"These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come." (1 Cor.10:11, NIV)

The Bible is a compilation of very diverse writings—history, genealogies, poetry, personal correspondence—spanning many centuries. As these writings were compiled, disagreements arose as to which were truly inspired. So in the third and fourth centuries AD, the early church began making a concerted effort to determine what books should be included in the Canon of inspired Scripture. Our current Bible, in similar Catholic and Protestant versions, is the result. (See more on that here.)

For the most part, the Bible comprises stories of people's misadventures with God. We see His rescuing, correcting, punishing and befriending the small and the great, depending on how seriously they take Him. Through the compressed study of thousands of years, we learn two unshakable facts: God does not change, and human nature does not change. Therefore, the promises that He gave a lonely, faceless wanderer three thousand years ago as recorded in the Old Testament can still mean something to us.

The verse above is a key component of the Apostle Paul's argument to the Corinthians for paying attention to the lessons the Israelites learned (again recorded in the Old Testament) throughout forty hard years of wilderness wandering—specifically, the dangers of idolatry, immorality, and grumbling. Those lessons, valuable as they were, didn't do the original students much good, because all the adults who had witnessed the mighty miracles of the Exodus died before entering the promised land, with the notable exceptions of Joshua and Caleb. But God saw to it that the experience was not wasted.

Anyone who reads about the strange fire of Nadab and Abihu (Lev. 10:1-3) and pauses to reconsider the holiness of God has learned something lifesaving. Anyone who feels some kinship with Daniel (whom the angel called "highly esteemed" twice) has taken the outstretched hand of Daniel's mighty God. And anyone who takes personally Paul's advice to the Corinthians to live what they have learned has secured his own part in the "fulfillment of the ages," the climax of the greatest love story ever told: that between God and His people.

The key to receiving any benefit from the Bible is to read it as you would a will from a rich relative: take it seriously, do what it says. Imagine this rich relative's frustration if you said, "Well, I need to find out what she really meant to say in this will, so I'm going to take every tenth word and string them together in a way that appears to make sense." God's Word tells us that we don't have to do such mental gymnastics to understand what we need to know: "The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart." (Rom. 10:8, RSV) The watermark of divine authorship of the Bible is the supernatural effects of a changed life in someone who obeys it.



© 2004 Robin Hardy

Page updated Dec. 29, 2005

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