Rediscovering the Bible

Imagine rediscovering the Bible. That’s exactly what happened to Josiah. The temple, and pretty much all of Israel, had fallen into disrepair. For generations now idolatry has plagued the nation. Kings have come and gone, and the people have drifted far from God.

Enter Josiah. He begins repairing the temple, collecting money, and hiring trusted artisans to do the work. As they’re clearing the rubble, they come across a few abandoned scrolls. One of them is the book of Deuteronomy.

This is a book that the king was commit mended to read continually. When a new king takes the throne, they are commanded to handwrite their own copy of the scroll, and then to meditate on a daily.

And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them. - Dueteronomy 17:18-19

That long process of using papyrus and ink, putting words on paper, would be a drill that buried God’s Word deeply into the king’s heart. Instead of doing this, somehow the book became abandoned.

When Josiah heard the book, read to him, he tore his robes. There were so many places where Israel had walked away from God. They hadn’t even celebrated Passover since the time of the judges. The biggest celebration of God‘s deliverance. Not even Samuel, not even David or Solomon seems to have celebrated it. That was just the tip of the iceberg of things that had been neglected.

 Josiah is known as the most reforming king.

Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses. - 2 Kings 23:25

This is the heart of reformation. Rediscovering God‘s word and turning back to God with our whole hearts. Often, this means overturning traditions. Josiah dealt with hundreds of years of tradition idolatry and impure worship. Luther and Calvin had to do the same. They applied God‘s word in ways that were unheard of. They had a cut through thousand years of generation of tradition,

We need reformation still. Not just in our denomination, and not just in our nation. We need it in our own church, and in our own lives.

Are there places where your life, or our church, that doesn’t line up with what God wants it to be?  Places that are out of step with God‘s word? 

Just a few weeks ago our denomination’s annual meeting considered questions of reformation. There are many churches that are keeping practices with our culture instead of with the Bible.  Some allow and celebrate sexual practices that the Bible condemns. Others allow and celebrate attitudes of hatred and disgust that the Bible condemns. Reformation, or both groups, means to turn back to God.

We can take that same logic and apply it to how we treat widows, orphans, immigrants, or the homeless. We can apply it to our anger or unforgiveness. The call to “reform” is constant and all-encompassing.

Let’s be like Josiah, turning to the Lord with all we have. I’ve never met someone who turned back to God who regretted it.

With You;
Pastor Tim