For Reading and Meditation:
John 10:1-18
I said yesterday that I subscribe to the supervisal inspiration of the Bible. I believe God led the minds and hearts of the writers of Scripture to go to the right sources for information, to come up with the required data, and in the process protected them from exposure to error, deceit, or imposture. He supervised them in their research, in their reporting, and when He spoke directly to them He was there also to make sure that they received clearly the message He wanted to convey. Ian Macpherson puts this truth most powerfully in his book The Faith Once Delivered when he says: "As in the mystery of the Incarnation, God linked Himself to humanity, so in the mystery of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, God made use of human channels, yet He never surrendered His Divine authorship or permitted the Book to become the word of man rather than the word of God." Another writer, H. O. Mackey, put it like this: "Who built St. Paul's Cathedral? So many masons, carpenters, iron-workers, carvers, painters - and then there was Wren. He was not a mason, or a carpenter ... and never laid a stone. What did he do? He did it all. He planned it, inspired it with his thought." Mackey does not intend to dishonor the workmen who toiled hard and long, but simply to make the point that in the final analysis St. Paul's Cathedral is Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece. Who wrote the Bible? Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John, Peter, Paul, and many others. But whose book is it really? It is God's.
O God, it is the entrance of Your Word that brings light and the neglect of Your Word that brings darkness. Help me to expose myself more and more to that light, so that I may walk through life with a sure and steady tread. In Jesus' Name. Amen.