kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth

Unearth God’s riches this Bible Sunday

Today, Churches up and down the land will be celebrating Bible Sunday. Many Churches will be using the tremendous resources put together by the Bible Society especially for today, and focusing on Psalm 119 — the longest of the psalms in the Bible. And, of course, many Churches will be focusing on other aspects of the Bible.

While I was thinking about what I might do to remember Bible Sunday on the blog, my mind was drawn where it often is, to the topic of love. Because many Church of England Churches will be following the lectionary readings for Bible Sunday instead of the Last Sunday after Trinity, they won’t be hearing those wonderful words Jesus gives as an answer to the question, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

Here’s the full passage from Matthew’s Gospel:

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

(Matthew 22:34-40)

I wouldn’t want to say the lectionary compilers have got it wrong; but that passage feels almost like Jesus is telling which part of our Holy Scriptures is the most important part — and would, to my mind, have been so very right for Bible Sunday.

In these words Jesus gives us the key to understanding the Scriptures, the key to how we should interpret them, not just for when the words were first written, but for our time now, and for all time to come. It’s love! God’s love; our love; and everybody’s love. Love! We can show the true character of God to the world we live in, if we keep love in our hearts.

Love is the fulfilment of all God wants to say. Love is the ultimate truth of his word. God’s word of love is to be found, especially, in Jesus himself. Jesus, who lived, taught, and died a life of love, so that God’s love would be real for all of us.

Love is the beginning and end of the Scriptures. The future of God’s world depends on it, both human and divine. It’s all about the love!

A brand new world don’t grow on trees…

Continuing on from yesterday’s post, where I finished by saying:

But our world, our world full of God’s wonders, is a fragile place. We need to work at trying to keep it the place of beauty and wonder it is. And that’s going to take effort from all of us. We each of us need to continue to do “our bit” — as small as that “bit” seems sometimes. Every little bit will help!

Steve Hearn, a great artist and a regular commenter on this blog, has allowed me to use one of his cartoons (Thanks Steve), which carries an important message.

We all need to do our bit, because the world we have now is the only one we’ve got to work with. A brand new world don’t grow on trees…

If you want to see more of Steve’s work, and it’s well worth looking at, do visit his website and his blog.