Guest Blogger: Greg Smith

Greg Smith, Chaplain at The Citadel, offers this reflection on Scripture:

“HOW IMPORTANT ARE THE SCRIPTURE IN YOUR DAILY LIFE?”

Psalm 119 says that the Word of God is lamp unto our feet… Psalm 1 asserts that meditating on the Word of God is not only delightful but yields good fruit in our lives.

But do we really believe that?

In older days, to be considered literate in our society one had to have a certain Biblical literacy. Yet amongst the cadets and young adults I work with, I would guess that only 5% have even a basic understanding of ANY Biblical story or passage, let alone the continuity of the Story which is the Passion of God to rescue a lost humanity.

Recently, an awareness of the lack of Scriptural literacy became more clear to me.  I was talking with a movie producer at the airport in Ireland. She was scoping the place to shoot a movie and I was coming back from a great vacation with my wife. We had a wonderful conversation; during which she asked for my favorite part of the trip. I told her that I was in awe of the monks in AD 700 who hand copied the Scriptures into The Book of Kells. Her follow up comment floored me.  She asked, “What Scriptures”. Certainly that’s a legitimate question – other gods lay claim to other scriptures. But for most of the last century the default assumption would have been the Scriptures of the Bible!

Now, I don’t fault her. I fault the Church. We’ve all gotten lazy! To quote the two Psalms above, I had to rely on Google to find the exact reference to what I remembered. And until recently, I would come to church, preach, and go home without opening an actual Bible. (Certainly, I had my text written out – copied from my Bible software – but laying my hands on the Scriptures in worship just didn’t happen).

I’m not advocating some stone age approach to the world. I love technology and my Bible Software is important to me… as is getting newcomers into the Word of God easily. But in all my techno-seeker-geeky sensibilities… I feel I (and we) have lost something.

The Word of God is to be venerated in our lives, in our worship, and in our hearts. In the Word of God we not only find wisdom for daily life but the love of a Father who has been searching for us. We find an understanding of why Evil exists and why Good will prevail. We find all of these things because the God of the Universe can (and has) communicated to us through the Scriptures. The Word of God is our guide book for both the mundane and the profound. As Deitrich Bonhoefer once said, “every day in which I do not penetrate more deeply into the knowledge of God’s Word in Holy Scripture is a lost day for me”.

And we should show that belief in our actions… after all, actions do speak louder than words. So, I have decided to change my priorities. I now get up in the morning and work to read the Scriptures cover to cover twice each year. And I carry my Bible. And I preach, and read, and worship, with my big red Bible in my hands. And I carry it with me most places I go. Why? Because I’m trying to re-insert the importance of the Scriptures into my life in such a way that my children and friends will understand that God’s Word is important to me.

This point was driven home to me in Ireland when I saw The Book of Kells last week. The Book of Kells was a copy of the Gospels that was hand copied in the 700’s to celebrate the birthday of St. Columba. It was handwritten on calfskin vellum by monks who tediously and beautifully copied out every word of the four Gospels.  It is beautiful – and convicting. One copy of the Scriptures would have cost thousands of dollars based on the precious gems and materials used. The hours put into copying and drawing out every letter is staggering. Every letter had to be checked by a librarian for accuracy and the artwork in these books to the side of the texts is beautiful.

Why did they take so much time with this book? Because they believed that the Scriptures contained all things necessary to salvation. Salvation of their souls eternally, lives currently, and even the world around them. They believed that, as one monk wrote, they were turning, “darkness into light”.