Bible - what does it mean to you?

Bring up the word "Bible" and any number of words or thoughts come to mind. Without the proper context though, it's just words and paper. Once you add context to it, everything changes.

For the Atheist - it's a myth, full of errors and contradictions (I hope to cover this at another time.)

For the student - it's a book that's shaped the world's culture, full of history, literature, and poetry - a glimpse in how laws were formed in a world long gone.

For the religious - and for the skeptics - it's a book with good ideas and moral values. It's one of many ways to get to heaven. For the religious, it's a chance to pick and choose your Jesus by only thinking of the things they like and discarding the rest.

But for the Christian, this should mean so much more.

If we say we are Christians, the importance of the bible cannot be undervalued. For the Christian, the bible is the truth. It's God's Word. It's His instruction manual. It's the standard on how we live and where we set our hope. I'm not talking about the law and being perfect in it... I'm talking about understanding and drawing close to God.

See, without the bible, we presume to know God - and create a pseudo-spirituality. There is plenty of spirituality to be found inside the bible to begin with though, we just need to understand how to value and live it out. If we call ourselves Christians, we should delight in His Word. We should love it, because God loved us enough to teach us, to show us - to give us what we need.

If we ignore the parts of the bible that make us feel uncomfortable though - that's just excusing ourselves when we are hypocriates and don't want to look in the mirror at what we've become. We can never come to terms with God, so long as that is in the way. We can call ourselves religious, claiming Lord, Lord - but are we those who practice lawlessness, and using God's grace as an excuse to continue in our sin? In some ways, isn't that just like taking away from (or adding to) God's Word? There are numerous places in the bible that address this - so much so that if we consider the way the text is done, looking over the context of scripture, it's a bad idea in general. It's almost like preaching a different gospel if we only take the parts we like without counting the cost of the things we don't like.

That's not how it should be. If we say we are Christians, shouldn't we be different than the rest of the world? Far too often (myself included) we see just how close we can get to sin without getting burned. What kind of testimony do we give then? Why should anybody want to be a Christian when we live the same kind of life the rest of the world does? How can we show there is hope when we don't show the kind of change the gospel promises it can bring? Why should others want to be Christians when our lives don't reflect Jesus as our Lord?

I intend on getting more specific on the things of the Lord, and what they mean in the bible, so stay tuned.