The WordScripture in the Life of the Community of Faith
Did you know, that with an estimated 6,000,000,000 copies printed in more than 2,000 languages and dialects in less than 200 years (1816 -1992),[1] the Bible is still by far the bestselling book of all time? In fact, not many other books are still being printed today that were written 2,000 years ago. But this very fact is being interpreted by a growing number of people (Christians included) as its point of weakness. You see, they claim that no book written so many centuries ago could possibly have anything relevant to say to our modern world. One young man, for example, says, “Taking the Bible as a whole, (only) about 1 percent is worth reading…the rest is irrelevant and out-of-date.” Of course, none of the biblical writers could ever have anticipated the rise of modern-day issues such as globalisation, environmental deterioration, the ethical problems posed by certain scientific developments, oreven the threat of a nuclear meltdown, to name but a few of today’s issues.
How, then, can we be sure that the Bible is capable of speaking with continued relevance to the issues we face today in our lives? In other words, how can the books of the Bible, which were completed no later than the beginning of the 2nd century, still be of relevance to the issues of the 21st century? This is an important question, and, as we shall see, the secret in seeing the relevance of the Scriptures for our lives today lies in its continued power to shed light on our common human experiences.
Having said that, let’s now turn to our text in Acts 4. Here we see how the first Christians used the Scriptures to help them to understand that God was at work among them, even in the face of persecution. You see, one of the most difficult problems the early Church had to face was the hostility from both Jews and Romans. In our text Peter and John have just been released from prison. Their arrest had been triggered by the healing of a man lame from birth and by a subsequent sermon of Peter’s at which the Jewish authorities took offence. As the two disciples are released, they are warned not to continue speaking or teaching in the name of Jesus. The tension in the story is evident as both men return to their friends, eager to share the news.
After hearing the disciples’ report of the incident, the first thing the group did was pray. Their prayer is an astonishing combination of quotations from the Old Testament. It begins at v 24; "Sovereign Lord…you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.”
These words are a direct quotation of Psalm 146:6, which addresses God as “the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them.” Interestingly, this Psalm is the firstin a collection of five psalms (146-150), known as hallelujah psalms, because they all begin and end with the words, “Praise the LORD!” which is a translation of the Hebrew Hallelu-yah. Appropriately, then, this collection was used every morning during the joyous worship services of the temple.
Among these psalms of praise, however, Psalm 146 is a striking choice. Its praise to God is unique within the hallelujah collection, for it honours God for his faithfulness to the oppressed, the hungry, the prisoner, the blind, the stranger, the widow and the orphan – the very types of people who made up the struggling Christian community of Acts 4.
Apparently these early Christians not only knew the psalms well, but they also understood that the same God who cared for Israel in a time of deep need long ago would also be faithful in caring for them as well. But what is even more important for our purposes is to see how an incident in their own lives connected with, and therefore brought back to their minds, a portion of Scripture. And although this particular Psalm was written many centuries before, it nonetheless helped them to understand what was happening to them in their own circumstances.
Have you ever had the experience in which you were facing a tough time when, all of a sudden, a portion of Scripture just sprang to your mind? Can you remember the effect it had on you? Did it prevent you from doing something you would later have regretted? Did it give you the wisdom you needed to handle a difficult situation; or maybe the resolve to keep at it when the chips were down?
Many Christians remain weak because they fail to store up in their minds helpful passages from the Word of God. Apparently they do not realize that in times of stress, sorrow, temptation, or uncertainty the Spirit of God can bring those passages to their remembrance thereby giving peace, comfort, strength, or direction, as the case may be. Thus, when the Bible allows us to get a better understand of ourselves and our circumstances in this way, we are actually allowing the Scriptures to interpret us, rather than the other way around. This is what it means when we say that the Bible is the Word of God; it means that we are able to see beyond the literal words on the pages of this book, and begin to see the living God revealing himself in the events of people’s lives, and not just of those in the Bible, but in our own lives as well. But for this to become a reality in both our individual and collective life, we need to give God something to work with. Are you constantly hiding the words of Scripture in your heart? If not, begin today!
The next use of Scripture in the prayer of the community is even more surprising. In vv 25-26 the group quoted Psalm 2:1-2: “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One.” This Psalm originally referred to a king of ancient Israel who was descended from David, against whom subordinate rulers were rebelling. Therefore, this passage originally was not making any reference at all to Jesus. Nonetheless, no apology is made in Acts for taking this Psalm out of its original context and applying it to a new situation – something preachers today are taught never to do…and for good reasons.
When we take the Bible out of its original context, we run the risk of forming judgments that are mistaken and of making decisions that are unwise. Do you want to know why, for example, potatoes were outlawed in Scotland in 1728? It was simply because the word “potato” was not mentioned in the Bible. See what I mean?
This danger notwithstanding, what the group in Acts does, once again, is to use the Psalm to understand what was happening in their own community at the time. They did so, first, by using Psalm 2 to understand the rejection that Jesus experienced. In Acts 4:26 we read: “…the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One” – the same words as Psalm 2:1. This Psalm was originally used at the coronation of a new king in Israel, and so we must be careful not to assume that the psalmist somehow knew of the persecution that was to have been experienced by Jesus or by Peter and John. What made this Psalm suggestive of Jesus is no doubt the use of the word “Anointed” – “messiah” in Hebrew and “christ” in Greek. This made it easy for the group to apply the words of the Psalm to Jesus.
But what is even more astonishing is the fact that the group then went on to use the same text from Psalm 2 to interpret what was now happening to them! Not just Jesus, but them! In v. 29 we read: “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.” The hostility once visited upon the kings of Israel, and then upon Jesus, God’s newly Anointed One, was now being directed against the Church. The community therefore came to understand the opposition they were facing in light of both the experience of Jesus and that of the ancient Israelite kings.
These early Christians found that the words of the Psalm helped them to understand the experience they were going through in their own lives. The conclusion they came to is that the God who helps the oppressed, and who anointed the kings of old as well as Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Church, would likewise remain faithful to them, as they were now under threat because they spoke boldly in God’s name. They were given hope, knowing that God is in control; that Jesus had already won the victory; and that all who trust in him will be saved, no matter what! Allowing the Scriptures to shed light on their experience made that very clear to them!
So you see then, when we begin to explore and try to understand the implications of the Scriptures for our life today, we will discover that the Bible is not irrelevant after all, for, in spite of our distance from the world of the Bible, it somehow continues to speak to us out of our “reservoir of common experience”; experiences which unite us as humans across the gaps of language, culture and time. Amen.
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