Having given a ten minute introduction to Biblefresh (in company with my colleague John Doherty from The Bible Society in N. Ireland) at the opening night of Bangor Worldwide 2010 last Saturday evening, I was delighted to read Stafford Carson’s blog entitled Biblefresh.
Having introduced Biblefresh, Stafford goes on to say:
I have been thinking about how our own congregation could participate in this initiative and how we could encourage more people to engage seriously with the truth of the Bible. Someone wrote on facebook recently that many Christians treat the Bible like the licence for a piece of new software. They scroll to the bottom and tick the “I Agree” button without ever reading it or realising the implications of their affirmation.
The belief in the authority of the Bible has been attacked consistently by unbelievers. What is surprising is that some of the attacks against the authority of the Bible are now coming from within evangelicalism.
He then goes on to quote from both Al Mohler and Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones – before concluding:
Perhaps the biblefresh initiative will help Christians think again about this important and fundamental issue of the role of God’s Word in our lives and in our world. We may even pray the Book of Common Prayer’s collect for the second Sunday in Advent with new meaning and freshness:
Blessed Lord, who caused all Scripture to be written for our learning: help us so to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that through the patience and comfort of your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the hope of eternal life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Perhaps Stafford’s quotation from a Martyn Lloyd-Jones sermon on Ephesians 6:14 preached in Westminster Chapel, London in the 1960s, not only sums up what is prompting us to promote Biblefresh at this time, but reminds us that it is nothing new for God’s Word to be under attack:
The issue is crystal clear. Do I accept Scripture as a revelation from God, or do I trust to speculation, human knowledge, human learning, human understanding and human reasons. Or, putting it still more simply, do I pin my faith to, and subject all my thinking to, what I read in the Bible? Or do I defer to modern knowledge, to modern learning, to what people think today, to what we know at this present time which was not known in the past? It is inevitable that we occupy one or the other of those two positions.
Photos of John Doherty and me doing our stuff at Bangor Worldwide can be seen here
I am looking forward to Biblefresh, and all the creative initiatives it will bring out of the church’s collective woodwork! For too long a cerebral commitment to Biblical loyalty has failed to translate into an active engagement of the mind in interpreting it. Let’s see our convictions about the bible played out in preaching, arts, writing and community engagement
And, Richard, in recognising and therefore supporting the 2,200+ languages without access to the Bible in a language they can underdstand.