What's the Bible for?
How do you approach it?
Clearly Holy Scripture
tells us about God
and our relationship with Him.
It teaches us
and we learn much
about the Truth of God,
but is that all it tells us?
[PAUSE]
We trust St Paul
as one of the foremost teachers
of the Christian Faith.
We hear his telling us
about the truth of God
and helping us to know
what to think.
Did you notice that
he also tells us how to feel?
[PAUSE]
It's very easy for us
to get the relationship
between our thinking
and our feelings
completely wrong.
We focus on one
at the expense of the other
and you can see this in the Church.
If we forget about people's feelings
then the Doctrine of the Church
becomes a stick to beat people with,
control them,
make sure they think the right thoughts,
and judge them if they don't.
If we forget about sound thinking,
then we let our emotions rule,
forget that the truth
is outside of us
and say that we can believe what we want
as long as it feels right.
The Church has been damaged
by both extremes.
So what's right?
Thinking or feeling?
Answer: both and neither.
[PAUSE]
The answer has to be Love.
Love stands at the centre
of our thinking and feeling.
Love is not an emotion.
Love is not a theory.
God is Love.
He is what it means to love.
He is perfect
and He wants us to be perfect
in the way that He intends us
to be perfect.
And this is what love is:
to love someone
means to desire their perfection,
every good thing possible
for them.
And God is their perfection.
You cannot love anyone properly
without God.
That's why in the world without God,
we simply do not love anyone
as properly
or as fully
as we should.
[PAUSE]
Listen how St Paul
begins speaking
to the Philippians.
Hear him rejoice
hear him thank and praise Almighty God
for bringing the Philippians
to the Faith
and beginning in them a good work.
He is over the moon for them
and his love for them
pours out in every word
of his letter.
It truly is a love letter.
But St Paul's love for his spiritual children
pours out of every word of every letter,
even the most difficult letters
to understand.
This love is not an emotion
nor is it a theoretical construct
nor is it some far-off ideal
that we could never really hope to reach.
Love is something that St Paul does
in his heart and in his mind
in his inward life
and in his outward dealings
with others.
Gone are the days
when his love for God
saw him persecute the Church.
In seeing the light
St Paul understands
that Jesus stands with His Church
always, in all places at all times.
And in seeing Love in action
St Paul is able
to show love for others
not by accepting them for who they are
but urging them to see themselves
in Christ standing with them,
seeing their need for perfection
not as an offence against who they are
as fallen, weak and erring individuals
but as a goal, a challenge, a hope
for transformation into their
true selves.
[PAUSE]
And St Paul loves us.
The truth of Our Lord's Resurrection
tells us (at least) three things.
St Paul still lives.
St Paul still loves.
And that it is our destiny to live and love even as we live and are loved now.
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