Gospel Reading Plan - Day 7

Day 7 Readings:
Matthew 7
Luke 7
John 7

St. Augustine, perhaps one of the most influential early Christian leaders of the first 400 years of the church, once wrote, "Scripture teaches nothing but charity, nor condemns anything except cupidity, and in this way shapes the minds of men." These words are found in his book called On Christian Doctrine. This book is one of our earliest pieces we have describing how followers of Jesus ought to read the Bible. (Yes, this was even an issue way back then.) What he captures in this short statement is something I believe to be central to our reading of the Bible and today's readings in particular.  

Augustine will emphasize over and over again throughout this work that the reading of the Bible should produce charity. By charity, he did not simply mean giving to a non-profit organization you believe in from time to time. Charity is the early way of speaking about Love. For Augustine, this was a particular kind of love. It is the devoted, rightly-ordered, sacrificial love of humanity toward God and their love toward one another for the sake of God. Let me say it this way, "If you are reading the bible and it doesn't produce the fruit of Love in your life for God and others for the sake of God, then you are reading the Bible wrong."  

By cupidity, Augustine is describing a life driven by all the wrong kinds of passion. It is a life when our love is thrown off course and we love all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons. The Bible is a re-ordering and re-orienting of our lives back to God. Any reading of the bible that neglects this re-orientation is a misreading of the Bible.

Where might Augustine get such confidence to speak with such clarity about the right way of reading the bible? Today's passages might be a good place to start. Throughout today's passages you are encountering a similar theme. The validity of our lives, our actions, and our identities in Christ isn't determined by what we say, how much we know, or how often we do the right "churchly" stuff. It is determined by the fruit our lives produce. Those that give themselves to a journey with Jesus should have that journey evidenced in the sweet tasting fruit of their lives. For Augustine, and for many Christian writers, the fruit is very clearly a life of rightly-ordered, God-enjoying, neighbor-respecting love. In Luke 7, Jesus demonstrates this himself. Driven by the mission of Love, every where he went lives were changed, people were restored, lives were healed. (The power of Love is healing). When asked by John the Baptist's followers if Jesus was in fact the One they had been waiting for, He simply says, "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor." (Luke 7:22) Jesus simply says, "You've seen the fruit of Love for yourself. What do you think?"

No matter how new one is to the Scriptures, no matter what tradition one finds oneself in reading the bible, no matter how well or poorly one understands the complexities of Scripture, if the fruit of love isn't being produced, "you are reading the bible wrong." Jesus might end by saying from Matthew 7, "everyone that hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is is like a wise man who built his house on a rock." (Matthew 7:24)