ReveFlection

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     So here we are, arriving at the second “bookend” of the Bible. I’ve written to you about the bookends before. In the first three chapters of Genesis, Scripture gives an account of creation, the rise of the deceiver, and the fall of mankind. At the other end, the last three chapters of the Revelation spell out the destruction of the deceiver, the restoration of mankind, and the fulfillment of creation. Neatly bracketed between “In the beginning” and the last “Amen” is what we know as time. In our Bible reading plan over the past two years, as a church together we’ve encountered what was, what is, and what surely is to come. What now?

     In the wilderness, the Israelites didn’t have churches or classrooms. What they did have was God’s words delivered faithfully by his prophet Moses. And as Moses was reaching the end of his journey, knowing his kinsmen would go on without him, he was compelled to say, “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).

     Fifteen centuries later, also in the wilderness, Jesus chose to go without food for forty days. What he chose to not go without was what it took to win the battle with temptation: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).

     Our century is a scriptural wilderness. For all the agility of the Information Age, Scripture won’t be easier to run into, but harder to sort from the clutter. My dad, who was born in the first year of the Great Depression, called his physical experience “starving to death in the land of plenty.” And so it goes. No one will be heaping Bible truth on us accidentally; we’ll have to harvest it on purpose – just like all of our forbears, including Jesus, and all believers who will come after us.

     Over the past 116 weeks I’ve written 106 letters to you, dear Church, that have tracked our Bible reading plan. I got a head start in September of 2020, and took ten liberties at various times in the twenty-seven months from then until now. For about half a second one day last week, I felt a twinge of panic: From what shall I write?! There’s no Bible reading plan!

     Sure there is: This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success (Joshua 1:8).  

     If you haven’t followed the reading plan diligently, relax. The Book is still available to you. And to me. And I promise to not let it depart from my mouth. The evidence will show up in what comes off my keyboard and into your inbox – or wherever else we may encounter one another. The wilderness need not overwhelm us. We can indeed overcome and have good success.

     Jesus said, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). There is no other source. Never has been. The Lord has spoken into what was, what is, and what is yet to be. We’ve arrived again at the description of what will be without knowing when that future will manifest as the present. And that’s OK. We know his words are true. We know his words are spirit. We know his words are life.

     And frankly, I enjoy seeing our adversary – that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world (Revelation 12:9) – as an already-defeated enemy. All glory to our Lord and King, Jesus Christ the conqueror, amen!

  

Grace and Peace (and the joy of anticipation),

 

John