Sword

I’ve lived my whole life among “Bible people.”

The Church of Christ, my branch of the Christian family tree, takes pride in being a “Bible-believing church.” Church of Christ lifers over the age of 40 remember when we called ourselves the “People of the Book.” Anyone who grows up in the Church of Christ knows that something isn’t true unless it has a “book, chapter, and verse” to back it up.

The Church of Christ congregation where I grew up turned Bible study into a sport. Every year, we fielded teams at a “Bible bowl.” At the “Bible bowl,” teams from Church of Christ congregations all over the state went head-to-head to test their mastery of Bible trivia. Our congregation placed or won every year. We had the trophies in our church lobby to prove it.

In the Church of Christ, one of our favorite Bible verses is Hebrews 4:12:

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

We liked the “sword” metaphor.

Whenever my dad, a preacher, left the house to meet with a non-Christian, he made a show of picking up his Bible as he left.

“I’ve got to take my sword,” he rasped, doing a Clint Eastwood squint.

Maybe you get the picture. In the Church of Christ, we thought of the Bible as something to use in battle. In competition. It was a “sword,” a weapon.

My Church of Christ teachers taught me to use the Bible with deadly skill. We were to use the Bible to cut the enemies of God to pieces. By the time I was 18 years old, I had visions of biblical grandeur. With the Bible knowledge of a preacher’s kid and three-time Bible bowl champion, I would cut through the enemies of God like a warm knife through butter.

But then life happened. Rather than using the Bible to cut God’s enemies to pieces, I felt like I was the one who got cut up instead.

All these years later, I have the scars to prove it.

As a 45-year old man whose relationship with the Bible grew beyond trivia, I wonder: Did we in the Church of Christ miss the meaning of the “sword” metaphor in Hebrews 4:12?

What if the “sword” of Hebrews 4:12 is not for me to use against others?

What if it is what God uses on me? To cut through all of my bullshit?

What if Hebrews 4:12 does not arm me for combat, but disarms me so that my ego can’t get in the way of what God has to give me?

Look again at what Hebrews 4:12 really says: The sword is there to “judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Whose heart?

My heart.

I was eager to turn a sword on people who would not “get with the program.” But life showed me that I’m the one who can’t get with the program. God turns his sharp sword on me to show me the truth.

Why? Because only when I know the truth can I be truly free (Gospel of John 8:32). Apparently that is what God wants for me: Freedom.

When life beat me down, I finally learned how to let the Bible have its way with me rather than try to have my way with it. I learned how to be with the Bible: Humble, meek, searching, vulnerable. I don’t come to the Bible like its an arsenal where I can strap on weapons to go kill in the name of God. I come to the Bible prone, like a patient ready to go under the surgeon’s knife that I might live.

God does not give the Bible so that I can use it against the hearts of others; he uses the Bible to “judge the thoughts and intentions of [my] heart.”

If I want the love of God to grow in me and heal me, I need to be ready and willing for him to first use his sword on me.

Because if I want to share God with anyone else in this world, I must come to know that it is not “plausible arguments” (Colossians 2:4) that win them over to God. “Book, chapter, and verse” are dead (or deadly) letters. They need amazing love to bring them to life so that people will want to turn aside from the way they are going to get a closer look.

That love of God has freedom and space to move through a life that is cut free and set in order by the double-edged sword of God.

The “sword” of Hebrews 4:12 is not for someone else; it is for me.

Do you trust God enough to let it be for you, too?

Grace and peace.