Thinking back, I have always been a Bible man.
I once remember being quizzed by our church minister. I was probably not even converted by that time. “What do you believe?” he asked. “I believe in the Bible,” was my decided reply. An unmistakable frown of concern crossed his face. I have often wondered about it since. He surely wouldn’t have thought that I treated the Bible as God. Obviously, what I meant was, “My faith is based on the reliability of the Bible”.
So why would he have looked so troubled? Maybe his whole training led him to believe that there were flaws in the Bible, as in any other “human” book. He would have been warned that there were naive “fundamentalists” out there hoodwinking others into believing that the Bible was infallible. This supposed menace needed putting straight, along with the victims of such warped ideas.
This is guesswork, of course. The minister didn’t say why he looked worried. He may simply have found my prompt and clear answer to his question rather disconcerting. He would not want to let any faulty thinking I had go unchallenged. On the other hand, was it the right time to be putting roadblocks in the way of a young man starting out on Christian service? It was a dilemma for the clergyman, and no mistake.
It seems I carried on being a thorn in the side of the Bible’s liberal critics. I understand that, many years later, my old arch-liberal ex-college tutor commented ruefully, “I never was able to bring Timothy Demore round to my way of thinking”. I continue to believe today that the Bible is on a different plane from ordinary human writings.
I’ve been exposed in my time to the whole sweep of French literature. French is the language with probably the longest continuous literary output of any in the world. Yet nothing in it compares with the challenge, the riches and the truthfulness of the Bible. A single verse may say more than an entire book of secular writing. What book is there on earth that can communicate more than these twenty-four words:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV)?
The work of the Gideons worldwide is greatly to be admired. This long-established organisation is named for the Biblical character Gideon, who won victory over the Midianites in Judges chapter 7. It is dedicated to distributing Bibles round the world. The count, amazingly, is now fast approaching two billion!
Sadly, this worthy cause finds itself battling opposition where there was none before. Schools, hospitals and other organisations are now frequently timid about the placing of Bibles on their premises and bold in placing obstacles in front of the Gideons. Sometimes opposition gives way in answer to much prayer and persistence, sometimes not.
The tragedy of this opposition is that lives may be lost that would otherwise have been saved! There are frequent stories of suicidal people in hotel rooms who have picked up the Gideon Bible and been transformed. One man climbed up onto the window sill in his room and prepared to leap to his death. He steadied himself by putting his hand on a wardrobe. That hand came down on a Bible which was perched up there. Reading God’s word, the man turned away from his intended self-destruction and accepted Christ.
Surely a book by which God spares even one life, for time and eternity, should be allowed into the spaces where people gather.
Somehow a number of meditations on trees have recently caught my eye. Trees are certainly important symbols in the Bible. Right at the start, God sets boundaries for our first ancestors by telling them not to eat the fruit of a certain tree.
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Genesis 2:15-17 NIV
Another significant tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden was the tree of life. Right at the end of the Bible this tree features again:
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Revelation 22:1-2
As well as picking up on Genesis 2, this echoes Ezekiel 47, where water flows from the threshold of Ezekiel’s ideal temple and trees grow on both banks of the stream. There too, the fruits give nourishment month by month and the leaves healing. There are many other Bible references to the significance of trees besides.
Perhaps the most telling is Calvary’s tree where our Saviour gave up His life. A contributor to Our Daily Bread, Dave Branon, did a spot of tree felling and then pondered this.
“I thought about the first tree - the one on which hung the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve just couldn't resist. God used that tree to test their loyalty and trust. Then there is the tree in Psalm 1 that reminds us of the fruitfulness of godly living. And in Proverbs 3:18, wisdom is personified as a tree of life.
“But it is a transplanted tree that is most important – the crude cross of Calvary that was hewn from a sturdy tree. There our Saviour hung between heaven and earth to bear every sin of every generation on his shoulders. It stands above all trees as a symbol of love, sacrifice and salvation.
“At Calvary, God’s only Son suffered a horrible death on a cross. That's the tree of life for us."
The trees of Eden and Calvary stand as a challenge to us, to our sin and rebellion against God. Calvary is also a place of hope, because the Son of God not only carried our sin there but also dealt with it for good and all. And then in many other ways trees are a comfort. A persecuted Lebanese Christian once considered the Cedar of Lebanon, the symbol of his native land. This species of tree is mentioned some twenty times in the Bible. This man was thinking of Psalm 92:12 “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like the cedar of Lebanon."
"First, the cedar tree is ever green. It is always fresh throughout the changing seasons. And so is the believer who has received the overflowing life of Christ. His faith and joy are fresh as the Lord nurtures and looks after him.
"Second, the cedar tree grows on high altitudes and it opens its branches to the skies. So does the believer who is called to live on higher ground and who keeps his thoughts and affections in the heavenlies. He opens up his soul to heaven in worship and supplication. He generously receives grace and power. In turn, he becomes a blessing to others.
“Third, a cedar tree is deeply rooted and could live for thousands of years. So is the believer who is standing on the Rock of Ages and has received everlasting life from Christ.
"Fourth, the cedar tree spreads an elegant fragrance and its wood is very expensive. Likewise is the Christian, who was bought with an extremely precious price and was graciously brought into the family of God. Consequently, he is commissioned to spread the fragrance of Christ and to be an open letter of love, faith, and hope to all the nations of this earth.”
But perhaps we should return to Psalm 1 and let the Bible have the last word.
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Psalm 1:1-3
