Faith and Practice

Rev. Dr. Fred Craddock was what some termed a “preaching genius.” A pastor in the Disciples of Christ, for much of his life he taught and earned the title Bandy Distinguished Professor of Preaching and New Testament Emeritus at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. He was a much sought-after lecturer. But, he never forgot his roots, from rural Tennessee, he was the director of the Craddock Center, a non-profit service group in rural Appalachia.

Dr. Craddock preached the Word and he lived the Word. When we worship, we read the Word from Scripture, and then God speaks to us in the Word proclaimed in the sermon. And, Dr. Craddock believed that the speaking of the Word wasn’t just from the pulpit at the people. It is participatory. He preached in a way that caused the congregation to anticipate what came next. And he told great stories to draw in the listener.

To frame his sermon series “What Is the Church Anyway?” Dr. Craddock told an imaginative tale about the early days, as Dallas, Texas, was being settled, a man came up to what was then called “Peter’s Colony” and tied up at the General Store. He went in and bought supplies, and the clerk noticed his wagon out front, with a covered tarp on it.

“What’s in the wagon?” asked the clerk. To which the man replied, “Oh, that’s a church.” “You’ve got a church in that wagon?” the clerk asked, and he started outside. “Yeah, a church,” replied the man. “May I see this church?” asked the clerk approaching the back of the wagon. And as he asked, the clerk started to untie the tarp. The man stopped him saying, “You can’t start back there. If you want to see the church you have to begin here.” And he pulled out a wooden box from underneath the driver’s seat and opened it. There, wrapped in old cloth, was a copy of the Bible. “If you want to see the church, you have to begin here with the Scriptures,” he said, “In fact, without this book, there is no church.” (Fred Craddock, “What is the Church Anyway?” Brown Preaching Series, First Presbyterian Church, Dallas, Texas, 1990)

Have you ever thought about why the Bible is right here, in the middle of the Table, in the center of the Chancel? The Bible is the authoritative Word of God. It is the standard measure of our faith and our practice. I like the way the Korean Methodist Creed affirms the role of Scripture, “It is the sufficient rule of both faith and practice.”

The measure of faith and practice is essential for us in our daily lives – when we make choices, when we weigh options…the Scripture is our measure. The US Department of Commerce has an agency called the National Institute of Standards and Technology which has an Office of Weights and Measures to promote uniformity in US weights. An ounce is an ounce is an ounce – this office ensures that we all know and agree on what an ounce is.

The Bible is like that for our lives. It is the rule, it is the measure, for our faith and for our practice. The theological concept behind Scripture in the center of our worship is sola scriptura. The Bible is the sole standard and authority for life and faith.

So, if there would be no church without Scripture, and the foundation and measure for faith and living is Scripture, wouldn’t it be nice if it had clear markings? Do this; don’t do that. Yes, no; black, white – without maybes or sometimes or grey areas? 2 Timothy says the Scriptures are God-breathed and useful – teaching us and showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, revealing our mistakes and correcting us, training us to live God’s way, so that we, the servants of God, may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Scriptures are God-breathed. They are the Word: the same Word that spoke and there was light, the same Word that became flesh and breathed in a stable in Bethlehem. All Scripture is inspired by God.

A week or so ago, a pastor friend of mine posted on Facebook an ad from a newspaper, that read, “Attention Christians! Are you tired of hearing your pastor correct the preserved word of God (the Authorized King James Version) with the Greek or other translations?” When we claim to take the Bible literally word for word, we do need to decide what version is the literal version. We do not have the original Hebrew manuscripts. We don’t have the letters of Paul in an envelope somewhere. But, even if we did, they were written by people – human people. We do not believe that the Bible was dictated by God in a revelation to a single person, but that over the course of between 800 to as many as 1400 years, the Spirit inspired writers to write down: the history of God’s relationship with God’s people, their traditions and songs, wise sayings, poetry, and prophetic words. And because of its long history with many writings by many pens, the Bible has what one pastor calls “that awful, lovely human element.”

So, how do we interpret the Bible? When you go to Scripture for your measure, when you are using it in your faith and my practice, you have to interpret and understand it. Here are 4 quick tests for interpreting any Scripture: (from The Presbyterian Handbook, p. 129)

1. Jesus Christ – The Bible proclaims the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ.

2. Context – Who, what, when, where, why? Who wrote it to whom? What was going on? When was it written? Where were they? Why was it written? What else is going on in history then? What was the culture like and how did that influence the writer? Are there any important translation issues – like words in Hebrew or Greek that don’t have an exact match in English? And to answer those questions, we need good, reliable resources – based on solid scholarship. Most Bibles have some tools – maps, concordance, an introduction to each book. If your Bible does not, and you would like to get one that does, let me know and we can explore options to find a Bible that is helpful to you. You may prefer a devotional style Bible or you may prefer a Study Bible. This one happens to be an archeological study Bible. There are many choices, but you do want to ensure that the resources you use have reliable scholarship behind them.

3. The Holy Spirit – The Word of God is alive. It is not just a lot of ink in a book. The ink is not the Word of God. The Word is always
yearning to spring to life, so much that the Word became flesh. When we read the Bible, we pray for the Holy Spirit to help us hear the Word in a way that allows us to apply it. Those inked words are spoken and heard, and then they are lived, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

4. Finally, the rule of love is the standard measure. We should always ask ourselves whether our interpretation of Scripture is in accord with the twofold commandment Jesus says is the greatest: to love God and love our neighbor.
So, hear again the words of James,

But first, we are going to look at the interpretation:

Jesus Christ – This passage talks about the perfect law, the law of freedom, that we study and continue to do. We may wonder, “Didn’t Jesus free us from the law? Don’t laws restrict our freedom?” N.T. Wright says, “Yes and no. Supposing we didn’t have a law about which side of the road we were supposed to drive on. Everyone would set off and do their own thing. It would be chaos: accidents, near-misses, and nobody able to go at any speed for fear of disaster…That’s what God’s law is like: by restricting your ‘freedom’ in some ways [by setting limits and boundaries], it opens up far greater, genuine freedoms in all other ways.”

Ok, so what about the context of the passage from James: James almost didn’t make it into the New Testament because it treads so close to works righteousness, the idea that you don’t need God’s mercy and the gift of Jesus to be righteous before God. We don’t know who James is for sure, likely a leader in the Jerusalem church. We don’t have any conclusive clues about when the letter was written, but we know that by 170 A.D. it was part of the first list of New Testaments books compiled.
It is also important to think about mirrors in the 1st and 2nd Centuries. They didn’t have glass mirrors. They had metal that had been hammered flat. Like looking at yourself in the side of a copper pot, or maybe you’ve looked at yourself in a spoon. Not a really clear image, is it? They didn’t walk by mirrors all day long, check the mirror when they went to the restroom, carry one in their purse. There were no photographs.
And it takes a long time after a change in your appearance to recognize yourself. I don’t know about you, but sometimes, I get up in the morning and look in the mirror and the person looking back at me looks a lot older than I am. When I had chemo and lost my hair, I never did get used to seeing a bald person passing by mirrors out of the corner of my eye.
We forget what we look like, and we have really good mirrors. They quickly forgot and never had a really good reflection to start with.

So, keeping those things in mind, let us hear again the word from James, seeking the Word spoken to us not just in our minds, but in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and remembering the rule of love in our understanding:
“Be people who do the word, not merely people who hear it and deceive themselves. Someone who hears the word but doesn’t do it, you see, is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. He notices himself, but then he goes away and quickly forgets what he looks like. But there are those who study the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continue to do it. They don’t listen and then forget, but they put it into practice in their lives. They will be blessed in whatever they do.”

May God bless the reading of his Holy Word, and help us apply it to our lives that we would be not just hearers of the Word, but doers also.