Stewardship of the Bible
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Today
is week 2 of our annual stewardship emphasis. Last week our worship
service emphasized the gathering portion of our service – the gifts
that God has given us through our relationships. We gather in worship
to strengthen our relationship with him and to find our purpose. As
Pastor Jack was gathered into the body of Christ, he found his purpose
in being a pastor. His stewardship challenge for us was for each of
us to commit our lives to Jesus, wherever that may take us.
This week our emphasis
is on the hearing portion of our service, where we listen to the
Bible. For it is in hearing and reading the Bible that we learn of
God’s great love for us and how we can respond to that love. Our
stewardship challenge this morning is for us to explore the Bible,
make it a part of our daily lives and to discover what it has to say
to us on a personal level.
In his preface to the
OT, Martin Luther had this to say about the Bible. “…Think of the
Scriptures as the loftiest and noblest of holy things, as the richest
of mines which can never be sufficiently explored, in order that you
may find that divine wisdom which God here lays before you...”
Legend has it that there
is a hidden gold mine located in the Superstition Mountains, just east
of Phoenix, AZ. In 1846, a German man by the name of Jacob Waltz
immigrated to the United States. After he became a citizen, he and
his buddy Jacob Weisner, moved to Arizona to become prospectors.
Sometime between 1872 and 1878, as they were hiking in the mountains,
they found gold in an eighteen inch wide vein of quartz. They mined
some of this gold ore and continued to work on extracting the gold
over the next several weeks. One day, while working on the mine,
Weisner was killed by some Apache Indians. Jacob Waltz was so upset
by his death, that he concealed the entrance to the mine and only took
enough of the ore to live on. He moved to Phoenix and lived in a
small adobe house on a farm near the Salt River.
Jacob earned his living
by delivering fresh eggs to a local bakery owned by woman named Julia
Thomas. As their friendship grew, Jacob never told her about the mine
and he never returned. One day in 1891, Jacob discovered that Julia
was deep in debt and in danger of losing her bakery. This caused him
to reveal his secret. She could hardly believe it when he showed her
the piece of gold ore that he had, which was worth over $1500 (which
was a lot of money at that time). He offered to help her pay off her
debts by returning to the mine in the spring of 1892. Plans were made
for her, her son, and Jacob to return to the mine. Unfortunately, not
long after that, the Salt River flooded and Jacob caught pneumonia
from the flooding and died in October of 1891. Shortly before he
died, he told them that there was a small amount of gold hidden
beneath his fireplace with a map to the location of the hidden mine.
Not only did Julia and her son never find the mine, but the small
amount of gold that was left to them was stolen.
There are some
interesting things we can learn about the Bible from this tragic story
about the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine. At some point, each one of us is
like the two Jacobs who happened to stumble upon a gold mine. Each of
us have had the Holy Scriptures placed in our hands and we’ve been
given the opportunity to read them and explore them and to get a taste
of what this richest of mines possesses. Whether its here at church,
or in Sunday school, or during worship, or maybe from our parents or
grandparents – we’ve all found the mine, we know where it is. We all
know about the Bible.
And like the two Jacobs,
we now have some options because we know about the Bible and have
access to it. Like the two men were in the beginning, we can
earnestly dig into it, spending weeks getting to know it, eagerly
trying to find out what is inside. There are lots of ways to explore
this mine of riches. You can open it up and just start reading, or
use a daily reading plan. You can come to a Bible study. You can
attend Sunday School. You can talk about it with fellow members of
the Body of Christ. The Bible is indeed an exciting thing to explore
and people who say that it is boring or hard to understand are like
the same people who criticize golf. From the outside, golf looks like
a boring, stupid sport, but once you start playing it, most people
realize that it is a lot more fun than it looks like. The Bible is
the same way – the people who criticize it or say its not for them are
the people who have never really given it a fair shot. The Bible is
exciting and interesting and filled with great stories, marvelous
wisdom, and oh yeah, it’s the best place to learn more about our Lord,
Jesus.
Unfortunately, there are
some people who take the approach of Jacob Waltz, who after a bad
experience or personal tragedy never returned to the mine, even though
he knew exactly where it was. He took just enough from the mine to
live on and never went back until he really needed it for something
important. A lot of people have the same approach to the Bible. For
whatever reason, they put it on the shelf and never open it again,
even though they know exactly where it is. They think they have taken
just enough to live on – they know who Jesus is, they hear the Bible
being read during worship on Sunday – and they think to themselves –
that’s all I really need. And there is some truth to that. Knowing
Jesus is really all you need to get into heaven, it is enough to just
get by on, so to speak. But God wants so much more for you than that
that he puts the richest treasure mine right at your finger tips.
Jacob Waltz thought that he had taken just enough to live on, that was
until someone he knew was in need. Yet because he had neglected his
mine for so long, he was not able to return – he wasn’t able to
receive the full benefit from it. He waited too long. It really
wasn’t enough to live on. And that’s the same way with the Bible. If
you’re not visiting it on regular basis, if you’re not constantly
exploring its riches, when you need it the most, it may not be of any
use to you because you won’t know where to go. This mine, through
neglect and disuse, becomes worthless unless you know what’s inside of
it, unless you know the stories it contains, unless you know the
mysteries it reveals, unless you know the person it leads us to. This
marvelous gift of God, this richest of mines, is utterly useless to
you unless you open it up and explore it.
Our first lesson
contains some weird instructions that some orthodox Jews take very
literally. It says that you are to keep the words of the Lord, the
Scriptures in your heart. You are to recite them to your children,
talking about them when you are at home, when you are away, when you
lie down and when you rise – that’s a lot of talking about the Bible.
It also says that you are bind these words to your hand and fix them
onto your forehead. You’re even supposed to write them on the
doorposts of your house and on your gates. The point that God is
trying to make here is the Bible should be a regular and important
part of your daily life. It isn’t just something for Sunday
mornings. Think about it – what would your life be like if you only
ate once a week? You would be severely malnourished and it wouldn’t
be too long before you starved yourself to death. God Word is what
nourishes us. Its what gives us strength and purpose. As Jesus &
Deuteronomy say, we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that
comes from the mouth of the Lord. My hunch is that once you taste a
little bit of the Bible, you will find out exactly what Ezekiel
discovered. The story says that he ate the scroll and it tasted as
sweet as honey. The Bible tastes sweet as honey, yet it nourishes
us. You’ll be hardpressed to find another daily diet that is both
sweet and nourishing.
In 1957, Bob Corbin
heard the story of the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine and moved to Arizona to
search for it. His day job was serving as a county attorney,
eventually working his way up and serving as the Arizona attorney
general from 1979-1991. His passion was searching the lost gold
mine. He has spent over 30 years looking for the lost treasure mine
and most treasure seekers would have given up long ago. But not Bob.
James Deem wrote an article about his experiences saying that what Bob
enjoys most is the search. And what’s more, he has developed a hobby
that builds on his skills as a lawyer. In both instances, he sifts
through evidence, looking for facts, checking for discrepancies. He
follows up on hunches and asks tough questions. In his vocation and
his avocation, he relies on his inquisitive mind, as all successful
treasure trackers should.
Being a good steward of
the Bible means giving the Bible your best shot, using all of your
gifts, skills, and passions to explore it. Enjoy the search and make
it a part of your daily life. Come to it with an inquisitive mind.
There is treasure there. You won’t walk away empty handed.
Amen.
