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The Bible is THE one and only Life-Giving Book. But how to approach it? In this podcast, you will be given the answer to that question!
Courtesy of Jesus, we will learn how to read it! With all of its 66 books, printed in minuscule font, with no pictures, strange names, weird customs, unfamiliar geography, violent history, where do we even start? What’s the first step?
More to the point, what is our connection to this great book? My friends, the answer to that question is startlingly simple.
Hear my approach to the Bible, one that has literally revolutionized by understanding of and love for God’s Word.
It may just revolutionize yours as well.
Let’s begin by reading Matthew 17:1-3
Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.
Now, when I look at and read and meditate on the Bible, I don’t view it as primarily a historical record of events that happened to a bunch of people. Instead I view it as the stories of people to whom a series of events happened. This seems like a very subtle difference in word order, but it actually is very significant.
Consider this story of Jesus’ transfiguration. It’s almost as if Peter, James and John are but a footnote to the story. I mean, if you read the sentence carefully, Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus… not necessarily the four of them. Yet, as the ensuing verses show, Peter actually wanted to build a shelter for them, out of respect and honor.
Then, all of a sudden, Elijah and Moses disappeared.
Now, we can (as many Sunday School teachers do) make the transfiguration of Christ the center of the story. But remember, this is not a book full of events, it is a collection of stories about people to whom events happened. And this is about very real people to whom the transfiguration happened!
So, that being said, why Moses and Elijah?
It’s amazing to me when we compile a list of Biblical heroes, when you dig beneath the surface of each and every one of them, you will find very real people just like you and me. The reality is that every single person we hold up in high esteem: man or woman, boy or girl are remarkably unremarkable people. From Moses to Mary, from David to Daniel, from Noah to Paul, there is nothing inherently great about any one of them.
And that is by design, as we read in 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”
The Book of Acts goes out of its way to show that the first generation of Christian leaders were almost all uneducated men. Most of them grew up drowning worms in a lake. Fishing was all they knew. And all the disciples saw, experienced and knew was located in one tiny region of Israel. There was no world wide web back then. Just fishing nets.
Yet they changed the world.
Because they were so convicted and filled with the Holy Spirit that they were wiling to die for God’s truth of who Jesus is!
But, getting back to the mountaintop experience… even Moses and Elijah were unremarkable men before going into service for God. So, why were they chosen to come back and meet with Jesus, Peter, John and James?
Well, Moses, if you ask any Jew from any era since his time, is at the top of the food chain. With the possible exception of David, there are more Jewish boys named after Moses than anyone else. And rightly so. He is the one God bestowed His Law to atop Mount Sinai. He led the Hebrews to freedom from hundreds of years of Egyptian slavery. He met with God personally and spoke for and with Him directly. So, on that mountaintop, he represented God’s law.
Elijah is considered by some to be among the first of the prophets. He went nose-to-nose with the wicked king Ahab. He trusted God and called fire down from heaven at Mt. Carmel. He sparked a revival amongst the Jewish people to turn back to God.
So, on that mountaintop, he represented God’s prophets.
Now, the phrase “The Law and the Prophets” is mentioned several times throughout the Bible in reference to the whole of the Old Testament. So, there are many who believe that Moses and Elijah were chosen to meet with Jesus that day as representatives of the whole Old Testament, placing its “seal of approval” on Jesus. He was the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.
Another interesting fact about this moment is that Elijah never died. He, while still alive, was swept up to heaven in a chariot (2 Kings 2:11). He and Enoch are the two people mentioned in the Old Testament who never died (Genesis 5:23-24 & Hebrews 11:5). And it’s interesting that when Moses died, way down in Moab, we don’t know where his body is buried. And there’s an intriguing little verse in the book of Jude that I can’t explain, but does mention something interesting about the fate of Moses’ body:
Jude 1:9 – But even Michael, one of the mightiest of the angels, did not dare accuse the devil of blasphemy, but simply said, “The Lord rebuke you!” (This took place when Michael was arguing with the devil about Moses’ body.)
We know that Moses died (Deuteronomy 34:5), but we don’t know what came of his body. Maybe the fact that neither Moses nor Elijah have graves that we can visit is why they were chosen to meet with Jesus that day.
Now, consider Moses. Talk about a man who was born with the deck stacked against him. He was born at a time when the Pharaoh was set to kill of the Jewish race. He decreed that every newborn Hebrew boy would be drowned in the Nile River. But Moses’ mother could not bring herself to do that. Instead, she fashioned a floating basket, set her little boy sailing downstream, and due to God’s providence, he was discovered by Pharaoh’s own daughter who rescued and raised Moses under Pharaoh’s own roof. The fact that Moses merely lived to see his first birthday is miraculous.
But this does not mean that you and I cannot relate to him. He, Elijah, and all the other Biblical heroes are not unreachable Spiritual all-stars who are on a level you and I cannot even dream of achieving. They were very much like you and me.
Moses, actually, may have done something much worse than anything any of us have ever done. He actually killed someone with his own hands. Even if you can justify his killing of the Egyptian man in a court of law, the man’s blood was on Moses’ hands, and killing him was not the appropriate way to solve the problem. Even though he was interceding in the favor of a Hebrew slave who was being beat by the Egyptian, he killed the man, buried his body out of sight, and ran and hid like a fugitive. He knew he done wrong.
He hid for forty years.
It took forty years for God to humble and break Moses down so that he could lead God’s people to freedom. And when God finally did call him into service, Moses protested. He and God had an argument. Moses said, “I can’t do this! I have a speech impediment, among other things. I am not somebody to lead the people. I don’t even know your name!”
Moses also had a bad marriage. At the very least, they were separated, at the very worst they were divorced, and we don’t read a single word about his wife during the Israelites’ journey to the Promised Land. So, in Moses, we have a divorced murderer with an uncontrollable temper who even had the gall to yell at God. This is the penultimate hero of the Jewish faith.
Someone just like us.
So, while we may not ever be able to relate to an experience like Christ’s transfiguration, we can relate to the guys who were with him.
In Moses, we can relate to someone who probably needed anger management counseling, somebody who defied the will of God, a man with blood on his hands, someone who did not automatically obey God, but actually argued and fought against God’s will, a man who had to wonder for forty years through God-forsaken wastelands, and forfeited the right to lead God’s people into the Promised Land… and yet God used him greatly!
Elijah, as I mentioned, stood nose-to-nose with one of the most wicked kings in Israel’s history, King Ahab. The prophet walked in and declared, “Elijah is here,” and the king shook in his sandals, according to Scripture. He challenged Ahab to a public duel, of sorts: Elijah would call down fire from heaven in the name of the God Almighty, and Ahab and his priests would try to summon fire brought down by their idol, Baal. One prophet against over 450 of Baal’s priests. As Elijah’s opposition clamored, nothing happened. Nothing at all. Elijah then saturated his entire altar with water, revealing that outside of a work of God, nothing in front of him could catch fire. He then prayed a simple little prayer, fire poured down from heaven and obliterated the whole area! The people who were there shouted in unison, “The Lord is God!” (which, by the way is what the name Elijah means).
Cool story, but how can any of us relate to it?
But we, perhaps, can relate to what happened to Elijah the very next day. The king’s wife, the very wicked Jezebel, sent a note to Elijah. It said, very plainly and clearly, “I’m going to kill you.” And when Elijah read the note, he shook in his sandals and ran down south to a region so barren, there was only one tree in the whole area. He was so overwhelmed with clinical depression that as he sat in the shade of that lonely tree, he prayed that God would just kill him then and there.
Maybe that is something we can relate to: a man paralyzed by fear and depression.
These men were human just like us: utterly unremarkable. There was no human reason that Moses or Elijah should have been raised to the level of distinction that they enjoy here in Matthew 17. They were just people.
But if God can use these guys… then God can use us!
There is nothing in your life or mine that is so tragically wrong that we have rendered ourselves unusable by God. We are NEVER rendered unusable! So long as we are willing, as these men were, to acknowledge our failings and our faults and approach God in humility and repentance. God is a God of supreme restoration!
Consider King David. David – a man after God’s own heart – had an affair with Bathsheba, got her pregnant and subsequently had her husband killed. He didn’t accidentally stumble into any of these situations, but actively made choices to put himself into these situations. And yet he’s considered one of the greatest heroes of Jewish and Christian history.
Now, I can’t relate to David as a king, nor a poet, nor a musician, nor a slayer of giants. But, I can understand a person who makes poor choices. I can relate to a man who did wrong and had a desire to cover things up. I can see eye to eye with someone who, as we read about in Psalm 51, is confronted with their sin and breaks down before God. He sobbed and poured out his heart in genuine repentance and asked God to cleanse him.
I can relate to that.
David may have been ashamed of many of his actions. Those around him may have been as well. Jesus readily acknowledged David’s actions, but was never ashamed to identify himself as a son of David.
With God, there is redemption. There is life after even our worst sins.
The same can be said about Abraham. He didn’t know God. Yet, when God spoke to him, he faithfully obeyed and followed God’s leading out of his hometown of Ur to wherever God led. You would think that if anyone deserved God’s unrestrained blessing, it would have been Abraham. Yet, along the journey, Abraham’s father died. You would think that he would be spared this heartache along his road of obedience, but he wasn’t.
I can’t relate to hearing a message from God, promising to bless me with more children than the stars in the sky. I can’t relate to living in a pagan city and having God personally call me out in an audible voice. But I can relate to losing a loved one. I can relate to someone who did their absolute best to be obedient to God’s will and then watched the world around him seem to crumble away as he lost his home, he lost his income, he seemed to have lost it all and ended up in Egypt – where his God wasn’t even acknowledged.
It’s not fair. But it happened to Abraham.
So much seemed to go wrong along Abraham’ path toward obedience. And along that road, he lied, he manipulated, he had a child out of wedlock and then abandoned that child and his mother.
But with God, there is redemption. There is life after even our worst sins.
There is a remarkable connection between you and me and every person on every page of the Bible. We are all redeemable. Just like Moses and Elijah. God never gave up on them and He never gives up on us.