WEBVTT 00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:07.120 As soon as you open the contents page of a Bible, you will see that this book is a book of books. 00:00:07.519 --> 00:00:15.279 It contains 66 books in the Old and New Testament, in the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. 00:00:15.519 --> 00:00:22.160 And those books are written in a series of different genres and literatures. 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:37.200 The Bible contains mythic history, it contains poetry, it contains wise sayings, eyewitness accounts, letters, epistles, and historic documents. 00:00:38.079 --> 00:00:48.079 It's written by forty different human authors in three languages, two main languages, and three if you're going to be pedantic. 00:00:49.039 --> 00:00:59.520 And it took roughly fifteen hundred years for the human authors to put this book together and ultimately compile it. 00:01:00.399 --> 00:01:13.280 And yet, Christians have always believed that through this book there is one divine author who is telling a single unified narrative that leads to Jesus. 00:01:13.599 --> 00:01:22.560 It's a narrative that starts in Genesis with the story of creation and finishes in Revelation with the new creation of heaven and earth. 00:01:22.719 --> 00:01:27.359 And the climax of that story is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 00:01:27.599 --> 00:01:36.319 Everything is either leading up to the life of Jesus or reflecting on the ramifications of Jesus' life. 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:45.280 So this is a diverse book and it's a unified book. 00:01:46.159 --> 00:01:50.480 I wonder how would you evidence that claim? 00:01:50.640 --> 00:01:59.760 If someone said to you, This book is diverse and unified, how might you go about saying whether you agree with that or not? 00:02:00.239 --> 00:02:13.439 Well, let me suggest that one of the ways you could is by looking at the way the book references itself and cross-references itself from one verse to another, quoting other bits of the Bible. 00:02:14.800 --> 00:02:24.800 If you're familiar with the internet, you might have noticed as you've been surfing on different web pages these words or phrases in blue that are underlined. 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:26.560 That's called a hyperlink. 00:02:26.719 --> 00:02:31.439 And you could say that the Bible is one of the first hyperlinked books. 00:02:31.599 --> 00:02:42.800 A book where if you were to click on one word, you would see all the other places where other authors in the other parts of the scriptures are talking about and referencing those ideas. 00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:48.000 Let me give you a visual image of what that might look like. 00:02:49.919 --> 00:02:58.319 In this infographic, you can see all the different places where the Bible references itself. 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:08.879 You've got the verses along the bottom, and then all of these links are the ways in which the different verses are talking about other verses in the book. 00:03:09.919 --> 00:03:15.439 This image will be at the back, and I'd love you to have a look at it over coffee after the service. 00:03:16.400 --> 00:03:22.560 But we also have a good example of that in our gospel reading today. 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:28.639 Jesus and the Pharisees are debating with one another who is the Messiah? 00:03:29.039 --> 00:03:30.879 What is the Messiah like? 00:03:31.840 --> 00:03:36.400 And Jesus doesn't just tell them, he quotes the Old Testament. 00:03:36.479 --> 00:03:46.159 And you'll notice in your service sheet it's indented slightly differently because Jesus quotes Psalm 110 in answering the Pharisees' question. 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:52.080 He doesn't just say, This is the Messiah, or this is who I am, or this is what the Messiah is going to be like. 00:03:52.240 --> 00:04:04.560 He references the Old Testament, and now a link has been forged so that Psalm 110 is influencing our reading of Matthew 22 and vice versa. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:22.639 You see, in the old in the first century, the Jewish consciousness had been shaped by these stories that they told one another about King David and about Isaiah and about the prophets and about uh the judges, about the patriarchs. 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:30.399 These stories were uh embedded in the Jewish community and created these archetypes. 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:38.720 And so the Jews knew that the Messiah would be like the son of David, would be like King David. 00:04:39.360 --> 00:05:01.199 And so the hope for a Messiah was first that literally he would be able to trace his lineage back to the person of King David, but also that he would be like him in really important ways, that he would lead God's people, that he would do battle with and be victorious over God's enemies. 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:10.399 And so the m the Pharisees and the Sadducees are debating with Jesus who is the Messiah. 00:05:10.639 --> 00:05:16.480 And Jesus says he's going to be like King David, the son of David. 00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:30.480 But in their debate, Jesus is saying that the title of the son of David is inadequate to describe the Messiah, that the Messiah is going to be like King David and be more than just David's son. 00:05:31.120 --> 00:05:34.319 He's also going to be David's Lord. 00:05:35.839 --> 00:05:52.480 So King David becomes an archetype or a category in the Jewish consciousness, and Jesus steps into that archetype and fulfills it and reshapes it around himself and expands it beyond what you might have thought at first. 00:05:53.759 --> 00:05:59.680 And so Jesus is a Messiah like the Son of David. 00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:07.759 But when he has victory over his enemies, he does it by yielding himself to their injustice. 00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:13.759 And he wears a crown like King David, but it's a crown of thorns. 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:21.279 And a sword is wielded like King David's sword, but that sword pierces Jesus' side. 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:27.759 So he is a king, enthroned, but enthroned on a cross. 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:54.319 This is one of the great joys of reading the scriptures, is burrowing down into these cross references, clicking on the hyperlinks to see where the scripture is talking to itself and creating more information than if it just told us straightforwardly about how Jesus inhabits and reshapes the storyline of the Hebrew Scriptures. 00:06:56.160 --> 00:07:02.800 So that's the first way you'd like us to think about what the Bible is and how the Bible works. 00:07:03.040 --> 00:07:11.120 That it's a unified story that leads to Jesus, a book of great diversity telling a single narrative. 00:07:11.519 --> 00:07:15.120 Let me give you a second option that might be helpful. 00:07:15.839 --> 00:07:24.720 It's very tempting when looking at any book for us as modern Westerners to think that's going to contain information. 00:07:24.959 --> 00:07:30.000 And I need to open the book, discover the information, close the book, and be done with it. 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:34.079 That's what 99% of the books that you and I read do. 00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:36.079 They convey information. 00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:38.959 We download it and then we move on. 00:07:39.360 --> 00:07:43.279 But that is not the way the Bibles are meant to be read, I suggest. 00:07:43.519 --> 00:07:48.959 Another way of thinking about them is that they are ancient meditation literature. 00:07:50.319 --> 00:07:56.560 They're to be read again and again, pondered and considered over many years. 00:07:56.800 --> 00:08:02.319 And what we discover, miraculously, is that the scriptures grow with us. 00:08:02.560 --> 00:08:11.120 And as we grow old, the scriptures are transformed and teach us new things year after year. 00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:19.839 As we're heading into Advent, let me take a uh an example from Christmas. 00:08:20.399 --> 00:08:31.519 I'm sure many of us have had the experience of seeing things new year after year in the nativity scene, in the Christmas story. 00:08:32.720 --> 00:08:43.360 I wonder if the story of Jesus being born in a manger took on fresh meaning for you the first time you became a parent or a grandparent. 00:08:44.240 --> 00:08:59.759 I wonder if the story of the shepherds felt different to you once you moved to a more rural part of the country and started to get a better understanding of what it is to live in an agrarian society. 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:07.039 This is what happens when we read and read again, slowly digesting the scriptures over years. 00:09:07.200 --> 00:09:24.720 I know that for Hannah and I, when we this time last year heard the story of Mary and Joseph having to travel to Bethlehem heavily pregnant, while Hannah was herself heavily pregnant, it re made us think again about what that story means. 00:09:26.639 --> 00:09:38.399 Or as Paul puts it in our New Testament reading set for today, in Colossians, he invites us to let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:40.879 Dwell in you richly. 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:45.600 These are not words used to describe downloading content. 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:55.279 They're better described imagining the experience of inhabiting and living with someone or something. 00:09:56.240 --> 00:10:02.799 You dwell richly when you're enjoying a slow meal or going for a long walk. 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:06.960 This should be our our relationship with the scriptures. 00:10:07.279 --> 00:10:16.399 Like an old friend who we've known for many years, who continues to surprise us and challenge us, as all the best old friends do. 00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:22.399 So, suggesting two ways of understanding the scriptures. 00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:34.399 Firstly, as a unified story that leads to Jesus, secondly, as ancient meditation literature to be read again and again to discover new things in them. 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:37.120 Neither of these ideas are mine. 00:10:37.279 --> 00:10:43.360 They come from an online resource called the Bible Project that I'm a really big fan of. 00:10:43.519 --> 00:10:52.480 I found it so helpful in uh recommending this both to people who have never read the Bible before and to people who have been reading it for decades. 00:10:52.960 --> 00:10:56.240 It's a charity based in America in Portland, Oregon. 00:10:56.399 --> 00:11:07.840 And the Bible Project creates explainer videos, podcasts, articles, and other educational resources to help make the Bible and the biblical story accessible to everyone around the world. 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:10.159 I have another prop to show you. 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:18.399 This is a coffee table book that I bought here actually at a bookstand we had a few months ago. 00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:24.320 Please do pray for Hannah because I'm forever coming home with more books like this that she has to put up with. 00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:26.399 This is going to be at the back of church. 00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:30.159 You'll be able to, again, look at it over coffee hour. 00:11:30.240 --> 00:11:36.000 Uh it just gives an idea of what the Bible projects do, and they're really helpful. 00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:55.120 So I hope that has given you two fresh ways of thinking about this book that we know and love, that we read week in, week out, but a new way of imagining how you might, as the words of the collect say, hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. 00:11:55.840 --> 00:12:00.080 Would that be how we think of this book and how it shapes and changes our lives? 00:12:00.639 --> 00:12:01.600 In Jesus' name. 00:12:02.320 --> 00:12:02.720 Amen.