Love of the Word

A meditation for June 2003

“Do you love the Bible?” This question by a retired minister is the only question I can recall from my examination for ordination by Athens Presbytery in 1950. I believe I answered in the affirmative and to the presbytery’s satisfaction, but I have reflected, over the years, on the evolution of faith. I have moved from a simple devotion to the written Word to an abiding love for the living Word, the One to whom the scriptures witness. As a Church we are called to “the proclamation the Gospel for the salvation of humankind.”

Look with me at the gifts of the Spirit and I will show you one of the great ends of the Church: “The proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind.”

If I find in Scripture proof texts for every key doctrine and if I claim heaven-sent inspiration for my interpretation, but do not open its pages with devotion to the One revealed, I will sound an uncertain note and miss the good news.

And if I, as a student of God’s Word, find prophecy there to spell out the future and commandments to cover every contingency, but I stretch for such knowledge without having love, it will be an exercise in futility.

If I offer my body of beliefs as evidence of my scholarship and vow to make it the only rule of faith and practice, but I voice my faith and conduct my life without demonstrating genuine love, I will soon burn out and gain nothing.

Love, open to the mighty acts of God, patiently awaits God’s revelation; is kind in its judgments and sensitive to the ways God speaks in each generation. Love does not parade its knowledge and avoids dogma.

Love, searching Scripture, does not seek a single interpretation; imposes no rigid demands on the text; is not shackled to cultural biases; does not resent new truth’s arrival. It takes no satisfaction in unexamined assumptions, but rejoices in every liberating gift of the Spirit.

Love, reading Holy Writ, bears with unholy tradition, believes in the truth that sets us free, hopes for good news, endures a literalism that binds the written word.

Love never stops challenging our blind spots. As for worship of the book, it shall prove idolatrous; as for verbal inerrancy, it will prove to be a valley of dry bones; as for textual criticism, it will be found uncritical.

For our human wisdom leaves us vulnerable and dogmatic certainty is a dead end, but when the living Word walks among us, the written word will become a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

When I learned, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child, but now that I have matured in my vision, I see the Word which is from the beginning with God.

Now I glimpse a dim reflection of God’s glory in the pages of Scripture, but I am coming face to face with the living Word. Then love shall enable me to receive fullness, even as I am fully received, grace upon grace.

And so we come to God’s Word and there find faith preserved, and hope generated, and love revealed, revealed in the Word that has become flesh and is living among us. These three abide, but the greatest of these is love.

Let love of the Word

fill you with grace and truth

From Love’s Letters: A Poetic Book of Confessions
by George W. Gunn (Library Lane Press / Copyright 2001)