Why would an ancient book matter in a world of AI, iphones, anxiety, and lowkey main character energy?
How could a book about animal sacrifices, harvest festivals, purity laws, and firstborn sons be even a little bit relevant today?
Maybe the problem isn’t that the Bible is outdated. Maybe the problem is that we are reading ancient words with modern assumptions.
Maybe the problem is not the Bible at all. It’s us.
Sounds like a bad breakup line: “It’s not you it’s me.” I’m sure I heard that line myself a few times back in the day. But y’all. . . we can’t afford to break up with the Bible. It really is God’s Word to us and man. . . it’s life and breath to our lungs.
Let me show you guys a few pictures:
What do you see in this one?
A woman’s face? or the word “Liar?”
They’re both there.
What about this one? What animal do you see?
It’s a dalmatian. He is sniffing the ground with his hind legs closest tot he camera.
In case you can’t find him:
What about these trees? Do you see any animals? If so how many?
There are probably more than you thought. The longer you look at it, the more you see.
Maybe the Bible isn’t irrelevant. Maybe what we need and long for is there – hidden in plain sight. Maybe we just need a different perspective or to spend more time examining it?
Turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Timothy 3:14-17. Paul, an early church leader is writing to encourage his friend Timothy.
2 Timothy 3:14-17
14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Notice here that Paul isn’t concerned about the Bible being current; He doesn’t defend its’ relevance. He declares its’ source (origin?).
The Bible’s relevance stands on its source, God.
It doesn’t rise or fall on cultural approval or how well it speaks to our modern issues.
Paul tells us here that, All Scripture is “God-breathed” — and if it comes from God, it will never stop speaking.”
The Bible will always have something to say, and it will always be, as the passage says, “useful.” The Bible is good for us.
However, not everyone shares this belief. A guy named AJ Jacobs thought the Bible was outdated and wrote a book called “The Year of Living Biblically.” I would NOT recommend the book, but in it he describes a year where he mockingly tried to follow every command in the Bible as literally as possible. He grew a beard. Avoided mixed fabrics. He actually carried rocks in his pocket in case he needed to stone someone for adultery — with tiny pebbles, of course.
But when you read the Bible without context, it can feel exactly that ridiculous. Some of it just doesn’t make sense.
But here’s the mistake: Rules without relationship almost always feel ridiculous. We can’t just pull the Bible’s commands out of the relationship they were meant to live inside.
Yes! It’s true. We have different problems than an Old Testament, or even a first century culture. Technology and current issues have evolved, but think about it: Some things haven’t changed at all. Human nature for example. We still wrestle with insecurity, and anger, our identity, with pride, shame, anxiety, selfish desire, and fear of death. No! the Bible doesn’t address every issue head on, but it DOES address our timeless realities. It’s still relevant in describing who we are, what went wrong in the world, and how we can be rescued from ourselves. It may not always trend, but it always tells the truth. With the biggest questions, the ones that really matter . . . the Bible still hits. (That’s what my daughter would say – of course she’d also tell me not to say the word “hits” like that. ‘cause I’m too old.) But you get the point, right?!
If it comes from God, then The Bible doesn’t need to keep up with modern times. It speaks into them.
Now. . . here’s the tension though. We can know and believe that the Bible is relevant to us, even to every part of our lives and we can still find ourselves drifting. Let me show you what this looks like.
1600 years ago, there was a young man. He was brilliant, but he was also bored by what he called the “simple faith” of his mother. As he grew older and stepped away from his mother, he chose a life of prestige and worked in a high-level teaching position. He kept himself engaged through a series of romantic flings. He considered himself a a modern intelligent man who was living for pleasure. . . living to satisfy his own selfish desires. He wasn’t evil, but he had definitely drifted from the faith he had known as a child.
One day, he was sitting in a friend’s garden, and as he reflected on his life, he felt the crushing weight of his own emptiness. The intense internal conflict over his inability to break free from his passions and worldly ambitions was overwhelming. He knew that he had been doing things his own way, but that it just wasn’t working. Then, without any real understanding why, he heard a child from over the fence chanting “Pick it up and read! Pick it up and read!” So. . . he reached for a copy of the book of Romans and read from chapter 13, vs 13-14 “Not in carousing and drunkenness, (He was familiar with that.) not in sexual immorality and debauchery. . . (Yes, he knew that too.) rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.”
In that moment, the Bible confronted him. God spoke and he realized that he had been trying to “clothe” his soul with things that would never fit. Immediately, he stopped drifting. Later in describing the moment, he said, “all the gloom of doubt vanished away” and that his heart was flooded with a “light of security.” He knew in that moment that his struggle with sin could only be resolved by God’s grace, by Jesus. That day, he decided to abandon his promising career and his pursuit of women. He dedicated his life to Christ and today is considered one of the most influential theologians in history. You may know him as Saint Augustine.
When everything else fails, the Bible still speaks.
You can ignore the Bible.
You can mock it believing it’s too “simple.”
You can try to outrun it or do things your own way,
But when you’re get to the end of yourself, it’s amazing how clearly it speaks.
The Bible met him in the moment he needed it most.
Not as a rulebook.
Not as a debate point.
but as a voice.
The truth is: For you and I, we can’t actually expect the Bible to answer all our modern questions directly. It doesn’t have to tell us how to vote, how to navigate social media, or whether we should watch that TV series everyone is talking about. We DO however need it to speak into those things. We need the Bible to give us a foundation for understanding and navigating these areas that don’t seem so clear. These are the places where a solid Biblical worldview can guide us and influence us as we discern them.
Like Augustine, we need the Bible to also answer our deepest questions. We need it to meet us in our brokenness, in our loneliness, and our anxious moments. We need it to speak in the places where we have no more words. That’s REAL relevance. In moments like that, the Bible isn’t theoretical — it’s an intimate voice that speaks to us personally. The Bible isn’t relevant because it wins debates. It’s relevant because it’s fluent in the language of grief, and pain, and suffering, and really all of human experience. It meets us where we are and resonates in the depths of who we are.
And notice verse 16. It says, Scripture is useful for “teaching” and “rebuking.” That’s exactly what happened that day in the garden. God “taught” St Augustine that he would never be satisfied with earthly desires – God “rebuked” him and showed Him another way, a deeper way in Jesus. The Bible confronts us when we stray too, and if that isn’t relevance, then I don’t know what is. It confronts us and guides us in “paths of righteousness.” (Psalms 23:3)
And Paul doesn’t stop there in his message to Timothy. 2nd Timothy also says it “corrects” us and “trains” us. It shapes us.
The Bible FORMS us.
But formation usually happens quietly – over time – and often we don’t even recognize that it’s happening. Many times real formation is hidden in plain sight it’s a slow and steady inward transformation. Now, God uses Scripture to disrupt and confront us quickly, but that’s the teaching and rebuking side of this verse. Most of the time, correcting and training takes time. One day of lifting weights doesn’t do much for my strength either. It’s constant effort that trains.
And let’s be honest. Training is work. When it comes to the Bible it’s no different:
We’ve got to do the work to understand what these old words mean.
The Bible is written “FOR” us, but it was not originally written “TO” us. It came from a different culture, a different time, and was written to people who were shaped by a different world. Sometimes the meaning of the words we read isn’t found in the words themselves, but in the world behind the words. The meaning isn’t hidden because God was unclear. No! Those people totally understood what He was saying. It’s hidden because we don’t live in the same world.
Think about it: What would people 2,000 years from now think about your texts? How would they make sense of this one?
I live in this culture, and I barely even know what this means. There’s no way someone 2,000 years from now has any chance of understanding it on their own. The meaning is not in the words themselves. It’s in the world behind the words. To understand it, you have to know that world. The only chance those people have of understanding it, is if they take to time to learn about our world and our culture. It won’t come easy for them. It will take effort.
We can’t just rip the random commands out of the story they belong to and expect them to make sense in our world. (That’s how you find yourself throwing pebbles at people.) The commands and truths of the Bible lived inside a culture. . . inside a relationship with a Holy God. They weren’t just dropped from the sky. They were given to a people that God had already rescued. The people didn’t receive them as commands from a tyrant to obey or die. No! Following His commands was a loving response to their God who was guiding them toward a promised land. They knew God and trusted Him and had experienced His miracles. These commands were connected to a relationship. But for you and I. Man, we don’t pick up on these things at first glance. We read the Bible and miss these things. We gotta do the work. We gotta train ourselves to be able to see these things.
We misread the Bible when we expect it to answer 21st-century questions in 21st-century language, but we also misjudge it when we ignore that it does answer first-century questions that are still human questions today. Truth doesn’t expire just because culture changes.
What was true in their culture is still true in ours. Jesus is truth.
Think about it:
The old law of Sabbath confronts our busy schedules today.
Biblical forgiveness confronts our resentments today.
Generosity confronts our consumerism.
Humility confronts our self-promotion.
The Bible doesn’t just inform us. It shapes us.
It corrects and trains us.
Gosh. . . even AJ Jacobs, the guy who mockingly followed all Biblical laws discovered that the Bible changed him too.
He found that “giving thanks in all circumstances” as 1 Thessalonians 5:18 describes, made him less angry.
and that practicing Sabbath rhythms slowed him down,
He found that meditating on Scripture reshaped his speech.
Even someone mocking Scripture and treating it with irreverence couldn’t escape its formative power.
You don’t have to believe everything immediately for Scripture to start shaping you. Training works even when belief is still catching up. It’s the same way in the gym. I don’t have to believe all those reps are going to change me. I just gotta do them. They will do their work deep inside my muscle tissues in ways that I won’t be able to see or notice for quite some time. This is incredible news for us. It means the Bible is doing its’ work even if we don’t believe it. You don’t have to believe everything immediately for the Bible to start shaping you. You just gotta read it. Just start reading.
The Bible trains.
It forms.
It shapes.
Even skeptics feel it.
But none of this is the main point. Ultimately, The Bible isn’t relevant because it gives good advice. It’s relevant because it shows us a Savior. Jesus is the main point of the Bible.
Back up one verse with me and look at verse 15. It says,
15from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
The real power of the Bible is always found in those last two words, “Christ Jesus.” The Bible is relevant yesterday, today, and forever because Christ Jesus is timeless. He was, He is, and He is to come. He is the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega. Relevant always.
Those Old Testament laws, the festivals, the sacrifices. They weren’t random or meaningless. They were shadows of Jesus pointing us to Him.
In Luke 24, Jesus is walking with some guys on a road and in verse 44 he says, “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” (that’s the Old Testament.)
All Scripture. . . all of the Bible is about Jesus. Hear that again. The Bible is about Jesus. All of it points to Him. He is our greatest need. In talking about our world today, here at BPF we say all the time, “The world’s greatest problem is lostness.”
So let’s ask the real question: Is the Bible relevant today? Well. . . is Jesus relevant to a world who’s greatest need is salvation? Of course.
And our need for Jesus doesn’t stop at salvation either.
We all still need grace.
We still need forgiveness.
We need hope
A Savior
And the Bible reveals all of this in Jesus.
You know. . . I’m a 50 something year old man. I can work to stringing together a bunch of teen lingo, but it won’t make me relevant.
In the same way, the Bible isn’t relevant because it mentions iphones. It’s relevant because it reveals Christ.
And He will never be outdated.
This passage says the Bible is:
- God-breathed
- Useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training
- It shapes us.
And since it is breathed out by God,
it will never stop being relevant —
because God never changes.
So maybe the issue isn’t whether the Bible is relevant.
Maybe the issue is whether we are receptive.
The Bible is still speaking. Are we listening?
The question is not whether it has something to say.
The question is whether we will sit still long enough to hear it.
Will we treat it like content? . . . just scrolling by. . .
Or will we treat it like breath?
Because if this is truly God-breathed…
then The Bible isn’t just information. It’s oxygen.
And you don’t analyze oxygen. You breathe it.
You rest in it.
You settle into it.
You breathe it in and allow it to fill you and do it’s work in you.
And since Jesus is the whole point of the Bible, when we draw our breath from it, we take in more of Him. We are taught and trained by Him. We are shaped by Him.
Do you need to slow down and breathe today? Have you come to a place like Augustine, where you’ve realized that your way isn’t working? Are you looking for a way to simply rest? To breathe?
If so, I’m inviting you to surrender to Jesus. He is the answer. He is the oxygen. He gives life and breath to lungs that have tried everything else, and He can breathe life and breath into you.
This is the point of the Bible. Jesus is the point of the Bible. He is why it’s relevant.
If you have already trusted in Jesus, but need more breath in your lungs – and we all do. Man, start reading your Bible. Develop a habit. Don’t just breathe once a week here at church. We gotta breathe a lot more than that. Randy actually shared with us last week that studies have shown that Bible reading at least 4 times a week has a dramatic effect on every part of our lives.
If that’s you.
Stop scrolling by the Bible
Don’t stand over it as a critic.
Sit under it as a disciple.
Breathe it in. Regularly. Daily.
Listen as it speaks.
Let it teach you.
Let it rebuke you.
Let it train you.
Let it lead you to Christ.