Nothing on earth makes the Bible come alive

One of the cringiest expressions in evangelicalism today is “it makes the Bible come alive.”

The “it” is often a dramatization of Biblical stories on film, most recently the streaming series The Chosen.

It’s also been said of trips to the Holy Land, where visitors walk where Jesus and other Biblical figures walked.

Why is it cringy? Because it’s a low view of Scripture.

Those who say it probably don’t mean it to be that, but it’s consistent with other evangelical trends that call into question our trust of the word of God.

Anything but the Bible

Many churches that include the inerrancy of the Bible in their online doctrinal statements will do almost anything but exposit the Scriptures in their services. Instead, you get TED talks, emotional manipulation, gushing self-affirmation, and entertainment.

Some of the most popular books among evangelicals over the past couple of decades are Jesus Calling and its offshoots, in which the late Sarah Young wrote down the thoughts of her imagination and blasphemously called it Jesus. (See this article for how we can know that.) In the introduction to the original, Young wrote, “I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible, but I yearned for more.”

So many of us yearn for more. For so many of us, the words printed on paper are not enough. We don’t want to just read Scripture; we want to experience it. “Experience” is one of the most popular buzzwords in a modern church that has gotten away from the straight preaching of Bible passages, because that doesn’t stimulate our senses enough.

What’s wrong with wanting more?

The problem with wanting more than the written text of Scripture is that Scripture explicitly says it’s enough. Which means God explicitly says it’s enough.

2 Timothy 3:17 says Scripture makes us “complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” There is nothing we need that the Bible doesn’t provide. God wants us to have the utmost trust in the text alone. It’s no coincidence that God revealed the entirety of His word during an era that didn’t have mass media, when the only way His word could be known was to open a scroll and read it, or hear it read. That’s how He wants it. That’s His chosen method.

Faith comes by hearing the word of God, Paul wrote in Romans 10:17. Not feeling. Not watching. Not experiencing. Hearing.

Therefore, there is never any need to dramatize the Bible. All that does is present a distortion that is inevitably unfaithful because it adds to and takes away from the text.

There is also never any need to travel to a certain place to be where Jesus was. Jesus is wherever you are, because you are the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. God abandoned the temple because now, you are the temple. Therefore, we never need to go anywhere to experience God.

What all of this — our craving for dramas, experiences, and fiction — shows is that, even if we won’t admit it, we don’t trust the word of God.

The Bible IS alive

Probably the most pertinent Scripture is the verse this website is named after: “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

The word of God is living. It’s alive. It’s not just ink on paper, or pixels on a screen. We don’t have to make the Bible come alive, because it already is.

The word of God is powerful. The Greek word there is energes. Scripture has energy. It is active. It is working.

Look at the verbs in that passage: Scripture pierces. Scripture divides. Scripture discerns. More than any film. More than any location. More than any experience.

The more sure word

Scripture is also more trustworthy than any experience, and I mean any.

Peter was there when Jesus was transfigured. He saw the otherwordly brilliance of His glory. He heard the voice of God Himself. There is no experience on earth in all of history that can top that. Peter understandably didn’t want to leave.

He wrote about that experience in 2 Peter 1:16-18. But what he says next is shocking: We have a word now that is “more sure” than even that unforgettable experience. Verse 20 tells us the more sure word is Scripture.

Scripture is more alive, more powerful, and more trustworthy than anything we will ever experience on this earth. Thus says the Lord.

Peter also wrote that we are “born again … through the word of God which lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 1:23). We don’t make the living word come alive. It makes us come alive!