“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39).
God has given us many gifts — indeed, there is nothing we have that is not a gift. But there is only one gift from Him that enables us to see through things.
When we see through a gift, with a gift, we are enabled to see the Giver on the other side of the gift. When we cannot see through a gift, we are stuck with looking at it. With the gift of faith, everything is a window. Without the gift of faith everything is a mural.
We can look at the Scriptures, like a mural, or through the Scriptures, like a window. The same thing is true of everything else God gives us — sacraments, sermons, families, stories, food, air, and sunshine. We can stare at it, thinking that the mere existence of the thing justifies its existence, or we can allow the great gift of faith to pose the question why for us, and then graciously answer the question for us with the who.
Look through. See through. Peer beyond. This too is the gift of God.
I think it was Lewis who said something like God only has one gift to give and that is himself.
What is the lens through which the scriptures are seen?
Eli, the over-simplified “right” answer would probably be Scripture itself, though this leaves out the enlightening work the Spirit does in us. I think a real-world answer is a) Scripture itself + b) the Holy Spirit’s illuminating influence + c) the sum-total of your personal experience (conscious and otherwise). As we proceed thru sanctification, I think the hope and expectation would be that the personal baggage we bring to the Word serves less and less as a determinant for our understanding, and increasingly more as simply the soil in which the Scriptures germinate. That too may be a bit of… Read more »
Doug – Excellent riff on C. S. Lewis’ “Meditation in a Toolshed”.