Knowing About/Knowing

 October 7, 2022

In the past when I’ve read through such parts of the Bible as Leviticus, I’ve hurried through just to be able to say I’ve read it, but the details of ritual law have always given me a “deer in the headlights” look. This past Tuesday, I picked up a little book on prayer that is challenging me in ways the author couldn’t have anticipated. By focusing on praise and worship in prayer, even my reading of the Bible has changed. I confess that most of the time when I’ve read Scripture, it has been with the goal of “what can I get out of this,” either for myself, or for sermons. While there is nothing technically wrong with that approach, it misses one important component of Bible study: “What does this teach me about God?” It’s possible to read the Bible and come out with a list of all the things we’re supposed to do or not do. It is even possible to learn about grace and forgiveness, or the theological basis for the Atonement, or any number of other facts.

But it is also possible to learn all this stuff and not encounter the living God. Eta Linnemann was a Bible scholar from the German Higher Criticism School most known by such men as Rudolf Bultmann. This method of Biblical scholarship is prevalent in most universities and seminaries, and essentially denies the supernatural nature of the Bible. Linnemann was no slouch; she was inducted into the world’s most prestigious professional society for the study of Biblical literature. She knew the Bible better than most. But she didn’t know Jesus, and her life was falling apart. She met some simple Christians whose lives were in stark contrast to her own, and through them, she eventually came to repentance and faith in the living Christ, after which she encouraged anyone who possessed any of her previously published scholarly works to burn them.

The purpose of the Bible is to lead us to faith in Christ, but before that can happen, we need to discover who God is and what he is like. The entirety of Scripture is designed to reveal the living and Almighty God to us. 

So as I am reading through Leviticus, I am finding not a cache of dusty, worn-out rules, but a revelation of the holiness of a God who is different than we are, and whose holiness is in contrast to my daily life and which calls out to me to humble myself, repent, and cast myself upon his goodness and grace. Mind you, it’s not a specific text that does so; it’s the tenor of the entire book. So tonight as I pray, it’s not so much to list all the things I want God to do, but to simply listen, and ask, “Lord, what do you want ME to do?”