Heirs, Participants, and Stewards

The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

Psalm 119:72; 2 Timothy 1:13–14

Two years ago, I had the privilege of spending a hot summer day wandering the cobblestone streets of Zurich, Switzerland, sampling chocolate and admiring the architecture and lake view. Perhaps my favorite part of the day, though, was touring Grossmünster, the nearly 1,000-year-old church where Protestant Reformer Ulrich Zwingli once preached. Inside Grossmünster is a small collection of Reformation-era Bibles, including the first complete Bible published in German. As I wandered this exhibit and looked at these historic books, I couldn’t help but feel gratitude. Because of the work of countless men and women (known and unknown), you and I can read the Bible in our own language. One of the great gifts of the Protestant Reformation is this: that God’s Word was translated into the common language so that lay people could read it for themselves. No longer were people reliant on the Catholic Church to mediate and interpret God’s Word; no longer was Scripture a mystery to be handled by a select few.

This week, we celebrate the 509^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. While there are countless lessons and applications to draw from this monumental moment in church history, here are three things I’ve been reflecting on:

Treasure God’s Word

In a world where each of us has access to thousands of Bible translations in thousands of languages with the click of a button, it’s easy to take God’s Word for granted. Reading and studying it can often feel like more of a chore than a delight. But when I read church history, I’m met with stories of men and women who so rightly treasured God’s Word that they were willing to give their lives for it. Their stories challenge and convict me, reminding me of what a gift it is to have direct, unmediated access to the words of the living God.

Trust God’s Word

It’s popular right now, especially amongst those who are deconstructing, for people to doubt the trustworthiness of our English Bibles. Incorrect and incomplete information abounds regarding the accuracy of our translations and differences between texts. But here’s the real truth: the Bible that you and I read today exists because faithful men and women guarded the good deposit that was entrusted to them, with the help of the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 1:13-14). During the time of the Reformation, this meant “returning to the sources,” translating directly from Greek and Hebrew into the common language, so that their translations would be as accurate as possible. The story of how our English Bibles came to be is the story of the careful copying and translating of texts by individuals across millennia who were committed to preserving the Word of God so that you and I might read it. You can be confident that the Bible you hold is the very Word of God.¹

Steward God’s Word

One of my seminary professors, Dr. Jack Collins, used to say that we as believers are heirs, participants, and stewards of the Biblical story. We were not the first audience of the story, but we have inherited it from believers who have come before us. We are participants in the story, as we live in the time between Jude and Revelation 21. And we are stewards of the story, called to pass it on to the next generation, to guard the deposit that was entrusted to us. My trip to Zurich left me with immense gratitude. But it also presented a warning. Today the churches where the great Reformers once preached the Gospel of grace now promote false teaching and doctrine. They serve as a reminder to us of the importance of stewarding Scripture for the next generation, of guarding the deposit entrusted to us. We have been given an immeasurable gift—let us treasure it rightly and teach our children to do the same.

 

Author's Note:

^[1] For those interested in learning more about the transmission of the Bible, I recommend The Heresy of Orthodoxy, by Andreas Köstenberger and Michael Kruger, especially Part 3.