Opening the Book

In high school youth group meetings, I was introduced to two games; one we took seriously, the other was all in fun. Both games involved taking a book and flipping pages back and forth until landing on some undetermined page.

In the second game, a hymnal was passed around, each person taking turns flipping pages (without looking to influence your choice) and sticking out your finger, chose whichever hymn you had landed on. Then, you read out the name of the hymn (or the first few words which is the same thing for most hymns), adding "between the sheets". Depending on the hymn, the results ranged from boring to hilarious to slightly naughty. It all seemed like innocent fun until the night "Amazing Grace" came up and in the middle of our giggles, we realized that the new girl, Grace, was beet red and near tears. That was the end of that game.

The first game wasn't really a game but worked in much the same way, only it used a Bible instead of a hymnbook. When you had a question or needed to make a decision, you took a bible and flipped through the pages and put out your finger (without looking) and whatever verse your finger landed on, was supposed to be God's answer for you. We called it "Serendipity". Sometimes it seemed to make sense but more often than not, you read a verse and worked hard to try and bend the facts to get the answer you wanted. It was basically using the Bible as a "magic eight ball". This is not the way God intends us to use the Word.

The Bible is not a magical book with answers to our problems to be learned like the spells and charms in Harry Potter. Neither is it a book of rules, that if followed will get you closer to God. Does the Bible contain wisdom that can help us live? Absolutely. Does it give us direction on how to live in a way that benefits the people around us? Definitely. But as attractive as it might seem, it is not a book of hidden secrets that if you use or say these words in a certain way, you will get the result you asked for, the money you need, or the healing of every disease.

So why do we dig into this big, complicated and sometimes confusing book? The Bible says it best (go figure!). The writer of the Gospel of John puts it this way, "These are written so that you may come to believe... and that through believing you may have life in his name." The Bible is a book of history, stories, poetry, hymns, wisdom and more but first and most of all, it is a love story. The story of how much God loves us. Read John 20:30-31.