You look at a table in front of you. You notice a stack of books with a folded note lying on top. Your name is on the note, so naturally, you inquisitively pick it up, quickly unfold it, and read, “To which of these books do you owe your allegiance?” With piqued curiosity, you pull up a chair and sit down to the task. Topping the stack is Dante’s Divine Comedy, followed by the Qur’an, Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Marx’s Communist Manifesto, Dostoevsky’s War and Peace, Orwell’s 1984, and finally, the Bible. You quickly select the Bible and look around to see if you are being watched. As you look behind your back, a huge Bible appears by the fireplace. You are impressed by its size when the glorified Christ appears and lights up the room with brilliant goodness. With the impressive Bible, now, swallowed up in the glory of the Son, a voice booms from heaven saying, “This I my Beloved Son; highest allegiance to Him”. Jesus will not fit into a book. He is infinitely more than any amount words written to reveal Him. He is the unlimited King of Creation. The Bible gladly stands next to John the Baptist testifyng, “I am not the one. The one I point to is so much greater than me I am not worthy to do the servant’s work of tending to His sandals.” Jesus was not made for the Bible. The Bible was created to reveal Him, and properly interpreted, what it says is accurate, but never be fooled, it is not compete. I am not trying to bash the Bible, I am exalting Christ. He is far too small in modern Western Christianity. Unwittingly, some well-meaning believers are giving a higher loyalty to the Bible than to Jesus, Himself. Thinking Christ must fit into the Bible, which let’s be honest, really means into our limited understanding of the limited revelation of Him contained in the Bible, is ridiculous. He is the eternal, living Word who predates and outranks the book. He is not contained in a Bible, every copy ever printed, not to mention the entire cosmos, exists in Him. Until you know Him as more than a biblical doctrine or mental concept constructed from a compilation of words, you do not really know HIM. The more you know Him, the more you recognized bibliolatry when you encounter it. No matter how well-intended, unintentional it is a subtle, respectable form of idolatry. Open your mind and heart wide to the unlimited person of Christ.
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