Do you ever have a dream about being with friends from years ago and you tell them what your home phone number is? I had that kind of dream last night and after I gave my friends my phone number, I realized that it was no longer the number to use, because I don’t live there now. This afternoon I received a call on the phone that is used for the ministry. When I said “Bonjour”, the caller quickly realized that he had dialed the wrong number.
In last week’s blog post, I wrote that I was sorting books in our mini-library at home. Along with books, I found some booklets including “What Every Christian Needs to Know About Reading the Bible” by Kevin J. Vanhoozer. This booklet is published by Our Daily Bread Ministries. All I know about the author of this booklet is what is printed on the back cover of the booklet: “Kevin Vanhoozer is an American Theologian born in California. He earned his Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Kevin has expressed his love for teaching at Edinburgh University and currently is a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He and his wife Sylvie have two daughters and are currently planted in the Midwest.”
In the introduction to the booklet, Kevin shares: “My wife, Sylvie, grew up in southern France. After living in the United States for almost thirty years, she still hasn’t become an American citizen. It’s not that she’s anti-American or afraid of the civics test. She’s fluent in English and appreciates the way America welcomes immigrants. She’s concerned lest pledging allegiance to the United States be viewed as a betrayal of her past, her family, and her identity. You can take the girl out of France, but you can’t take France out of the girl.”
This booklet was published in 2021. A lot has happened since then in the government of the United States, but one thing that has not changed is that the Bible is God’s love letter to mankind. If you wrote love letters to someone in the past, you might have forgotten what you wrote, but you remember to whom you wrote. We are blessed to have the Word of God to instruct us regarding how to have a relationship with Him and how to live in a way that is pleasing to Him.
In the first chapter of the booklet, Kevin writes: “To read the Bible well, we have to appreciate what it is. Put simply, it is God doing things with human words: laying down the law; giving directions for a flourishing life; revealing his intentions; expressing his love; explaining what he is doing in Jesus Christ … It’s the true story of the real world: from creation and fall to redemption and future consummation.”
One of the most well-known Bible verses is John 3:16 in which Jesus declared: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” No matter how many times we have read this verse or heard it, we will only be able to know that we are on our way to being with God forever if we have asked His forgiveness for our sins and placed our trust in the Lord Jesus. If you have never done that, you can do so today. God’s Word promises us that we will be in His family as soon as we turn from our sins and trust in Christ.
Steve