What is the Point?

"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us ... The gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most (important) fact about any man is not what he at any given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God."

AW Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy

It seems like the most basic of questions. And yet, it's so easily missed.

Here it is: who (or what) is the Bible really about? Other ways to ask it ...

• What (or who) is the main subject of the Bible?
• What (or who) should be the center of attention?
• When we spend time in God's Word (either personal, group Bible study, sitting under preaching), with what should our minds & hearts be occupied?
• What is the point of the Bible?

I admit it - over the years I have found it so easy to make the Bible all about ... me! As I look back, I often labored under the misguided thinking that the point of the Bible was to help me understand me. My motivations, my fears, my dreams, my efforts to please and honor and serve God. I mean, after all, doesn't God exist to help me?!

This pattern was exposed when I would focus on these questions:

1. What does this passage mean to you?
2. How does this verse help you understand yourself more?
3. What do you need to, how do you need to change, how do you need to grow?

Note the repeated word(s)?!

Now, in one sense there's nothing "wrong" with these questions. In fact, rightly understood, they are helpful! But ... it's easy to put the cart before the horse.

You see, over time the Bible became less the self-revelation of God, and more the personal revelation of me. No wonder the lion of God's Word remained leashed!

"There is no knowing that does not begin with knowing God."

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

Isn't that amazing, and refreshing? The point of God's Word is ... God! The focus of God's Word is God! Its His book. He's the point!

So, let me ask you: when you spend time in God's Word, who are you more conscious of - you or God? When those under your care spend time in God's Word, who are they focused on - themselves or God? Who are they more inclined to rest on & trust in - themselves or God?

The most vital question that needs to be answered is, "Who is God?" Without a correct answer to that question, everything else is off balance.

All that is ever spoken of in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God's works is included in that one phrase, the glory of God... The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God, and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair.

Jonathan Edwards

The Dissertation Concerning the End For Which God Created the World

But ... how do we do this? How do we expose God as we read, teach, and preach the Bible? How do we shepherd in such a way that others rest on God more firmly, trust in God more fully, and fall in love with Him more completely?

In other words, how can we make sure that our ministry in the Bible is really all about Him?

Let's consider that in next week's post.

Until then, consider this: what's more pressing on your mind - your self-knowledge, or your God-knowledge?