The Book is Better than the Movie

The Book is Better than the Movie

A well-intentioned lady asked me about the difficulty of coming up with new material after preaching in the same place and to the same people for so long (completing 38 years this week with this Resurrection Sunday being our 39th). I told her that the Bible was a very big book. She was not convinced, and then tried to persuade me that I should give “Chat gpt” a chance. Evidently, the system knows more than I do. I suspect some people think the system knows more than God does.

Yesterday, while driving, I listened to an interview from a pastor’s conference involving John MacArthur and John Piper. I thank Chris for sharing this, and it was worth hearing on many counts. The questions were about pastoring and preaching, and the subject of what to preach, of how to find material, was asked. MacArthur didn’t hesitate to talk about “the inexhaustibility of Scripture.” Yes, it’s a big book, but it is a deep book. The mysteries uncovered are worth reviewing over and over, not just in the sense of reviewing the same material, but in the sense of discovering new, buried treasure.

Then John Piper talked about the amazing thing that God, the Creator of the universe, gave us a Book. “He gave us a Book!”, Piper said, with the kind of passion that is typical of Piper. “Why wouldn’t we want to tell people what’s in the Book!” Further, he said, “God knows everything, and we know nothing. How could we not want to know what is in the Book?!”

I have a friend who read a book (little “b”) that introduced him to a method of reading the Bible where you don’t take it literally. I suggest that he no longer takes it seriously - same thing. The Bible becomes a wax nose that can be shaped and re-shaped according to “the spirit of the age.” The Bible then merely reflects back one’s own imaginations, which you didn’t dream up yourself. You assimilated them from our ungodly, present-world milieu.

So let’s think about this Book:

It is historical, and prophetic, where God lays out our beginnings and our endings. Are all of our questions answered? No. But He gives us what we need, and we are not left to concoct our own story lines. It begins in Eden. It ends in heaven or hell. Anyone interested in reading the Book?

The Bible is logical. It has a narrative, and it elucidates a problem in which we all share, and reveals a solution that is available to any who will receive. Worth reading?

The Bible is climactic, and the climax of the Bible is Jesus. If you want to know Jesus, you must read the Bible, and if you miss out on Jesus, you will have missed out on the Center-Point of the world, human history, and God’s plan for humanity and for you. Are we able to step far enough away from the reigning media and read the Book?

The Bible is the deliverer of Good News so good that you can’t live without it; and it is also the deliverer of bad news that if you don’t pay attention, “you will surely die,” as God said to Adam and Eve in the Garden. We need both, and while these two “news” may be contained in a tract or a movie, the authoritative version of the Good and bad news is in the Book, because the Book is always better than the movie.