Beyond Literalism: Finding Mercy in the Bible’s Diversity

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER UNKNOWN]:
Let us pray.
[00:09:34] In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
[00:09:43] Amen.
[00:10:09] In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
[00:10:25] Amen.
[00:10:36] In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
[00:11:04] Amen.
[00:11:11] In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
[00:11:35] Amen.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]:
Welcome to worship at Williamson's Chapel.
[00:11:56] My name is Pastor Tony Ruth Smith.
[00:11:58] My husband Wes and I are the senior co-pastors here.
[00:12:00] We're so glad that you are here in worship this morning.
[00:12:04] Greetings to you if you're worshiping with us online.
[00:12:06] We're so glad that you're with us this morning.
[00:12:08] It is always good to be together in God's house, and especially when it decides it's going to be, you know, I don't know, late summer in the middle of November.
[00:12:19] Like, what?
[00:12:20] Okay, you know, this week's cold, head cold, is brought to you by 40 degrees on Tuesday and 70 on Sunday.
[00:12:28] So we are glad for the beautiful sunshine and a beautiful day today.
[00:12:33] We're glad that you all are here for worship with us.
[00:12:35] And welcome to those who are visiting.
[00:12:38] There is a card in the pew in front of you that says Connection.
[00:12:41] We'd love to make a connection with you.
[00:12:43] Pastor Monica Humple, who's our Minister of Engagement, will be on the left on the way out.
[00:12:48] And she'd love to make a connection with you on the way out of church.
[00:12:52] And so we encourage you to get connected with her this week.
[00:12:57] Thank you for watching!
[00:13:12] I want you to keep asking them and keep bringing those things to us because we want to help you grow deeper in your faith with Jesus.
[00:13:19] So today we're wrapping it up and next week we'll be celebrating what God's been doing in our midst in the last year and then it'll be Advent and I don't know how we got here so fast but there we are.
[00:13:31] So I'm going to invite you to just stop right now as we prepare for worship.
[00:13:34] Take a deep breath in and breathe it out.
[00:13:40] Allow yourself to be present before the Lord today.
[00:13:42] Another deep breath in.
[00:13:43] And breathe it out.
[00:13:48] And let's worship the Lord together.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]:
Please stand for the call to worship.
[00:13:58] How beautiful is the word of the Lord.
[00:14:01] How wise are God's commandments!
[00:14:04] Through the Lord's precepts, we gain understanding.
[00:14:09] Through God's wisdom, we find truth.
[00:14:12] The Lord is our God.
[00:14:14] We are God's people.
[00:14:16] God's Word lives within us, for it is written on our hearts.
[00:14:22] Living Word, Great Teacher, lead us and guide us.
[00:14:27] Amen.
[00:14:27] Lord, your words are sweet to the taste, sweeter than honey.
[00:14:33] Let them be our daily meditation and our study.
[00:14:37] Give us ears to hear, for we marvel at your instruction.
[00:14:41] Train us in righteousness, grant us patience and persistence, and equip us for every good work.
[00:14:49] Inspire our faith and give us voices to proclaim your message.
[00:14:54] Guide our feet, keep us from every false way.
[00:14:58] For you alone speak the words of life.
[00:15:01] Amen.
[00:15:03] If you will now join me on page 73 in your hymn books or on the screen, O Worship the King is our first hymn this morning.

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]:
of the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit of the Lord.
[00:17:30] God's will be with you always.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER UNKNOWN]:
Please join me in the Apostles' Creed.

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]:
I believe in God, Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was crucified dead and buried.
[00:18:22] The third day he rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven,
[00:18:27] And sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
[00:18:32] From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
[00:18:36] I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
[00:18:49] Amen.

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]:
So last week I shared with you some of my favorite passages from the Old Testament.
[00:19:38] So when you turn and greet your neighbor this morning, share what's your favorite verse of the scripture.
[00:19:43] And listen, I'm going to calm you down right now.
[00:19:47] If you can't name chapter and verse, take a deep breath.
[00:19:53] It's okay.
[00:19:54] It's okay to just say, you know, that one that goes, trust in the Lord with all your heart.
[00:19:58] I really love that one.
[00:20:00] Okay.
[00:20:00] It's okay.
[00:20:01] You can Google it later.
[00:20:02] It will be alright.
[00:20:04] The point is, you have scriptures that are written on your heart.
[00:20:06] So what scriptures are written on your heart?

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]:
Share with your neighbor as you turn to griefing this morning.

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]:
You are too strong.

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]:
Piano Concerto
[00:21:51] The Spirit of the living God Fall fresh on me Melt me, hold me, fill me, use me

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER UNKNOWN]:
of God, Fall fresh on me.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]:
Kindle in my heart your fire.
[00:23:16] Come, light my way.
[00:23:19] Come, create renewing light.
[00:23:27] Fill me with your grace.
[00:23:33] Fill me with your grace.
[00:23:39] Holy Spirit flow through me, call me to salvation.

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER UNKNOWN]:
Let us pray.
[00:24:28] Let us pray.
[00:24:28] Let us pray.

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]:
Teach me your love May the world see you there
[00:25:17] Seraphim, Thou in thy hands be, come rest in me.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]:
As we prepare to hear the Word, join me in the prayer for illumination.
[00:26:08] God of all power, open our ears, our eyes, and our hearts with a spirit of wisdom and revelation.
[00:26:17] Help us to hear your voice, to see your ways, and to receive with joy your truth.
[00:26:25] In Jesus' name, amen.
[00:26:29] Today's reading is from 2 Timothy 3, 14 to 17.
[00:26:35] Hear the Word of God.
[00:26:37] But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known sacred writings that are able to instruct you in the salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
[00:26:55] All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
[00:27:12] The Word of God for all people.
[00:27:15] Thanks be to God.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]:
Good morning, Church.
[00:27:29] God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer.
[00:27:39] Amen.
[00:27:41] Well, as we wrap up our series this fall about curious questions,
[00:27:51] A reminder of the guidelines that have been the ground rules, I guess, during our exploration of these things.
[00:28:00] One is that we're going to engage with humility.
[00:28:05] So as we've answered these questions, we've tried to be clear that there's a limit to what we can know.
[00:28:12] and that it's okay for us to say I don't know and to lead as we study Scripture with a growing sense of humility leading us to greater trust in God.
[00:28:25] We've been committed to being grounded in Scripture so that as we've answered these questions
[00:28:35] We are doing so rooted in God's Word, and then that we will wrestle while trusting in God.
[00:28:45] That it's okay for us to struggle and to wrestle with these things, trusting in God throughout.
[00:28:50] Now, those have been our kind of ground rules during this sermon series, but I realize about
[00:28:59] Second or third week of this series, that's not just good ground rules for a sermon series, but that's a good kind of guide for discipleship in general.
[00:29:11] Just a good way for us to think about how we're going to live out our faith with humility, grounded in God's Word, and wrestling or struggling with God while trusting in God.
[00:29:25] And that first one, as these past few weeks we've looked at questions about the Bible, that first one is really important, engaging with humility.
[00:29:34] And I've mentioned before, I think, to some of you, I know I've mentioned, if you've been in any of my Bible studies, I've mentioned that my youth minister in middle school and high school did not exemplify that first ground rule.
[00:29:49] He was not humble.
[00:29:50] In fact, he was, he...
[00:29:55] wanted us to know how much he knew and was really uh really could be kind of um uh i guess he he felt kind of bragging about like how much he knew he wanted not a lot of humility there um
[00:30:11] And so it was really important for me that there were other people in my life that balanced that out, that showed me a different way.
[00:30:18] I officiated a funeral yesterday for a woman named Cindy Deaton.
[00:30:22] And Cindy was my high school Sunday school teacher
[00:30:25] For three years, three years I was in high school and exemplified that first point with humility.
[00:30:34] Cindy was not a pastor.
[00:30:35] She didn't have degrees in biblical studies or anything like that.
[00:30:39] She was just a mom to a couple of kids in our church who agreed to teach, for whatever reason, to teach a high school Sunday school class, I think to keep track of her own two boys.
[00:30:48] But anyway, she would research.
[00:30:50] She would do her work.
[00:30:51] She'd come in prepared, but she would be very quick to say, I don't have the answer.
[00:30:55] I don't know.
[00:30:57] And as I've grown and over the course of my life, that example has become more and more important for me.
[00:31:10] What was important is not how much Cindy knew, but it was important that she knew Jesus and loved us.
[00:31:18] And so are you known for humility and love?
[00:31:20] That's really, really important.
[00:31:23] So anyway, just wanted to start there as we think about this last question focused on the Bible.
[00:31:30] And somebody in this church submitted the following question.
[00:31:33] I'm going to read it word for word.
[00:31:37] They asked about the Bible.
[00:31:39] They said,
[00:31:49] Sarah and Abraham having a child when they were hundreds of years old, Jonah being eaten by a giant fish, feeding 5,000 from just a few fish and loaves of bread, etc.
[00:32:00] And then we are asked to take the Bible literally.
[00:32:03] This is super hard for me to reconcile in my brain.
[00:32:08] I'm told that the Bible is God's Word and to believe what is written in it, but how can I do that when these stories seem so far-fetched?
[00:32:18] Alright, show of hands if you've ever had questions like that.
[00:32:23] Awesome!
[00:32:25] Y'all are far more honest than the folks at 9.30.
[00:32:30] Good job.
[00:32:31] Because me too.
[00:32:32] Me too.
[00:32:33] So I'm going to distill this question down.
[00:32:36] Should I read the Bible literally or not?
[00:32:39] And some of you may know that my tendency is when I get questions like this to say something that is very frustrating.
[00:32:47] So to that question, should we read the Bible literally or not, I will say, well, that depends.
[00:32:54] That depends.
[00:32:54] That depends.
[00:32:59] Literalism is not really a helpful approach when it comes to the Bible as a whole.
[00:33:08] One concern, though, I've heard from people is that if we say, for example, that the story of Jonah or Noah's Ark didn't really happen, then that calls into question everything else in the Bible.
[00:33:24] No, not really.
[00:33:26] Two weeks ago, I shared with you all that the Bible is not one book, but a collection of 66 different books of different genres written for different purposes.
[00:33:37] For example, whether or not Jonah was a real person in history, that's an interesting question, but it doesn't really change the deeper meaning of the story.
[00:33:50] And it's not at all the same thing as asking whether or not Jesus was raised from the dead.
[00:33:57] Two different books of the Bible, two different genres, two different situations.
[00:34:03] The answer to the question of whether or not we're meant to take Scripture literally is different depending on what we're reading.
[00:34:12] The Gospels, for example, the Gospels are intended to bear witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
[00:34:19] The events recorded in the gospels are intended to be read and interpreted literally.
[00:34:25] The gospels are to serve as witnesses to Jesus.
[00:34:30] And the most remarkable event in the Gospels, the resurrection of Jesus, it's not presented as symbolic or as an allegory.
[00:34:37] The Gospel writers are clear about the factual reality of the resurrection, that there were witnesses, that these things happened, that Jesus went here and did this.
[00:34:47] It's presented as fact.
[00:34:51] Now, other stories in the Gospels about Jesus, healing and miracles, these are also presented as literal events that really happened.
[00:34:59] Now, some of these things are hard for us to wrap our heads around, but here's the thing.
[00:35:06] In order to be true, our understanding is not required.
[00:35:14] We are not entitled to understanding.
[00:35:19] I don't like that.
[00:35:23] But it doesn't matter.
[00:35:28] Now, there are some other things in the Gospels, by the way, that are not meant to be literal in that sense.
[00:35:34] For example, the parables that Jesus tell, they don't refer to actual people in history.
[00:35:41] That's not the point of parables anyway.
[00:35:44] The parables could really begin with once upon a time.
[00:35:48] That's kind of how they work.
[00:35:50] Even in his teaching there are things that we aren't meant to take literally.
[00:35:57] In his teaching Jesus will occasionally use hyperbole or exaggeration for rhetorical emphasis.
[00:36:04] Matthew 5, 27 through 29 is a good example.
[00:36:10] Jesus says the following you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart if your right eye causes you to sin tear it out and throw it away by my count I have both my eyeballs and for the record
[00:36:39] We look with two eyes.
[00:36:42] So I assume the course of action there is to gouge out both of my eyes, which would have happened middle school.
[00:36:57] So, and I look around the room here, just the men, because Jesus was talking to the men.
[00:37:02] Women, you've got your own other issues.
[00:37:03] But just the men.
[00:37:04] I see two eyeballs.
[00:37:06] So are we to take what Jesus says there literally?
[00:37:10] If we are, we're not following the literal meaning of Scripture, by the way.
[00:37:15] No, we're not supposed to take that literally.
[00:37:17] Jesus is using hyperbole in a rhetorical way to tell us about the importance that the law is not just about our external behaviors, but the state of our heart.
[00:37:31] The purpose of what Jesus is teaching is not just to change the external things, but to transform our heart and our mind.
[00:37:40] Because if our hearts and our minds are transformed, that then transforms our external behavior.
[00:37:45] Are you following me?
[00:37:47] So please, don't gouge your eyes out.
[00:37:51] We're not meant to take that literally.
[00:37:55] Now, other stories and books in the Bible, well, that's a different matter.
[00:38:00] Some are meant to be understood literally.
[00:38:04] Some places and things in the Bible were written to be literal.
[00:38:09] The stories of the patriarchs in Genesis, Abraham, Isaac,
[00:38:13] Jacob and Joseph are were intended to record a literal history of the formation of God's people the events at the beginning of the Exodus with the liberation of God's people that was meant to be a literal telling of history the the books of history so to speak Joshua judges Samuel and Kings there's a lot of confusing stuff there that we struggle with but they were meant to record
[00:38:36] The history of God's people.
[00:38:38] Even that's complicated though.
[00:38:40] 1 and 2 Chronicles retells some of the events of Samuel and Kings and their details are different.
[00:38:48] They're written from different perspectives and different angles.
[00:38:51] So yeah, that gets a little complicated.
[00:38:54] Now some writings are meant to be taken literally, but not for us in the same way.
[00:38:59] The laws and regulations we find in Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy, for example, don't apply to us the way they applied to ancient Israelites.
[00:39:10] So to say, should we read that literally, it doesn't really work in that situation.
[00:39:16] Now some books or stories we get hung up on, and honestly,
[00:39:21] Whether or not they really happened, well, that really isn't the point.
[00:39:27] If you've read, some of you have read, maybe done, read the Bible in a year, and some of you, God bless you, have said, I'm just going to read the Bible and I'm going to start from the beginning and just go straight through.
[00:39:38] And you might have noticed in the first 11 chapters of Genesis are weird.
[00:39:46] They're just...
[00:39:47] Now it shifts in chapter 12 when we get to Abram because then we start to see some family dynamics and relationships that at least there's some commonality, some points of connection for us.
[00:40:01] But those first 11 chapters, you might call it maybe mythic-poetic chapters.
[00:40:09] It's kind of Israel's origins, their origin story, and it reads similar to other Near Eastern origin stories in their cultures.
[00:40:17] There are some similarities there.
[00:40:19] The difference is, unlike all those other nations and groups, the God of the Bible acts alone and creates not through violence, but creates through His Word.
[00:40:32] That God speaks and things happen.
[00:40:34] That's consistent across all of Scripture.
[00:40:37] And then we get to stories like Job or Jonah, for example.
[00:40:41] Did Job really exist in history?
[00:40:44] I don't know.
[00:40:46] But if we fixate on that question, we miss the point of Job.
[00:40:50] For example, one of the big points of Job is, you know, God basically says, all the things about creation, why things happen, that's none of your business.
[00:41:01] Another point of Job is sometimes your friends are not as helpful as you want them to be.
[00:41:08] All these other things about Job, or Jonah, for example.
[00:41:12] Did Jonah really get swallowed by the fish?
[00:41:15] I don't know.
[00:41:16] Could be.
[00:41:18] Whether or not that happened literally doesn't change the point of Jonah's story.
[00:41:22] Jonah's a fascinating story.
[00:41:24] God calls Jonah to go preach forgiveness and mercy to the people of Nineveh.
[00:41:32] God calls Jonah to go to a city he hates to preach to a people he detests, and Jonah says, no.
[00:41:39] And God says, all right, we'll see.
[00:41:43] Good luck with that.
[00:41:45] And eventually, through a series of misadventures, including getting swallowed and then vomited up by a fish, Jonah makes his way to Nineveh, preaches the lamest, most pathetic, shortest, most effective sermon in history, and the whole city is a wave of repentance.
[00:42:01] And Jonah
[00:42:03] Hates it.
[00:42:04] And the book ends with him being basically a petulant, whiny teenager on the outskirts of Nineveh saying, well, that's why I didn't want to do it because I knew you'd forgive these people.
[00:42:14] That story is about the widening circle of God's mercy.
[00:42:20] That it's not just limited to one people.
[00:42:24] That God is the God of all people.
[00:42:27] And so often we are Jonah whining about who receives God's mercy.
[00:42:33] and God calls us to something greater than that.
[00:42:38] So did Jonah really happen?
[00:42:39] I don't know, but it doesn't change the point of that story for us.
[00:42:45] We have our own example of this in our own history.
[00:42:52] George Washington, he really existed and he did some great things.
[00:43:01] One of the first things I learned about
[00:43:04] George Washington was that when he was a child, his father went away on a trip.
[00:43:10] And when the father returned, one of his father's beloved cherry trees was chopped down.
[00:43:17] And he went to young George, who reportedly was six at the time, said, Who chopped down this cherry tree?
[00:43:25] George says, Father, I cannot tell a lie.
[00:43:30] What kind of six-year-old, by the way, can...
[00:43:34] Anyway, and George Washington said, I can't tell a lie.
[00:43:38] It was I who chopped down your cherry tree.
[00:43:43] Did this story happen?
[00:43:46] No.
[00:43:48] No.
[00:43:49] Again, I've raised two kids, six years old.
[00:43:53] They could barely tie their shoes, much less cut down a cherry tree by themselves.
[00:43:58] It just wasn't happening.
[00:43:59] This is a story first written by a guy named Mason Locke Weems.
[00:44:03] You might have heard the name Parson Weems.
[00:44:05] He was kind of the first official biographer of Washington.
[00:44:10] And that story appears in a fifth edition of his biography seven years after George Washington died.
[00:44:17] And then that story got handed down and wound up in the middle of the 1800s in books that taught children how to read.
[00:44:25] That might seem insignificant, but the point of that story, one, was to teach children of America about something about George Washington, his character, but more importantly to teach people, kids especially, about the character of the nation.
[00:44:41] That we are supposed to be a nation of honesty and integrity.
[00:44:49] No comment about how that's working out in our day and time.
[00:44:55] But if that's the point of the story about honesty and integrity, does it really matter that that story literally happened?
[00:45:02] No, see we do this all the time and Scripture, so much of Scripture, so much of these stories operate the same way.
[00:45:09] They point us to a deeper truth.
[00:45:14] For us as Christians,
[00:45:17] That deeper truth that Scripture points us to is the truth of what God has done in Jesus Christ.
[00:45:24] What God has done for me and you, for the world, for creation in Jesus.
[00:45:30] And so when we as Christians read the Bible, we do so.
[00:45:33] We read the Bible through the lens of Jesus, through a Christ-centered lens.
[00:45:39] Theologian Christian Smith talks about that Christ-centered lens.
[00:45:43] He says, seeing Christ as central,
[00:45:47] Compels us to always try to make sense of everything we read in any part of Scripture in light of our larger knowledge of who God is in Jesus Christ.
[00:45:58] This does not mean trying to detect Christ in every piece of Scripture or forcing every verse in the Bible to somehow be directly about the Gospel.
[00:46:07] Rather, every part of Scripture and Scripture as a whole is read in light of the centrally defining reality of Jesus Christ.
[00:46:16] So we read the Bible explicitly as Christians.
[00:46:20] And he quotes biblical scholar Keith Ward who says, For a Christian, every part of the Bible must in some way point to Christ, to the living person of Jesus who is the Christ, and to the unlimited liberating love of God which is revealed in Christ.
[00:46:34] To put it bluntly, it is not the words of the Bible that are the way, the truth, and the life.
[00:46:39] It is the person of Jesus Christ.
[00:46:43] That's the way, the truth, and the life to whom the Bible witnesses.
[00:46:47] So the Bible, in all its variety, its difficulty, its beauty, and at times outlandishness, ultimately points to Jesus.
[00:46:58] And as Tony Ruth mentioned last week, to the chesed, loving kindness, of God revealed in Jesus.
[00:47:06] I think I got time for one more image here, one more...
[00:47:12] Allegory, maybe.
[00:47:14] So if we think of the Bible as 66 different books telling different stories in different ways, different genres, we might think of an orchestra, or let's go with a band.
[00:47:28] Daniel and the concert band at Mooresville High is getting ready to do a Christmas concert in a few weeks.
[00:47:35] And Daniel plays the French horn.
[00:47:37] And at this time of year, one of Daniel's favorite things to do is to complain.
[00:47:42] about his part in Sleigh Ride.
[00:47:46] Sleigh Ride is a fun song.
[00:47:48] It's got that...
[00:47:51] It's fun.
[00:47:52] Daniel hates it because he plays the French horn.
[00:47:55] His part is... all the way through the song.
[00:47:59] That's all he does.
[00:48:02] And if you were just to listen to that one part and isolate it, it wouldn't make a lot of sense.
[00:48:06] It would be okay, just a bunch of notes.
[00:48:09] But you take another instrument, maybe trombone or the trumpet or whatever, you might hear little bits of the melody, but it's not going to work.
[00:48:17] You have to have all the instruments playing together for the whole piece to make sense.
[00:48:22] The Bible is like an orchestra or a band, and the piece they are playing is the gospel.
[00:48:30] And you need every voice for the fullness of what the Bible is trying to teach us.
[00:48:36] And you might take the Gospels themselves, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
[00:48:39] That's the melody.
[00:48:41] But you need these voices that provide harmony and depth and scope so that we understand the whole piece, which is the Gospel.
[00:48:52] so all of it points to the good news of God in Jesus Christ and then second Timothy comes along and it gives us some helpful clarity about how to do this practically Paul writes to Timothy he says from the time you were young you've been taught
[00:49:16] Scripture, these stories of Scripture, which at that time would have been what we call the Old Testament.
[00:49:20] So you've heard this from the time you were a child, from your mother and grandmother, presumably.
[00:49:28] And Paul's point is to keep living what you know, keep living that as you grow up.
[00:49:33] And then Paul says all Scripture is inspired by God, and that Greek word there is breathed in, or in-breathed by God, God-breathed.
[00:49:44] So, Scripture is not written by God, but the writers of Scripture, God breathed God's Spirit into them and inspired them and is still inspiring us as we read.
[00:49:56] So, all Scripture is inspired by God, and I love what he says here, verse 16, and is useful.
[00:50:05] Scripture is useful.
[00:50:07] You could have used any word there.
[00:50:08] You could have said Scripture is literal or truthful or powerful, but useful.
[00:50:15] meaning it can help us live practically useful for growing in faith and righteousness useful for teaching and correction and it equips us to live out our faith in Jesus but just be aware it's useful for teaching and correction Paul is not saying take the Bible and use it to correct other people because so many Christians like to wield this as a weapon and you know kind of bash people and
[00:50:45] We try to use this to shame other people, use this in ways that are argumentative.
[00:50:52] How often in your life has shame brought you closer to God?
[00:50:57] Have you ever lost an argument and grown closer to Jesus?
[00:51:01] Me neither.
[00:51:03] What leads us closer to Jesus is mercy and love.
[00:51:09] It is love that leads us to the love of God.
[00:51:13] It is us, as we study Scripture and seek to apply and to understand what we learn there, that widening circle of God's mercy, God's chesed, loving kindness, it's us living that out as we live that draws people to Jesus.
[00:51:31] So should we read the Bible literally?
[00:51:33] I'll change up my answer a little bit.
[00:51:35] Yes and no.
[00:51:38] When and where?
[00:51:40] Well, that depends.
[00:51:42] I love the Bible.
[00:51:43] I love studying the Bible.
[00:51:44] I love teaching the Bible.
[00:51:46] In a lot of ways, I've devoted my life to doing that.
[00:51:51] But more than I love the Bible, I love Jesus.
[00:51:55] And I love the Bible because it points me to Jesus.
[00:51:57] And I want you to share that same love for the Scripture and for Jesus.
[00:52:03] Because once we connect our lives, stake our lives, root our lives in Scripture and in the Word of God made flesh in Jesus, there's no telling what God can do in us and through us.
[00:52:18] So thank you for letting us answer your curious questions and for being along on the journey with us and for struggling with us.
[00:52:26] In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

[00:52:38] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]:
Here's your quick tip.
[00:52:41] If you're like, well, I want to read the Bible, and how am I going to know if it's a book I'm supposed to take literally or not?
[00:52:49] So here's my answers.
[00:52:50] Number one, get in a good Bible study.
[00:52:53] There's plenty of them here.
[00:52:55] Please get in a good Bible study.
[00:52:58] Go buy a good study Bible.
[00:53:01] A good study Bible.
[00:53:03] The one I use at home is the new international version of the study Bible, the NIV study Bible.
[00:53:08] And at the front, Harper Collins has a great one too.
[00:53:11] They will have at the front of each book a little history descriptor of what that... Read those!
[00:53:17] Read that.
[00:53:18] It will help you.
[00:53:19] So there's your tips for today.
[00:53:21] I wanted to mention that today, Dawn is not here today, who's our organist.
[00:53:30] And Dawn is not here because she is with her mom, who is in her last moments of life.
[00:53:39] On Friday, Pastor Kerry and I were in Charlotte, and we had the privilege of doing two things.
[00:53:45] The first thing we did, the first stop we made was at Novant Presbyterian to go see baby John Connor Donahue, who is 27 weeks?
[00:53:56] 28 weeks?
[00:53:57] Now, he is almost up to two pounds.
[00:54:02] And when he's out of his little bundle, he might be about this long.
[00:54:08] But when Carrie and I saw him, he was about the size of the kind of potato you'd get at McAllister's.
[00:54:13] You know those great big potatoes?
[00:54:16] Just a little thing.
[00:54:18] And we sat and watched him breathe and marveled that God is still birthing him.
[00:54:28] And then we left there and we went to Huntersville to the hospice house.
[00:54:32] And we were with Dawn and her mama.
[00:54:35] And her mama is 91 years old.
[00:54:39] And we watched her breathe.
[00:54:42] And lots of y'all have been by that bedside too, haven't you?
[00:54:46] You've watched little babies breathe.
[00:54:48] You sat up all night just watching them.
[00:54:52] And you've been by the bedside of somebody who was nearing the end of their life and you've lived on every breath.
[00:54:57] You know that feeling too?
[00:55:00] And I thought about how God is birthing her mom into new life.
[00:55:04] It's labor coming in.
[00:55:06] It's labor going out.
[00:55:09] And God's breath is in it all, is it not?
[00:55:12] I saw God in both places and for that I give thanks to God.
[00:55:15] And I want us to remember the good news of Jesus that is needed from the very beginning to the very end.
[00:55:24] So let's pray together.
[00:55:27] Gracious and loving Father, we are so in awe of you, so grateful for your breath in us, for your spirit that
[00:55:39] We put breath in our lungs when we've made our very first cry and we're grateful for God how you are still knitting baby John's lungs together and for every breath he takes we are grateful and we are so very grateful for every breath that Miss Betty has taken
[00:56:02] For all the ways, Lord, that she has borne witness to you and the way that she raised Dawn, who every Sunday shares your good news with us in music.
[00:56:14] And we are, Lord, so very aware of Dawn by her bedside right now, watching every breath.
[00:56:22] We pray, God, that you are so palpably aware in both of those places, but not just there, but in us.
[00:56:33] We breathe in.
[00:56:35] We breathe out.
[00:56:38] We feel our chest rise.
[00:56:42] We feel it fall.
[00:56:45] And we know we are a miracle, that you are still birthing new life in us every single day.
[00:56:54] We pray, God, that your word, inspired word,
[00:56:58] We pray, God, that you will guide us every step of the way and lead us, Lord, to walk in your truth, that our hearts, Lord, might be not divided but fully focused and centered on you as we seek to live faithfully.
[00:57:28] And today, God, we pray for baby John, we pray for Dawn and for Miss Betty, and we pray for everyone who is in need today, everyone who aches of body, mind, or spirit, everyone who grieves and mourns, everyone, Lord, who needs a word of hope, everyone who is laboring in lies that maybe they've even been taught that are keeping them from really seeing you in the Word, in your Word, and knowing that it points us to Jesus.
[00:57:58] We pray God that we may be faithful to honor and glorify you in all that we do.
[00:58:03] It's in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that we do pray together.
[00:58:08] Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen

[00:58:44] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]:
Friends, we are able to do all that we do here at the church, whether that's
[00:58:50] Children and youth, all the Bible studies that we offer to our music ministry, we are able to do that through your giving.
[00:59:00] God is so good to us and has been so generous to us.
[00:59:03] And so we give as a response, a joyful response to all that God has done and is doing and continues to do in us and for us and in and for our church.
[00:59:15] There are several ways you can give.
[00:59:16] You can scan that QR code to give online.
[00:59:19] or you can send a check into the church.
[00:59:22] The address is there on the screen or as the plates are being passed you can place your offering there.
[00:59:27] So our prayer is that we all give out of that deep sense of gratitude for God's goodness and God's blessing.

[00:59:37] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]:
Church, our offering song this morning is called This I Believe.
[00:59:41] It is a musical setting of the Creed that we know very well.
[00:59:48] Behind me is Mark Anderson.
[00:59:49] He is usually behind you in running sound at the service, so today he's going to share his gifts with us.
[00:59:59] This I Believe.

[01:00:19] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]:
Father of heaven and earth, the leading one, God Almighty, through your Holy Spirit,

[01:00:45] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_07]:
I believe in God our Father I believe in Christ the Son I believe in the Holy Spirit Our God is three in one I believe in the resurrection That we will rise again

[01:01:07] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]:
For I believe in the name of Jesus Our judge and our defender Suffered and crucified
[01:01:36] In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
[01:01:49] Amen.

[01:01:54] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]:
I believe in God our Father I believe in Christ the Son I believe in the Holy Spirit Our God is free and Lord I believe in the Resurrection That we will rise again For I believe
[01:02:40] We believe that Jesus Christ is Lord

[01:02:52] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_07]:
I believe in the Lord our prophet I believe in Christ the Son I believe in the Holy Spirit Our God is three in one I believe in the resurrection That we will rise again For I believe in the name of God

[01:03:17] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]:
I believe in Christ the Son I believe in God our Father I believe in Christ the Son I believe in the Holy Spirit Our God is free in the Lord I believe in the resurrection
[01:03:37] I believe in the name of Jesus I believe in the name of Jesus I believe in the name of Jesus
[01:04:21] Praise God whom all blessings flow.
[01:04:32] Praise Him all creatures here below.

[01:04:56] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]:
Alright, if you will join me for our final hymn, Deep in the Shadows of the Past.

[01:05:11] [SPEAKER UNKNOWN]:
The lyrics will be on the screen.

[01:05:34] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]:
The dawning hope of humankind, our never-sistened joy.
[01:07:17] For all the mighties that survive, for leaders of the Lord, Who sit in company and preserve the Bible that we know, Give thanks and find its store,

[01:08:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]:
All right, just a couple of announcements.
[01:08:05] The first is this.
[01:08:06] Share Christmas is coming.
[01:08:08] So if you don't know about Share Christmas, here at Williamson Chapel, we set up here at our church on December the 13th a store.
[01:08:17] Where 130 families from our community with about 300 total children come and receive gifts for Christmas.
[01:08:27] All these families come to us through the Christian Mission.
[01:08:29] They are families in our community who are in need.
[01:08:32] And every child will receive two gifts and a Walmart gift card and then the family as a whole receives some hygiene items from the kindness closet as well as a ham, some things that they could add to create a good Christmas dinner.
[01:08:48] And that happens on the 13th and it requires of us the cost of the church, not including the gifts, just the cost to do it out of our mission funds is about $30,000 for all the hams and all the gift cards and all the things that we're going to do.
[01:09:05] It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful mission.
[01:09:10] So, two things you can do to be part of it.
[01:09:13] One is you can buy gifts.
[01:09:14] So, these are available down in the Fellowship Hall after church today.
[01:09:19] Or, if you go to the church website and you go to Missions and you look for Share Christmas, you can sign up for tags on the Sign Up Genius.
[01:09:30] And those, you can sign up there.
[01:09:31] Now, if you are like my husband and you would forget that you grabbed these and you would put them on your desk and then on...
[01:09:39] Approximately December the 7th at 12 p.m. you would go, oh shoot, hey Tony Ruth, I got these two tags.
[01:09:49] We need to get these presents.
[01:09:52] Then don't grab these.
[01:09:53] Do the sign up genius thing because on Friday before it will say, hey, you signed up to bring some gifts.
[01:09:58] And then you'll remember.
[01:09:59] Sorry to throw you under the bus.
[01:10:01] The other thing you can do is you can volunteer the week between the 7th and the 13th.
[01:10:08] We need about 200 volunteers to make this happen.
[01:10:10] So you can sign up to volunteer.
[01:10:12] There's all sorts of things to do.
[01:10:14] Listen, it is literally, I'm getting ready to make somebody's dream come true.
[01:10:19] It is literally a volunteer job to take money and go buy presents.
[01:10:25] And some woman just went, like, for real?
[01:10:28] I was made for this.
[01:10:29] Right?
[01:10:31] But there's also things like helping organize the gifts and carrying stuff out to people's cars and wrapping Christmas presents and helping clean up and helping set up.
[01:10:41] There's all sorts of things.
[01:10:42] You can also see that on our Share Christmas page.
[01:10:44] I'm going to encourage you to sign up and be part of it.
[01:10:46] So that's coming up.
[01:10:48] And then Fuel Your Family, which is our summer, our Christmas, sorry, Christmas, our fall programming for kids, is ending tonight.
[01:10:56] It's our last night.
[01:10:57] And next week we're going to have a worship service.
[01:10:59] And oh my goodness, if you've never been, would you please come?
[01:11:02] This is my invitation to you.
[01:11:05] You should come.
[01:11:06] The youth band plays, the little church band plays, the children's choir sing, one of our youth will give a testimony, the little people take up the offering.
[01:11:15] It's the most precious thing in the whole wide world.
[01:11:18] So, next Sunday night, you can come and have dinner with us at 4, and then we'll, we have worship right after that.

[01:11:24] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]:
The dinner is at 5 and the service is at 5.45.
[01:11:29] It's not a two and a half hour service.
[01:11:30] 5.45.
[01:11:32] It's just a short one.

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]:
So 5.
[01:11:33] That says 4 but we meant 5.
[01:11:34] 5 o'clock.
[01:11:36] So I hope you'll be here for that.
[01:11:37] Okay.
[01:11:38] Now stay where you are because we're going to sing a little blessing to you after Wes' benediction.

[01:11:47] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]:
May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you.
[01:11:51] May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.
[01:11:54] In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
[01:11:56] Amen.

[01:12:27] [SPEAKER UNKNOWN]:
He is our God and King
[01:13:05] Deuteronomy
[01:13:39] Christ is born Christ is born
[01:14:08] and more.