This little clip of Mike Reeves really got me thinking (once again thankyou Dave for blogging goodness!). In a post I wrote a little while ago, I said that:
The Bible is NOT a manual for Christian living, full of step by step self help guides. The Bible is all about Jesus, and its purpose is to continually point us towards him.
And the verse that Mike points to is Jesus saying just that.
John 5:39-40
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.
There is no life in the words themselves, and so there is no life in the instructions you find in the Bible. The law does not bring us life.
So then what exactly are we supposed to do with the law? Well Jesus has answered that for us as well, the law is supposed to point us to him, where there is life. In Jesus we have the power to keep God’s law, outside of him we have no power at all. So when I said before that the Bible wasn’t a step by step self help guide, I wasn’t really being accurate. The Bible is a one step self help guide, and that step is towards Jesus, the only person who can actually help us.
So often I want the Bible to be more (or rather, less) than what it is. What I really want is the Bible to tell me exactly what to do to fix all the problems in my life, how precisely to become a better person. But when I read the Bible, it doesn’t offer me what I want, it simply points out my helplessness and turns me back towards Jesus.
Where the Bible contains an instruction, I have a choice. I can admit that I can’t really obey it and throw myself on Jesus, or I can pretend that I can obey it and fail miserably. My initial reaction is usually to do the latter, clearly the former is a better choice.