A Most Dangerous Book

Hebrews 4:12

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

For some the Bible is considered a “most dangerous book.”  A couple of months ago, Linda and I went to visit a lady who was told that as she grew up. She was told that Christians had corrupted the Bible.  You couldn’t trust what you read there.  She was told,  “Don’t read that book.”  I wonder if that is not what God used to make her curious. Sometimes being told “Don’t” will lead you to do just the opposite.  Eventually there did come a time in her life, a time of illness and loneliness when she did pick up this book and read it.   It did turn out to indeed be a very dangerous and powerful book in her life but not because it was corrupted or told lies.  The danger in this book was the fact that the Bible told her the truth – the truth about her sin, the truth about her need for God and most importantly the truth about how God loved her so much that He gave His one and only Son Jesus to be her savior.   She would tell you that in reading this book God changed her life.  Because of what she read here she is now a believer in Jesus. 

Is this book truly dangerous?  It is if you don’t want to know the truth.  It is if you are trying to avoid God.  It is if you don’t want to change.  After all, here in these pages you meet the living God, the creator of the heavens and the earth.  The same God who could speak a word and call creation into existence speaks to you here.  St. Paul wrote that “all Scripture is God-breathed…”  Think about that.  God once formed Adam from the dirt and breathed into His nostrils the breath of life.  That God breathes through these pages.  The writer to the Hebrews calls this book a “double edged sword” cutting both ways.  Here God speaks His law and shows us the unpleasant truth about our sin.  More than that here He speaks to us the comforting news of forgiveness – forgiveness Jesus purchased for us by His life, death and resurrection.  Paul calls that message “the power of God unto salvation for all who believe…”  He promises that “faith comes from hearing the message, the message about Christ.”

I remember being asked a question by a member of my first parish in Nebraska.  He asked me, why I was always bringing my Bible with when I came to see him in the hospital or at home.  I answered his question with one of my own.  “If you hired a carpenter to build something would you ask him to leave his tools in his truck?  Would you ask him to build whatever it is without his tools?  No.”  That’s why I would bring my Bible with to visit that man.  That’s why I am sharing this with you today. This book is God’s tool. His Spirit promises to work in our lives through His word – to bring us to sorrow over sin, to give us faith, to comfort us with His forgiveness, to strengthen our faith and make it grow. 

I worry sometimes that many of us are scared of this book.  Oh we disguise that fear.  We blame our busy lives as the reason we don’t take time daily for the Word and for prayer.  I hear men make the excuse that “men” just don’t go to Bible Study.”  Are those real excuses or are we just afraid of what God might do through this book?  Are we afraid that He might change our lives?  Is that the reason that we too often ask God to leave His tools out in the truck?  Is it because we don’t want Him meddling in our lives?  Friends, God wants to do great things in our lives… to change our lives and through us change the lives of others.  This dangerous wonderful life-changing book is His chief tool.  My challenge to each of you is to have the courage of faith to dedicate your life to the study of this book… and to marvel at how God works in you and through you… changing your life and the lives of others through this most dangerous book. .