Saturday, March 19, 2016

THE BIBLE AND THE GOOD LIFE

Isaiah 30:15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.

            The Bible knows all about false gods and idols, things unworthy of our loyalty. Its first moral tale, that of Adam and Eve, is not about sex ore even about disobedience. We might say that it is about a false trust in the benevolence of knowledge, for it was the fruit of that tree that got the first society into trouble. “O put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man; for there is no help in them,” we read in Psalm 146. “Some put their trust in chariots, and some in horse,” says Psalm 20:7-8, “but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. They are brought down and fallen; but we are risen and stand upright.” The Bible, if nothing else, is a book about the dangers of false trust:

“Put no trust in a neighbor, have no confidence in a friend, guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom, For the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house. But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. (Micah 7:5-7)

            A book that knows this about the human condition must also know a lot about God. We can trust what that book has to say about the source of trust. It is not the Bible but the God of the Bible in whom we find someone, something, worthy of our loyalty, our ultimate concern, our trust…

            For tired people weary of noise and striving after that which gives no reward, a book that promises this is worth taking seriously; and now, perhaps, having exhausted ourselves and all of the alternatives, we may just begin to do so.

The Good Book by Peter J. Gomes, pg.190-191.

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