One of my most vivid childhood memories is the vigorous discussions my Grandpas and uncles and dad would have after church. We always gathered on Sunday noon after church at either Grandpa and Grandma Ryken or Grandpa and Grandma Kelderman’s house, and the men always gathered in one corner of the living room to discuss the morning sermon. That discussion often drifted over to a discussion, often quite energized, of the latest issue of the Banner, at the time our church’s weekly magazine.
If I had to identify one major issue that I overheard my Grandpas and uncles and dad discussing, it would probably be the nature of the Bible. I remember clearly the day that a seminary student from our little town in Iowa came home from seminary and preached in his home church. He began his sermon by taking the Bible off of the pulpit, putting it on the floor, standing on it, and then asking the congregation, "Am I standing on the Word of God?" Now this student thought this would be an effective way to get at what we mean when we say the Bible is the Word of God. (That was the big question back then.) As it ends up it was an effective way for this student to learn how to deal with criticism as most of the people in his home church, including my dad and uncles and grandpas, didn’t think one should stand on the Bible to make any point. Those were years of vigorous debate about the Bible: What is it? What is its authority?
I don’t sense that many Christians talk about the Bible in this way today. That could be because many Christians have achieved clarity and unity on the nature of the Bible. It also could be because we have grown more complacent about the Bible. We take it for granted. We have some fuzzy notions about what the Bible is, but, for the most part, the Bible, perhaps, in many of our lives, just is.
Our story today in Joshua is really a story about the Bible and the crucial role of God’s Word (or the law, which was the Bible at that time) in the life of this new, budding nation, and in our lives. To catch the significance of our text today, we have to realize the crucial point we’re at in Israel’s journey as a nation: they have been delivered from Pharaoh and the Egyptians who held them in captivity by passing through the Red Sea on dry ground; they wandered in the desert for 40 years; and now, they have crossed the Jordan River into the promised land, the land we know now as Israel. And they have taken possession of the land; they have established a beachhead by defeating Jericho and Ai; they are beginning their new life in the Promised Land. And Joshua sees this as the time to do what Moses had commanded the people to do when they arrived in the Promised Land: first they build an altar on Mt. Ebal (near Shechem where Abraham had built an altar hundreds of years before) to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise to God. And then they have this elaborate ceremony in which Joshua copies onto the stones the Law of Moses (which probably refers to either just the 10 commandments or possibly all of Deuteronomy 5—26). Half of the people are standing on the slope of Mt. Ebal, and half on the slope of Mt. Gerazim, kind of like a natural football stadium. Down in the middle (on the field, so to speak) is the Ark of the Covenant, surrounded by the priests looking out from the ark, and everyone else looking toward the ark as Joshua copies the Law of Moses. And then the third act of this drama (after the sacrifices and the copying of the law): is the reading of the law. And here Joshua says that he read all the words that Moses had commanded. This was a long sermon. Including the blessings and the curses—words specifically found in Deuteronomy 27—28.
Without a doubt, the message of this story for Israel, who heard this story told again and again, and for us, is: the Word of God is the basis of our covenant life with God. The Word of God is our compass, our beginning point, our authority for all of life.
But now what is this Word of God? What is the Bible, really? For Joshua, the Bible was what we now know as (roughly) the first five books of the Bible. But now today we have all these other books—dozens of them, not even in chronological order, hard to understand. What is this book, the Bible?
Well, obviously I can’t say very much about the Bible in one short broadcast, but I want to say two things to give a very brief answer to the question, what is the Bible, the Word of God? First, I want to look at just two verses from the Bible that teaches us something about the Bible. Then I want to make five very brief summary statements about what we believe the Bible to be. And then I will close with two stories.
First, two verses. The first verse comes from a letter Peter wrote to early Christians. 2 Peter 1:20—21
20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
We believe that the Bible is not our book, a human book, but is God’s book, God’s revelation of himself to us. But God reveals himself to us through human beings who were carried along, guided, inspired by the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit is the source of the Bible.
Well that leads us to the other verse: 2 Timothy 3:16—17, verses that are part of a letter the apostle Paul is writing to young Timothy as he begins his ministry:
16 All Scripture is God—breathed (inspired) and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The source of Scripture is the breath of God, the Spirit of God inspiring human writers to write what they did. And the purpose of Scripture is for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. These are pretty strong words here. The idea is that the Bible pushes us around, it corrects us, it rescues us, it tells it like it is when it sees us messing up our lives, and that that’s all part of a training program, a "training in righteousness" program. And the goal of all of this engagement of people with Scripture is that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. The goal is that we become better people, godly people, more Christ—like people.
Based upon these passages of Scripture and upon the church’s broader reflection upon Scripture, I want to give you 5 simple statements or affirmations—what we believe about this book, the Bible:
1. The Bible is first of all a book about God.
2. The Bible is a story —— the story of creation, fall and redemption. When you read a book, you need to have some big picture, some frame into which everything fits. Well, the big picture, the story line, the framework for understanding the Bible is God’s good creation of a perfect world, humanity’s fall into sin, and God’s redemption of the world through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
3. The main character in the story of the Bible is Christ. Movies have lead actors and lead actresses. Who’s the main character in the Bible? At times we think it’s Abraham, then Moses, then David, then Paul. But the main character is CHRIST. Everything in the Bible leads up to Christ and follows from the finished work of Christ.
4. The purpose of the Bible is to reveal to the whole world this God and this new kingdom he has brought through Jesus Christ, and to call all people to faith in this triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Notice, the Bible is not first of all a moral handbook, a list of do’s and don’ts. The Bible is first of all the bearer of good news. It has a story to tell. Like a witness in court who tells what she witnessed, the Bible first of all simply bears witness to what God has done — the Bible is a historical book. It’s a book about what has happened. It’s a story. And then it calls all people to believe this story, to become part of this story to join up with God and his kingdom, and then to live that life of righteousness we talked about earlier.
5. The Bible is clear. The basic message of the Bible, not all the particular, difficult passages, but the basic message of the Bible—that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes on him will have eternal life—that message is clear. You can’t miss it.
It may seem odd to make this one of only five things to say about the Bible, but it’s important. For centuries of the church’s life, it was believed that the Bible wasn’t clear and that you needed professional clergy—ministers, priests, whatever they were called—to understand the Bible. But after centuries of the church growing weaker and weaker, the Reformers rediscovered the Bible and said, "No, the basic message of the Bible is clear. Anyone can grasp it."
That leads me to two stories with which I want to conclude this message. First, the story that’s given me the title of my message: the Grandma test. In his book Good News in Exile, William Willemon tells the story of an African American seminary student he had one time, who had grown up in a very religious home in the south and was now a student at a prestigious east—coast seminary.
One day the student said to his professor and to the class, "You know, all this scholarly analysis of Scripture is very interesting. We take an Old Testament story, hack it apart and theorize that it had about 6 different sources and then this editor put it together. But that way of looking at the Bible doesn’t always pass ’the grandma test.’" "The grandma test?" the professor asked. "Yea," he said, "the grandma test. My grandma didn’t understand any of these theories. She just told the stories and lived the faith; told the stories and lived the faith; listened to the story, was shaped by the story, and lived the faith. And my grandma, as she told the story and lived the faith, led me and most of my brothers and sisters and cousins to Jesus.
The Grandma test of our view and use of the Bible is not a test to put down serious study of the Bible; not at all. The Grandma test is important; it asks: Does our view of the Bible and our use of the Bible lead us to Jesus and lead us to live the faith? If it doesn’t, then something is wrong with our view of the Bible, or our use of the Bible, or both.
And then a story a woman named Gail told in our church a while back. In a church service, Gail explained how in her early adult life, she went through some very difficult losses. At one point in her grief, she went to her pastor and asked for guidance in what to do to move on with her life. And her pastor said to her, I’d like you to go to the nursing home, to this particular person, and read the Bible to her. Just read the Bible. Week after week, for a long time, Gail read the Bible to this elderly person. Gail said, it wasn’t until a year or so later that I realized that I grasped the message of the Bible for the first time, the message of salvation through Jesus Christ and through personal faith in Jesus Christ, and that I had really became a Christian, during that time when I was reading the Bible to that lady. What a powerful testimony to the power of the Word of God, and to the way the Holy Spirit speaks to us, changes us through this Word. That’s been happening for centuries.
The Holy Spirit of God reveals God himself and his salvation to us through this book, the Bible. That’s why pastors preach it Sunday after Sunday in churches around the world. That’s why churches have Sunday School and have Bible Studies for people of all ages. There are a number of different ways we open this book and study this book in churches and as groups of Christians. You personally must also find ways to read this book or listen to this book. If you are serious about getting into this book, there are dozens of aids and study Bibles today to help you read and understand the Bible. We don’t need more aids now. We need people who simply desire to know and be formed by this book, the Bible.
What a scene that must have been—thousands of people listening, just listening as Joshua read The Word of God. May yours be the testimony of Katherine Hankey who wrote the words to this popular hymn:
I love to tell the story;
’tis pleasant to repeat
what seems, each time I tell it,
more wonderfully sweet.
I love to tell the story,
for some have never heard
the message of salvation
from God’s own holy Word.
Amen.
Duane Kelderman
Rev. Duane Kelderman is the Vice President for Administration and an Associate Professor of Preaching at Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids. Before his current position he served as pastor in Christian Reformed congregations in Toledo, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Rev. Kelderman is married to Jeannette and has three children and two grandchildren. He was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa and attended Calvin College and Calvin Seminary. He enjoys reading and carpentry.
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