I read a lot of material in any given day - news, blogs, books, newsletters, e-mail, etc. - and much of it I skim or give a cursory reading, but every once in a while I read something that just reaches out and grabs me and, instead of skimming it and moving on, I have to pause and reflect (and sometimes blog about it!) I ran across just such an article today. Rather lengthy, but worth your time if you want to check it out at Christianity Today's site, it's called People of the Book and it's written by John Ortberg.If you've ever wondered why we ask students to bring a Bible each week to 7 and CONNECT, this explains it as well as anything. And if students don't have a Bible, we'll give them one, because we believe it's so important.
The article is primarily addressed to preachers and teachers, but great reading for anyone. Here is an (edited) excerpt...
Ever notice, when you're preaching, how few Philistines drop by the church anymore? Or how rarely Moabites get converted and lead a small group? Or how no one has a cousin married to an Amalekite?
Pretty much all the nations and tribes from Bible times that were of Israel's size are gone. So why did Israel survive? Not just survive; in the words of Thomas Cahill, how did a tribe of desert nomads change the way the world thought and felt? What distinguished Israel from everyone else?
It wasn't power. Most of its history Israel was a vassal nation.
It wasn't wealth. Israel was never a major economic player.
It wasn't size. Israel was dwarfed by Greece, Egypt, Babylon, and Rome.
What did Israel have?
A book. Scrolls really, with books like Genesis or Isaiah written over the centuries, that most people, being illiterate, had to hear being read. They had a book like no other.
Their book said that instead of little tribal gods locally, there was one God who created all things and planned on redeeming all things.
It said life was not an endless cycle of repetition. It said history was a story—God's story, with a beginning, a crisis, and in a day to come, a climax.
It said that human beings made by and accountable to this God can now know how to live.
This book so defined them they were called "people of the book." To help their children learn the book was the greatest task of every parent.
To be able to teach this book—to be a rabbi—was their greatest ambition.
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Humanly speaking, the book is what they had to offer the world. The book is what shaped them and held them together. The book started every morning: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One"). The book didn't say, "O Israel, think for yourselves. Follow your bliss. Go with your gut." It just said, Hear. It was the source of all wisdom, the guidance for all problems, the authoritative appeal in every debate. The rabbis often disagreed over what it meant. But everybody understood its status. It was the last word. They never got over this awe that in this book God has spoken—"What advantage is there, then, of being a Jew? Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God" (Rom. 3:1).
They had the book. And now this book, with some significant additions, has become our book. Now we are its stewards.
But we have cable.
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