For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12
“The Bible is not just a tool. It is a ‘You’, not an ‘It’. To open it is to come into the presence of something living and transformative; something actively present. To abide with it is to recognize moreover, that it is what the contemporary French Catholic philosopher Jean-Luc Marion might call a ‘saturated phenomenon’, one that contains more than any one reader or any one epoch can simply and completely and definitively wring out of it. Its power to affect successive new situations and to encounter new people is apparently limitless. It is a text that keeps on giving.”
Ben Quash in Abiding: The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent, Book 2013 (London: Bloomsbury, 2012) 55.
Quash and Marion remind us that God’s Word represents a beautiful example of God’s “limitless” generosity toward us. “It is a text that keeps on giving.”
This week at Warner University in Florida, Jenni spoke in chapel on Tuesday and I spoke on Thursday offering a total of seven practices for growing our love for God and neighbor.
One of Jenni’s points was to “Soak in Scripture” (she starts at the 11:35 mark of this video and goes for 20 minutes). Marion would add that we all should do this because it’s a “saturated phenomenon”. Do you have a regular routine for mining the depths of the living and limitless Word of God? Even without any money, a person can be generous who receives and shares the riches of the Word of God with others!
To hear part two of the message that I got to share, watch the video at this link and you will see my brother, Dr. David Hoag, president of Warner University introduce me at the 7:55 mark. In his words, it was “Hoagmania” week at Warner.
What a joy it was to teach from God’s Word together this week: “the text that keeps on giving.”