The Bible

The following is from my weekly newsletter for the Connecting Ministries team at our church.)

“Phew! That was close one!” 

As I shared on Facebook this week, that was Daniel’s response to the Abraham/Isaac sacrifice scene in the History Channel’s miniseries, “The Bible.”

I love his fresh perspective on this old story.  As he was watching, he would recount the details that he remembered from hearing the story in Sunday School or reading it in his Bible.  The next morning, he sat down with his picture Bible to see how many of the stories he could find.  He even said he had a dream about the angels (who came to Lot).

My reaction was more, not critical, but with a critic’s eye, maybe?  For example, I noticed in the Israelites fleeing Egypt scene that there weren’t nearly enough people in the Israelite camp (They were short about a million.).  Why did they include the story of Lot and not the story of Joseph?  Overall, I thought it was well-done and am looking forward to future weeks.

On the drive to work this morning, I wondered what it would have looked like if we actually had video footage of the biblical scenes.  I’m not one of those people who thinks heaven is going to have some cosmic movie screen, but I do think we’ll have opportunity for hearing stories from all parts of history.  Why?  Because they bring glory to the One who created everything; parted seas; spoke in whispers; brought fire from heaven; gave children to the childless, and on and on it will go.

This Sunday Ricky will challenge us to see that God’s goal is to reach people and we are the vehicle He is using in the current age.  Guess what.  If our neighbors are going to hear about Christ, someone is going to have to tell them.  I’m not saying a burning bush couldn’t appear in their yard, but I’m also not saying it’s likely. 

Because my current world is pretty Christian-centric, I’m challenging myself to develop more relationships with people who don’t think like me.  This week I started a beginning knitting class (much to my 14-year old’s horror).  I didn’t have a chance to do much more than introduce myself; I was too busy concentrating on the brand new method of knitting that I was being asked to learn.  But I hope I can use this as a way to just meet some people and be available to see what the Spirit would have me do with that.   If you live in a pretty small world, too, I encourage you to think creatively about how you also might broaden it.