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The Bible not only tells how God sought his people in the past; it is also a means by which he seeks us out today. It is not just part of the dead past: it is also part of the living present. We cannot read it without a sense of being involved. For the experiences of the Biblical characters are basically our experiences. They ask questions:
If a man die, shall he live again? (Job 14: 14)
What do you think of the Christ? (Matt. 22: 42)
Who are you, Lord? (Acts 9: 5)
What shall I do, Lord? (Acts 22: 10)
Why does the way of the wicked prosper? (Jer. 12: 1)
Why are you cast down, O my soul? (Ps. 42: 5)
And we ask the same questions, even though we use different
words:
What happens to me when I die?
Is this Jesus really more than a great man?
Who is God?
What difference does believing in God make?
What's the point of "being good"?
Why does life sometimes seem so horribly futile?
To the extent that we really ask such questions (and it takes courage to ask them honestly) we find ourselves involved in the asking and answering which goes on in the Bible. To be sure, we shall not find answers given on a silver platter, but answers were not given to the Biblical characters on a silver platter either. The answers they got had to be hammered home to them in the "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" of a tragic history. They were not spun out in a philosopher's study, or even in a Sunday school classroom. They emerged from the rough and tumble of life, and it is in the rough and tumble of life that we discover how right the Bible's answers are.
But it is not only in questions and answers that we find God seeking us in the Bible. Not only are God's demands and promises brought home to us, but God himself "comes alive," and speaks to us, as we take the Bible seriously. It is for this reason that Christians speak of the Bible as "the Word of God." This does not mean that God's "words" are recorded in the Bible as though someone had had a celestial tape recorder and then transcribed the message on paper. For, as we shall see, God "speaks" to people, not so much through statements as through his creative activity right where people are. The supreme revelation of his "Word," his creative power, is the "event" of Jesus Christ, in his life, death, and resurrection-the "Word made flesh," as the Fourth Gospel says.
The Bible, then, tells us of these times when God has acted upon the lives of men, and as we read it, the possibility is opened up that God can speak through those acts and events directly to us. "The Bible is a special delivery letter with your name and address on it," is one way of putting it. So it is more than a record; it is a call, an invitation, an urgent message to us.
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