Some words from Matthew's gospel: 'Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. '
(Matthew 24:35)                                                                                                                

During the second world war Poland was invaded by the German forces and Warsaw was almost totally destroyed. However, in the levelled main street stood a skeletal structure and many devout Poles came to regard it like a shrine. It had been the Bible Society HQ and the words carved in its only remaining wall were clearly legible from the street. The words Jesus according to Matthew: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.' How poignant was that and how heartening for devout Catholic Poland.                                                                                                                                  

Today is Bible Sunday and two questions are raised: How do Jesus' words sit within the rest of the Bible? And can we trust that our Bibles really contain His words.? Although he made staggering claims for his own words, Jesus held the Old Testament in the highest regard. These sacred books were Jesus' scriptures. He revered them, lived by them, taught from them and he regarded them as God's word. But Jesus also interpreted the Scriptures. He fulfilled the

prophets and reshaped the law. This does not mean that the Old testament is redundant, far from it, but for Christians it must be read through the lens of Christ and his teaching. How about the rest of the New Testament? These books comprise insights on Jesus and his teaching, written by some of his earliest followers. We believe they're inspired by the Holy Spirit and along with the rest of the Bible, seal up in a written message all we need to know about God's will for our lives. Notice then Jesus is the centre. The Old Testament flows to him and the New Testament flows from him. The worlds of Jesus interpret the old and they inspire the new.                                                                                                                                                                

'Jesus loves me this I know, For the Bible tells me so. '

Now the Bible does so tell us, and it is very well for children to be taught as much, but if we believe at all in the love of Christ, it is not just because the Bible tells me so, it is because the Bible's assurance to that effect has been tested in experience and found in one way or another to be trustworthy. Had it not stood the test of experience, we should scarcely be prepared to believe it, in the Bible or not. We know in practice it usually does little good to attempt to prove things on the authority of the Bible alone. Unless the person to whom we speak already accepts the Bible unquestioningly. Those of us who have had occasion to discuss matters of faith with some intelligent but sceptical person who doubts the goodness ‑ or even the existence ‑ of God, or who cannot bring himself to believe in some cardinal doctrine of the Christian religion, will understand the point perfectly. It is no good to say: 'But man, you must believe it! It says so in the Bible!' No doubt he knows it says so in the Bible ‑ and still does not believe it.

The authority of the Bible, whatever we may think of it, will convince no one who does not grant it such authority. And it is because biblical authority has come to suggest to so many people the power of the Bible to compel conviction, it's right to be believed unquestionably ‑ and perhaps also our own right to prove things by appeal to the Bible ‑ that we find ourselves embarrassed by the term.

During the European Protestant Reformation there developed a foundational principle known as Sola Scriptura, meaning by scripture alone and is still a formal principle in Protestantism today. Very basically it means that Scripture interprets Scripture and is sufficient of itself to be the final authority of Christian doctrine.

By contrast, the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and Oriental Orthodox churches teach that the Scriptures are an important but not exclusive part of the Sacred Tradition from which the churches derive their doctrines. These bodies also believe that the church has authority over the scriptures because it actively selected which books were to be in the biblical canon, whereas Protestants believe the Church passively recognised and received the books that were already considered canonical.

However, one of the dangers of Sola Scriptura is a development known as Fundamentalism which is a belief that God is revealed in a unique, authoritative and ambiguous way through the Bible and this can lead to essentially worship of the Bible itself.

Richard Hooker, that great Elizabethan divine, stressed for Anglicans the via media, the middle road, when he put biblical emphases on reason, tolerance and inclusiveness.

Some of the problems within the Church today is that a sizable minority of the Anglican Communion have drifted from the Hooker principles and are giving authority to the Bible which it does not merit. It is not a library of books of instruction. It is a book of authority, not in the sense of that which guarantees its truth or constrains people to believe in its teachings and obey them; rather, let us speak of the Bible as the authoritative source of which Christians must appeal in attempting to determine the nature and content of the Christian faith as originally held, in order that we may evaluate our own beliefs and actions in the light of it. The question is not now primarily one of demonstrating the correctness of the biblical teaching, or of determining what it is that constrains people to believe in the Christian faith: rather, it is a question of what the Christian faith was, and, by extension is. Viewed in this light, we may say that the Bible is not only the supreme authority in matters of faith and practice; it is the only sure and primary one.

The message of the Bible are the utterances of the mind of God, revealed to human beings. Was it not Gregory the Great who said 'The heart of God is in the words of God'. The Bible has a spiritual power and a moral power, properly understood. In it God speaks through human minds and brains, which have the various biases and outlooks of their times and places, and make the errors and accept the varied world views of their periods and cultures.

Understanding, through study and prayer, of God's word enables us to do God's work; by the use of Holy Scripture the believer is continually being instructed more fully in holy living. So the gift of God's word has as its aim the complete equipment of the believer, in life and service, together with the inspiration from God to take up and shoulder the task, gladly and willingly. To quote some words from the Lambet Fathers in the 1960's: 'All should read the Bible as nourishment for the soul, with prayer that the Holy Spirit may stir mind and heart and will, in response to it.

The writers of today's gospel were living in changing times. In their own generation they saw Jerusalem destroyed and realised this was the beginning of the passing of heaven and earth, just as Jesus had said. The process may take longer than any of us think, but the words of Jesus stand in the middle ~ of the Bible and in the midst of a changing, crumbling ' cosmos. ~th majesty and grace they interpret both j scripture and the world. Read them! Pay attention to them! Let the comfort you when you are disturbed, and disturb you when you are comfortable/                                                                                                

Mark Twain said, "It's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand that cause me trouble, but the parts that I do."