Undoing The Biblical Riddle

What role does the Bible play in your everyday life? Do you spend time each morning and evening reading the lessons appointed for the Daily Office? Do you read a daily devotional? Do you participate in an ongoing Bible study or an intensive class like EfM or Disciple? Are you a preacher who spends time each day looking ahead at Sunday's readings? Are you the sort of person who starts at the beginning and reads the bible from front to back, starting over again each time you make it through Revelation?

My relationship with God, my faith in God's abundance, my sense of calling, my role as pastor and preacher and parent and spouse are all helped when I spend some time each day reading the Bible. I use the Daily Office plus the Sunday lectionary as well as whatever lessons are appointed for whatever weekday I am preaching to guide my daily encounter with scripture. I teach Bible studies on Mondays and Tuesdays as well as Sunday school classes and occasional Wednesday night programs, and for each one I spend some time reading the Bible. But I don't find myself turning to the pages of scripture for advice on daily challenges or professional decisions or parenting needs.

Instead of thinking of the Bible as an encyclopedia for godly living to which I might turn when I need direction, I think of it as a resource that shapes my life each day. I suppose I could turn to Ephesians 5 when worried about a marital or parental challenge or to one of Paul's letters when troubled by conflict in the congregation, but I'd rather trust that the time I've spent every day reading whatever is appointed will prepare me for whatever situation comes up.

On Sunday, the Pharisees and Jesus engage in a sort of scriptural duel that I find strange (Matt. 22:34-46). A lawyer asks Jesus to quote the greatest commandment, and Jesus gives him two answers: love God and love your neighbor. Then, Jesus gives them a riddle of his own: if the Christ is David's son, how can David call him Lord? Matthew tells us, "No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions," but in a way that feels like a non sequitur. I want to interrupt Matthew and ask, "You're telling me that after all the conflict between Jesus and the religious elites over authority and identity they hear Jesus ask that question and decide to stop pestering him? Is that really the pinnacle of biblical unanswerability? That's the riddle that has them stumped? What about God commanding his people to commit genocide? What about the prophet Isaiah being told to preach so that the people won't listen? What about God flooding the whole earth and killing everyone? Aren't there better riddles that a silly question about a psalm in which the psalmist refers to the anointed one as lord?"

And maybe that's the point. Maybe the decision not to ask Jesus any more questions was reached not because Jesus had truly stumped them but because his question had revealed the fruitlessness of the Pharisees' pursuit. The Bible isn't something to be solved. It isn't a question to be answered. It isn't a riddle to be unraveled. It is a record of God's relationship with creation to which we submit our lives. Maybe Jesus' silly question about David and Lord shows us how we misuse scripture. We pretend that it will answer life's questions. We want it to guide our next move. Actually, it will do those things. It will give us direction but only if we immerse ourselves in it, submit ourselves to its authority, ask the Holy Spirit to use scripture to shape our life, and trust that God will lead us into truth.