Paul and Vickie Gochnour take time together to share their insights on Scripture
When Laura Barbins, pastor of Celebration Lutheran Church, Chardon, Ohio, asks new members why they’ve chosen to join, she often hears the same answer.
“Because the Bible is at the center of what you do.”
Laura is delighted by that response, but admits, “I’m not sure that would have been as evident before we implemented Book of Faith. Those comments are a nice affirmation of what we are doing.”
Book of Faith, an ELCA initiative, encourages members to deepen their knowledge about Scripture through study and conversation. This five-year collaborative program was launched in 2008 and leads up to the ELCA’s 25th anniversary in 2012.
Celebration is one of 100 congregations in the ELCA Northeastern Ohio Synod that are participating in the Book of Faith Initiative, according to Karen Kaufman, the synod’s resource center director.
The impact of the Initiative on the congregation hasn’t gone unnoticed by member Paul Gochnour.
“As a lifelong Lutheran, I haven’t always seen a lot of Lutherans walking into church carrying their Bibles,” Paul said. “Book of Faith has brought the Bible more into focus for people [at Celebration], myself included.”
Eye-opening approaches to reading Scripture
The creativity of Celebration’s Book of Faith leadership team has played a large role in the congregation’s enthusiastic response.
Members have been challenged to “Beat the Pastor” in a trivia game or imagine themselves flying like eagles to and from Wittenberg, Germany, tallying their “miles” (i.e., chapters read) all the while.
It’s a great way to incorporate “visuals and a sense of movement and achievement,” Laura says.
Through another activity, called “Scripture of the Week,” the pastor encourages Celebration members to “stow God’s word in their hearts,” by referencing the chosen texts into worship, meetings, newsletter articles and more.
Paul Gochnour has enjoyed the interesting conversations spurred by doing the daily journaling exercise with his wife, Vickie.
“Sometimes we found completely different themes or messages in the same passage,” Paul marvels. “It’s (eye-opening) to see someone else’s point of view (on Scripture).”
Taking the time to immerse himself in the Bible also has shed new light on the familiar, Paul says. “When you sit quietly and meditate on a passage, you gain new insights. The Scriptures come alive.”
And it’s fun, as testified by the laughter they often share together.
“Over the past two years there has been a renewed spirit,” Laura agrees. “Members are not just reading the Bible; they also are reflecting on God’s word and growing deeper in their spiritual lives.”
I'm all for reading the Bible more, and being more familiar with Scripture, but the opening part of this article really worries me. The Bible is NOT at the center of what we do and Lutherans should cringe when they hear that. The center of what we do is trust in the Gospel Promise-- that God forgives our sins on account of Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection-- alone and only.
It may not sound like a big deal, but whether it is the Gospel's authority on which we rest or the Bible's is THE recurring conflict for Christianity. This was the crux of Jesus' arguments with the Pharisees-- do you trust the Torah, or in the God who gives the Torah? Same with Paul and the Judaizing Christians-- the Torah was pretty clear about circumcision, and yet Paul argued from the authority of Christ, crucified and risen for us. This was Luther's breakthrough 1500 years later-- that the Gospel promise, not Bible, church law or even God's own Law, is the foundation on which our faith is built. Even in the recent past, isn't this what fractured the Missouri synod 35 years ago? And today, isn't this one of the big underlying issues at the center of the homosexuality fight? Does our faith stem from trusting that Jesus died and was raised FOR US, or because we understand that God wrote His orders for humankind down in the Bible and that we must follow those orders or else?
Great comment. I hope and pray other hearts and voices in the Church agree.
Peter and Don, After reading your comments, I proposed at our Book of Faith meeting today that we move the Bible to the left of center. But, another member of the team thought we should move it to the right of center. The third member said we should leave the Bible in the center. So, after much discussion, some deep thought, and oh yea a bit of Bible study we recalled reading in the Good News of Jesus Christ that we are all saved by grace. So are you!!
Peace, Paul
Let us put the cross of Christ front and center, then how we read the scriptures will be neither to the left nor the right, neither above nor below.
Whereas Christ is, or should be, the central focus of our faith; this in no way diminishes the importance of scripture. God did not have the Torah jotted down as an afterthought for our amusement. When the Israelites returned from Babylonian captivity, Hilkiah found the “hidden” word of God waiting for them. When the Israelites returned in 1948, the “hidden” Dead Sea scrolls were discovered waiting for them. The Bible itself is miraculous in many ways; not the least of which it was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and therefore is God own words. Our Lord, when being tempted by the devil himself, repudiated him three times using scripture as his weapon of choice. Christ turned to scripture in His time of need, and so should we. Paul writes in Ephesians 6 that the only offensive weapon we have against the evil one is the “sword of the spirit, which is the word of God”.
I would argue that if the every Bible on the face of the earth was to somehow vanish, that we would be left scrambling to recreate it by memory. It’s hard enough to get contemporary Christians to believe in the original Bible; who would trust a new recreated by memory version? The unity of Christ’s universal church, be it ever so loosely and getting looser, is still anchored in scripture. If not for the preservation of and canonizing of scripture Judeo-Christian theology would be relegated to hear-say. The church and the Bible have an interdependent relationship. I don’t believe one could endure without the other. As long as there is a Bible out there somewhere being read, you will have a church. I do not believe the church, as we know it, would have survived without it’s doctrine. If Luther’s “breakthrough” in discovering the Gospel promise was so complete, why did he find it necessary to translate the whole Bible into German, and not just the Gospels?
If not for Christ, there would be no Bible; and if not for the Bible, who would believe Christ? Only the Universalist have no absolute need for a Bible.
The authority of the scripture is indeed very important for the church, but let us accept it as the "cradle of Christ" as Luther once called it. And let us never confuse the cradle with the previous child we discover in it.
Correction:
The authority of the scripture is indeed very important for the church, but let us accept it as the "cradle of Christ" as Luther once called it. And let us never confuse the cradle with the *precious* child we discover in it.
Mr. Wright,
Is it possible to have a child with no cradle, or visa versa ?
Billions the world over have babies but no money for a cradle. They hold their babies in their laps.
Billions the world over hold Christ in their hearts but have no money for a bible. They are dependent on others to bring Christ to them through the proclamation of the Gospel.
Billions the world over have bibles and more money than they know what to do with, but their hearts are empty and the message about the cross is foolishness to them.
You brought an example of the Bible being the cradle and Christ being the baby. How long do you think Christianity would have lasted without the bible, given that it only took 325 years for things to get so confused that the early church had to canonize scripture, and invent creeds to unify Christianity? And this is with the OT already canonized and abundant. As I said above; I don’t think Christianity as we know it would survive more than a couple generations without grounding doctrine. We only have to look at beliefs arising in the ELCA with regards to goddess sophia worship to realize that even with the Bible in hand, people will drift. What would happen without it?
Lutherans (in general) have considered the Bible "the source and norm" of faith.
One minimizes the authority of Scripture at great risk since it is the source of our faith. Minimizing the authority of Scripture also allows actions and beliefs outside of the norm or orthodoxy for those who prefer more theological terms.
Saying we worship the God revealed in Scripture and not Scripture itself is indeed true. However, we cannot know that God personally without the revelation of Scripture. The two go hand in hand as captured by the orthodox statement of Lutheranism.
Unfortunately, as with most of the paradoxical statements in the Lutheran definition of the Christian faith, the pendulum tends to swing between the two sides instead of being delicately balanced between the two.
Kevin