, like you put in your car’s glove compartment. If you have a problem or question, just look it up in the index to see how and where the Bible addresses it. Some view it as a rule book, a bunch of do’s and don’ts (mostly don’ts). To some it’s an acronym, BIBLE, Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. People look at the Bible as all kinds of things. 

But I like the way that the British bishop and theologian NT Wright views it. In his book that came out a few years ago, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today (2013), he says the Bible is fundamentally not a rule book or instruction manual but a story. It tells the great and grand story of God and God’s involvement with God’s people throughout history. 

It’s a story told broadly in five acts, like a Shakespearean play. The story starts with the creation of the universe and everything that exists. It continues with God’s covenant with a people called Israel and God’s steadfast faithfulness to them despite our sinfulness and stubbornness and waywardness. It climaxes in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it carries forward in the mission and ministry of the church throughout the world, and it culminates in a glorious new creation in the end, where all is good and right and well as God intended it to be. This is the story the Bible tells. The Bible is essentially a great big story. In all of its pieces and parts, even the parts that can be hard to stomach or that we struggle to make much sense of, it tells the bigger and broader story of God and God’s investment in and involvement with God’s people and God’s creation.

But we also speak of the Bible as having a certain kind of authority in the church and in our lives. But what kind of authority does the Bible have if it’s just a story, you might ask? And that’s a good question. But have you ever noticed the power of stories to form and shape us as people, to cultivate our character? Stories can do that. Stories are powerful like that. Stories can author a certain way of being into existence. That’s the kind of authority stories can have.

For example, can you remember the first time you heard or read the story Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White? Or maybe you saw the movie. It’s the story about Charlotte, a barn spider who weaves messages about how fabulous the farm girl Fern’s pet pig Wilbur is, messages like “Some Pig” that she means for the farmer to see (I suppose while he’s “web-browsing”) and ends up saving Wilbur’s life even as she loses her own. Do you remember getting all teared up and feeling a knot form in your throat? Now you might say, well, that’s just a story. And it is. It’s a story about friendship, and compassion, and sacrifice, and so much more. And it’s a story that can form and shape those same virtues and values in our own hearts and minds. Stories can do that. That’s the authority of stories.

Maybe that’s why Jesus taught so much in stories. He could have just said things directly, like go, love God, love others, period, end of story. Actually, he did say exactly that, when he was asked what the greatest of all the commandments was. But he knew that simply saying so wouldn’t make it so. So instead he told it to us again, indirectly, in stories. And those stories form and shape us as his followers, still to this day. 

He told us the story of the Good Samaritan to show us what loving our neighbor looks like (Luke 10:25-37). He told us the story of the prodigal son to show us what it’s like to be lost and to be found, and what forgiving and being forgiven is like (Luke 15:11-32). He told us the story of the sheep and the goats to show us the importance of looking after the least of these among us in this world (Matthew 25:31-46). He told his disciples then and now all these stories to try to form and shape us as a people who love God with everything we’ve got and who love our neighbors as we love ourselves – who love like Jesus loves.

But these stories can’t do their work – or perhaps it’s better to say the Spirit of God can’t do its work – in and among us through these stories if we don’t know them. And we won’t know them if we don’t read them and study them and take them to heart and live them out in our own lives. Because this world in which we live, so painfully divided in so many deep and distressing ways, is desperate for us to know and to show and to share this story, this life-saving story, this world-redeeming story, this story of God’s love for the least, the last, the lost, and the lonely; of God’s affection for the poor, the widow, the immigrants and the orphans along all the borders of life; of God’s attention to the hungry, the homeless, the helpless and the hopeless; and of the promise of God’s presence with us always, through the good times and the bad, the happy times as well as the sad, through the Spirit of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us.

This promise of God’s presence with us always was something I learned at an early age. In addition to the other Bibles in our family – my dad’s, his dad’s, his dad’s – there is another very special Bible to me. It was my very first Bible. As it happens, it’s also a King James Version. My mom gave it to me on December 19, 1981, when I was 8 years old. 

But she didn’t just give me this Bible. She sat down and read it with me. She helped me memorize scriptures. I remember sitting up in my bed at night with her and working our way through Psalm 121 – “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.” We worked through that psalm one verse at a time, until I had the whole thing memorized, all eight verses. We lived in a hilly part of southwest Virginia. I lifted mine eyes unto the hills all the time. I still do. And every time I lift up mine eyes unto the hills these days, I remember whence cometh my help. Because my mom memorized that scripture with me.

That’s a Bible I’m definitely going to keep. I couldn’t very well get rid of it even if I wanted to, because I carry it around with me wherever I go. 

No, not on my phone. In my heart.

Saul the Prosecutor.  Paul the Apostle.  Paul the Prisoner.  Paul the Prisoner on Death Row.

Paul was used to being under arrest.  There was that time that he had a “rocky” night in the Philippian jail.  Then he spent two years under house arrest in Caesarea Philippi awaiting his trial before the Roman governors.  From there, he appealed to Caesar.   After a hazardous trip on a ship, Paul finally arrives at Rome….where he spends another two years under house arrest.  But it was time well spent.  He wrote letters to churches, including the beloved letter of the Philippian.  And he welcomed visitors, sharing his faith with all of them, Jews, Greeks, and Romans.  So powerful was Paul’s testimony, that he was he even converting some members of the palace guard as well as Caesar’s household.  After two years, he finally stood trial before the young Emperor Nero.  Apparently, Paul was acquitted of all charges, but the status of the Christian faith was still vague.  Would Christians be considered a subset of the Jewish faith like Pharisees and Sadducees and given religious freedom?  Or were Christians another annoyance like the Druids and the various astrologers and sorcerers? Only time would give that answer.

Paul, meanwhile, continued his mission.  He possibly finally realized his dream of going to Spain, the very edge of the Roman Empire.  And then it was back east to follow up with the churches.  In Ephesus, Paul was very upset with two members of the local church, Hymenaeus and Alexander.  Paul said that they had “deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked.”  Strong words from a man who knew what it was be shipwrecked.  So what did Paul do?  “I threw them out and handed them over to Satan so they might learn not to blaspheme God.”

That was an act of great courage.  Just as he confronted Peter, so many years earlier, Paul confronted these two rascals and tossed them out.  But it came at a terrible cost.  Remembering how the silver smiths had pressed charges against Paul years earlier, Alexander pressed charges against Paul.  The local officials decided that this case was best decided in Rome.  Why?  Word had reached Ephesus that Nero was leading a crackdown on Christians.  Not having clear guidance on what to do next and not wanting to risk Nero’s wrath, they shipped Paul back to Rome.

Paul is aware that this a one-way trip.  He is not coming back.  No comfortable house arrest this time.  He is in the cold, dark, dungeon known as Castra Praetoria.  At the end of his life, Paul really is not thinking.  Or even “just remembering.”  He is reflecting.  He feels the pangs of loneliness.  He dictates, “Timothy, please come as soon as you can.”   He takes inventory of his friends – one has abandoned him while two are carrying on the mission work, and one is still with him.  He dictates “Demas has deserted me because he loves the things of this life and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus has gone to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me.”  Then Paul pauses.  Reflecting on his life, he realizes that he had been harsh to a certain young man.  Paul should have been more patient.  This young man had blossomed under the mentorship of first Barnabas and then Peter.  So Paul dictates, “Bring Mark with you when you come, for he will be helpful to me in my ministry. “  Then Paul remembers that he had left out a coworker, “I sent Tychicus to Ephesus.”  Paul want to makes sure that there is a strong Christian to lead the church in Ephesus while Timothy is in Rome.

And then Paul dictates a poignant personal request.  “When you come, be sure to bring the coat I left with Carpus at Troas. Also bring my books, and especially my papers.”  Paul needed his coat to keep his body warm, but he needed his scriptures to keep his heart strangely warmed.  Interestingly, in the winter of 1535, the English reformer William Tyndale was imprisoned in the dungeon in Vilvoorde Castle.  He is imprisoned for the crime of translating the Bible into English.  He writes a letter to the governor of the castle asking for warmer clothing, “a candle in the evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark,” and “above all” he writes, “my Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Grammar, and Hebrew Dictionary, that I may spend my time with that study.”  Separated by some 1500 years, both of these godly men ask for warmer clothing and the Scriptures.

Paul then dictates a warning to Timothy.  “Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm, but the Lord will judge him for what he has done. Be careful of him, for he fought against everything we said.”

Paul then reflects on his pretrial.  “The first time I was brought before the judge, no one came with me. Everyone abandoned me.”  The man who wrote the magisterial book of Romans, was in trial in Rome, but none of the Romans would even accompany him to court.  So great and furious had been Nero’s persecution of Christians, that none of them dared to be seen in the courtroom with Paul.

Did Paul respond with anger or bitterness?  No.  He simply says, “May it not be counted against them.”  That is a though that he had thought of many of a time throughout the years, and more so now as he faced is own execution.

Paul dictates that “But the Lord stood with me and gave me strength so that I might preach the Good News in its entirety for all the Gentiles to hear. And he rescued me from the mouth of the lion. Yes, and the Lord will deliver me from every evil attack and will bring me safely into his heavenly Kingdom.”  The “mouth of the lion” reference is a play on words.  In the spiritual sense, Paul was rescued from a Satanic attack that would have him deny the Christian faith that he had spent so many years and miles proclaiming.  It also has a very literal meaning in that Paul as a Roman citizen would not have to face the lions as his fellow Christians did.  As a Roman citizen, he would die by beheading.

Luke encouraged his friend, and Mark and Timothy finally arrived.  Paul would still have to die, but the persecution against the Christians had subsided.  His friends, Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and other brothers and sisters were there at the end.  Together they take the final walk down the Ostian Way, just past the city limits of Rome.

On the final walk to the execution block, there was a heaviness in their hearts.  Sensing this, perhaps Paul pointed up to the blue sky and the white clouds and said, “My dear brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be concerned about me and others who sleep in death. I do not want you to grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. Remember, those of you who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those of us who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and we, the dead in Christ, will rise first. After that, those of you who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with us in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Comfort one another with these words.”

When they arrived at the place, perhaps Paul then placed his hands on Timothy, passing the mantle of leadership by saying, “Timothy, I solemnly urge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who will someday judge the living and the dead when he comes to set up his Kingdom: Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching.  Do not be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you.”

Smiling at his friends, Paul says, “Dear friends, as for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but also for you, and all who eagerly look forward to his appearing.”

Walking up to the centurion, Paul smiles and says, “Friend, I have a few parting words for you as well.”  The centurion smiled back at this perplexing Paul.  “Old timer.  I’ve heard my fair share of parting words at the execution block.  The word friend wasn’t one of them.”

Paul chuckled, “I suppose not.  It may seem strange to you to hear this now, but I too, have played the role of executioner.  I used to believe that I ought to do everything I could to oppose the very name of Jesus the Nazarene. Indeed, I did just that in Jerusalem. Authorized by the leading priests, I caused many believers there, both men and women, to be sent to prison. And I cast my vote against them when they were condemned to death. Many times, I had them punished in the synagogues to get them to curse Jesus. I was so violently opposed to them that I even chased them down in foreign cities. 

For the first death, however, I had a very small role to play.  A man named Stephen was to be stoned.  The mob took their coats off, and laid them at my feet for safe keeping.  I watched them stone Stephen and approved of it.  But before he died, Stephen said three things that I have thought often.  First, he said, ‘Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!’  For Stephen, the thin veil between heaven and earth was pulled back.  He prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’  Then finally he prayed for his enemies, the very men who were stoning him.  He prayed, ‘Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!’ And with that, he breathed his last.  So friend, I pray that the Lord will not charge you with sin in my death and that you would suffer no guilt.  But rather, I pray that will you know the peace and joy that I have, without the chains of course.”

Paul knelt down, placed his head on the block, and prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

Then the sound of the sword.  And then the remembrance of Paul’s words…

Yes, and the Lord will deliver me from every evil attack and will bring me safely into his heavenly Kingdom.

After they had buried Paul in a nearby sepulcher, perhaps Linus unravels a scroll.   Linus reflects, “I still remember the night that the deaconess Phoebe arrived with this letter that Paul had written to us Roman Christians and read it aloud to us and explained it to us.  This letter, if it can be called just a letter, was how Paul introduced himself to us.  It is only appropriate that we read a part of it now, as part of Paul’s farewell to us.  We shall never forget to love that Paul had both for the Lord Jesus Christ and the people of Rome.  Hear now these words:

“What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The heaviness in their hearts was lifted, and they quietly returned home.  What a beautiful day it was.  And look at those white clouds in the blue sky.  Paul was absent from the body, but present with the Lord.

Reflection questions

In I Timothy, we learn that Paul took the dramatic step of tossing out two church members, and he did it at a time when it was best to not makes waves.  Why do you think that Paul had such urgency to take such action at the time that he did?

When Paul is imprisoned for the second time in Rome, we sense that he is lonely.  Yet, he says that he actually sent three of his coworkers away to continue the gospel, while asking for two others to come quickly.  Was there a time in your life, when you had to send someone away for a greater good even though it meant you would not see them – perhaps college, military, or a retirement home?

Both Paul and William Tyndale make hauntingly similar requests.  What does it tell us that these two Christians leaders both asked for warm clothing and the scriptures?   When it comes to your physical needs and spiritual needs, do you neglect one over the other?  Why are both important?  If you were imprisoned and had to request a few personal items, what would they be?  Would your Bible be one of them?  Why or why not?

Paul very briefly tells us that at his pretrial, everyone abandoned him.  Can you think of another Biblical figure who as abandoned at his pretrial?  Can you think of a time when you felt abandoned?

Concerning those who abandoned him, Paul says, “May it not be counted against them.”  How easy or difficult would it be for you to say that about those who abandoned you?

In imagining Paul’s final day, I adapted words from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians.  In that letter, Paul describes how the dead in Christ would rise first on the Resurrection morning, followed by those who are still living.  In our modern church, do we fully understand the idea of Resurrection?  Or do we carelessly use the phrase “die and go to heaven” and not even bother mentioning Resurrection?  Why is it important to remember Resurrection?

In imagining Paul’s final words to Timothy and his friends, I adapted from 2 Timothy.  Who would be your Timothy, the person who carries on your mission?  And then Paul uses the metaphor of a race.  Why is running the race a good metaphor for the Christian life?