Eat This Book (1): Meditate

Eat
this Book: Meditate                                                 Josh 01 08

2015/10/11
Christ Church, Mountain Top

Call
to Worship, Psalm 19

Children, Ezekiel
2.8-10, 3.1-3 (with Bruchko banana leaf story)

Message,
Joshua 1.1-9

Kids:

      Ezekiel eating the scroll (a book)

      Bruchko banana leaf story – God comes to
them

Message:

Last
week, Gere …

Me, John 1, Jesus the Word

      Word of God, as Jesus, not the Bible

My
message series, already planned, “Eat This Book”

      Command to Ezekiel and to John the
Revelator

      Language of Jeremiah, words … I ate

And,
the Bible describes itself as the word or words of God

            “All Scripture is God-breathed” (2
Timothy 3.16)

      A huge qualitative difference

            We worship Jesus, we do NOT worship
the Bible

            Jesus is Lord of Scripture, Jesus is
revealed by Scripture

            If we want to know Jesus the Lord,
Scripture is a key path

      Other paths exist, including Creation and
Christian community

Ever
since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible
though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made
(Romans 1.20).

Gifts
of the Spirit to the church – word of wisdom, knowledge, teaching, prophecy (1
Corinthians 12)

            Not as definitive or clear as
Scripture

            But even Scripture is subject to
misuse and abuse

Misuse of Scripture

      “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives
life” (2 Corinthians 3.6)

      The devil quotes it (Matthew 4, Mark 4)

      The
Book of Eli

            Bad
guy trying to get his hands on the Bible, to rule the world

            The
good guy (Denzel), memorized the text, reads it with devotion

To
simply say “it’s in the book”, to beat someone over the head with the book, is
not only unkind but unfaithful and unspiritual.

Those
who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are
foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are
spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are
themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny. “For who has known the mind
of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ (1
Corinthians 2.14-16)

Faithful
reading/eating of the book:

1. Meditate: “You shall meditate on it
day and night”

            Isaiah 31.4 – As a lion or a young
lion growls over its prey

Dog with a bone (Peterson, 2)

      Lexicon: meditate (Heb “hagah”) moan,
growl – with pleasure!

            (Whitaker revised BDB)

      “This book of the law shall not depart out
of your mouth”

      Eat it, ruminate on it (a cow)

      Consume it – as we speak of “media
consumption”

      Comic: Two goats eating a film, “the book
was better”

2. Obey: “Be careful to act in
accordance with all that is written in it”

Dad – reading the Truth – would his life change?

            Hearing and doing (Matthew 7.24-27,
and other Scriptures)

                        Building
house on rock or sand

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine
and acts on them”

      Only those who obey believe (rather than
those who believe obey)

            (Bonhoeffer)

Those
who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are
foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are
spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are
themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny. “For who has known the mind
of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ (1
Corinthians 2.14-16)

Resources:

Bruce
Olson, Bruchko.

https://urbana.org/blog/bruce-olson

Eugene
Peterson, Eat This Book.