Application Goes Yard

Sometimes the prospect is easy:  "You shall be holy, for I am holy." (1 Pet. 1:16b) Excellent; my work is to pursue holiness.  The application is apparent.  Sometimes, though, things are more difficult:  "For I am the Lord your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I have given Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in your place." (Is. 43:3) Where is my application?  Have you seen my application?  It must be here somewhere, but it simply is not apparent.

If my entire goal in studying the Bible is unlocking practical application, the only seeds that will germinate in my studies will often be those of frustration, because immediate application is not always forthcoming.  My marching orders are simply not there, so Scripture, which is purportedly God-breathed, does not seem so very useful after all.  This, see, is the major problem:  God did not fashion His revelation - write it, as it were, on tablets of steel - merely to provide moral direction.  If this is your purpose in approaching the Bible, I might recommend Mother Goose instead - it will require far less study and discipline, and will usually have more pictures.

No; the purpose of the Bible is to reveal God and His character (often spelled g-l-o-r-y).  God creates.  He judges.  He sustains.  He saves!  He promises.  He delivers.  God is the constant in His Word - the only constant; amen?  He is the theme, the central thread.  If I reduce the Word down to "What should I do?", though, I see that the Bible in my hands is nothing more than a pretty mirror.  I have taken something that is so overwhelmingly God-centered that it can prostrate a soul in eternal worship, and have managed to reckon it as something man-centered by focusing upon myself.

Let us not mistake here.  Does God give me instruction in His Word?  Abundantly and definitively so, and you shall never (I pray) find me making light of His commands.  Behind every command, though, is the character of God.  Look again at the 1 Peter quote above - I am to be holy because of His holiness.  And would I indeed rush out to follow His commands, were I not convinced of the extraordinary truths about God which pervade His Word?  Would I concern myself with obedience if I did not understand that He is full of wisdom and care, power and justness?  The Bible is about God, His name, and His work.  All else - not only in the Word, but in creation - flows from this.

Where, then, does this leave the concept of application?  Does it lessen its importance, blunt its proliferation?  On the contrary, a veritable application juggernaut is created, one that goes far beyond the others, and that must come before the others.  This application is worship.  Think on this - it does not matter what passage I read, be it narrative, epistle, poetry, or law, I can always, always trace things back to the Lord, and there is always some facet of His character which beams out with dizzying brilliance. 

The first step, then, is always to worship and to marvel at the glory before us.  We can do this with any part of Scripture - look for this before anything else.  Look for God on the pages of His Word.  If the passage in question has further applicational derivatives, we will thus find ourselves in a far more humble and joyful frame, and will desire to obey the application from a pure heart.  If, however, the passage is devoid of any other application, as is the case at times, we do not come away from the Word disappointed, because we have seen our God, have grown to know Him just a bit better, have worshipped, and have trusted. 

The application of worship is monstrous.  It is undeniable theocentric; it approaches God's book on its own terms.  It forms an excellent and indispensable starting point in the quest for application, and it is unashamedly sufficient as application when it needs to be.  It tells us that, yes, there is worth and depth in coming away from Scripture with the simple awe of seeing God as He is, even without adding three more line items to the applicational checklist. 

Knocking the Narratives

I suppose that I, in the course of reading the Bible, could stick solely with the historical accounts, in a bid to keep things interesting and lively.  Of course I could.  In fact, I freely admit that I have fallen prey to this sort of (insert adjective of choice here, reader - wrong, silly, incomplete, shallow, faulty, even faithless?) thinking in the past.  We need to make fuller use of God's Word - pull more fruit down off of the divinely-planted tree and feast, as it were. 

I am confident you will not argue this point with me, my friends, since all Scripture is inspired by our omnisapient Lord and is useful for His saints, as Paul told Timothy (2 Tim. 3:16).  No; the problem here is that we sometimes take the other stance, is it not?  Sometimes we become averse to the narratives because we sense that they will somehow belittle our otherwise impressive spiritual profundity in the eyes of others.  "My studies are currently taking me through Hebrews; what about you?"  "Well, um...actually, I was just reading about Cain and Abel this morning...in my Fun Adventures with Jesus Bible.  Do you want to watch the video with me?  Mark Hamill and Richard Thomas do all the voices." 

Of course this is silly as well, and I doubt that you will argue this either, but we can still prove it from Scripture.  Psalm 111:2 & 4a proclaims, "Great are the works of the Lord; they are studied by all who delight in them...He has made His wonders to be remembered."  In other words, we cannot knock the narratives.  God does unforgettable things so that we will take notice, take interest, and take delight.  He desires for us to absorb ourselves with the narratives because they reveal Him.

Can we indeed discern any act on His part that has not been less than incredible?  The very breath I just drew demonstrated His sovereignty over the created order, His faithfulness to His own counsel, His grace to a sinner, and His blessing to one of His elect.  My life should be a running prayer of thanksgiving and praise!  Every second reveals another breathtaking vista of divine glory. 

We find, incredibly, that there is no such thing as doxological neutrality with God's works.  We can rejoice over all of them.  Not only do they reveal His wonderful character, but they underscore with an inimitable uniformity that He does everything perfectly.  Not one deed has ever fallen short, has ever flown astray - each is comprehensively guarded by total deity.  So we may rejoice at His works for their glorious perfection as well.

God sovereignly purposes His revealed works for the continued joy of His people.  And if God is indeed sovereign, then we know that He had each and every one of His children in mind when He made His momentous plans.  So then I, Josh Linn, as a child of God, am fully intended to, fully equipped for, and fully capable of meeting with my God in the accounts of His wonders which He preserves in Scriptures.  I can continually meet with Him, and I can continually honor Him for the record He has given us!  Feast, then, Christian, upon the narratives which divine hands have kept for us!  Feast and be satisfied.