I’ve Heard It Said That the Bible Is God’s Love Letter to Us
God’s Transcendence
I’ve heard it said that the Bible is God’s love letter to us. Now, I can see where that’s coming from. I understand, I think, what's motivating a statement like that. And it’s not a hundred percent wrong. It’s just that it’s probably not a big enough statement about what the Bible is, and it’s probably an emphasis that falls a little too much on us and maybe not enough on the author of the book itself.
It’s probably more accurate to say that the Bible is God’s expansive and glorious declaration of “I Am,” of who he is. It’s that statement that he makes in Exodus, unpacked across all sixty-six books for us. And I think the reason that we gravitate more toward the phrase that we’ve heard about it being a love letter to us is because we very much want to feel that personal connection to a transcendent God.
Women of the Word
Jen Wilkin
This best-selling book offers practical guidance and helpful tips for women who want to go deeper in their study of the Bible and learn how to teach others to do the same.
But it’s important for us to keep the emphasis on the transcendent God part, because that is where we see ourselves rightly and understand the beauty of the connection that we have with him. I think that we live in a time where we value our individualistic experiences of our relationship with God sometimes at the expense of simply sitting in awe of who God is.
So while I do like the statement and wouldn’t reject it entirely, I would say that maybe our emphasis could be shifted more toward this expansive view of a glorious God who is imminently worshipable and lovable and glorious. So on a scale from one to ten, I’m going to give it a four. I don’t hate it entirely, but I also wouldn’t use it exclusively. I would much rather focus people on a God who transcends than a God who is somehow only interested in writing us a love note.
Jen Wilkin is the author of Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds.
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