The Teaching Life. Week 6.

Three weeks into my Scripture Class for Sophomores at Purcell Marian High School, I decided it was time to remind them why kids their age (and our age) should pray with the Bible.

I gave them 8 reasons.

Reason #1: Great leaders find the Bible to be an important source of inspiration. Martin Luther King, using the language of the Bible, moved a nation to become its better self. Abraham Lincoln read the Scriptures avidly and peppered his presidential speeches with biblical imagery and insights. Closer to our day, Steph Curry, basketball’s premiere 3-point shooter, feels strongly enough about the Bible that he has a verse from 1 Cor 13 tattooed on his shooting wrist. And Coco Gauff, a top women’s tennis player, recently disclosed at a USOPEN press conference that she reads the Bible every day. So people of consequence and distinction find the pages of Scripture to be meaningful. Perhaps it makes sense for us to do so, as well.

Reason #2: The words of the Bible have the power to give birth to the human soul. James, the first Bishop of Jerusalem, writes: The Father “willed to give us birth by the Word of truth . . .[so] in humility, receive the Word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls” (James 1:18, 21). What does James mean by the Word of truth? He means the inspired texts of the Old Testament, Jesus’ sayings, collected in the New, and the inspired teachings of the apostles. These words of truth, deeply received and retained in the memory, are planted in the soul where they have the power to give it birth. To give it life.

Reason #3: But how can a Word give birth? We are not talking about a physical birth, but a spiritual birth. As Jesus explains to Nicodemus: physical birth arises through a natural process, but a spiritual birth arises through a spiritual process. “What is born of flesh is flesh,” he says, “what is born of spirit is spirit” (Jn 3:6). But what could generate a spiritual birth? A Word that is Spirit; a Word capable of imparting the Spirit; which is to say, Jesus’ Word. As Jesus says: my words are Spirit (See Jn. 6:63).

Reason #4: Well, what effect does a Word that is Spirit have upon the human heart? Jesus tells us himself. The one who holds the Word of Spirit in the heart becomes a tabernacle of the Trinity, a dwelling where the Father, Son and Holy Spirit abide. Jesus explains: “If someone loves me, he will keep my Word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn. 14:23). In other words, the Father loves those who hold the Word of truth in their heart; to such a heart, He comes in love, with the Son, to dwell. And, if the Father and the Son are present, so too must the Holy Spirit be present. God is fire (Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29) which means that a Word that brings the presence of God into the soul is a transmitter of fire. The one who bears the Word in the heart is another Elijah, calling down the fire of God from heaven; this fire descends to draw the human heart into itself, to consume it, to transform it into God’s likeness. To cause it to become one with divine fire.

Reason #5: Lest we think this language is exaggerated, Jesus makes a similar point even more explicitly to the Samaritan woman in John 4. She has heard him speak of living water; she has heard him make plain his knowledge of her heart and her past; she knows he is some kind of prophet. Now she asks where is the appropriate place to worship God: is it in Jerusalem or is it on Samaria’s holy mountain? Jesus says, in effect, worship of the Father arises not from a place, but from a heart turned toward God in Spirit and truth (Jn. 4:23-24). And how does one love God in Spirit and truth if not by holding, in the heart, the presence of the Father and the Son in the Spirit? This tabernacling of God is precisely the fruit of holding the Word in the heart; it is the call to be, in Mary’s footsteps, a bearer of God, another theotokos, by holding the Word in the heart.

Reason #7: All of this sounds awfully lofty, until one realizes that it is precisely what St. Paul articulated as the vocation of every Christian: to be a Temple of God, a place where the Holy Spirit dwells. “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Holy Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16).

Reason #8: This great call, this lofty vocation, is the fruit of the Word of truth giving rise to divine life in the human soul. It is not beyond our reach. It is not a truth of heaven, as opposed to earth. It is not a destiny which one must pursue across the sea. It is the sound of a gentle breeze that God whispers into the ears of our heart, in the most intimate of exchanges. It is a Word he wishes to animate our speech and action.

Moses said this very thing, over three thousand years ago.

“This command which I am giving you today is not too wondrous or remote for you. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who will go up to the heavens to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may do it?” Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross the sea to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may do it?” No, it is something exceedingly close to you; it is in your mouth, and in your heart, and in your hands to do it” (Deut. 30: 11-14).

And, thus, the Bible – this Word of Spirit and Truth – emerges as a text most worthy of our attention. It is a furnace of divine fire with the capacity to draw each one of us into its flame. Happy is the one who draws near it.