Week 50 James 4
I made a mistake when I read James 4:5: do you think that the scripture speaks to no purpose:… The mistake was that I stopped right there at the colon (which James didn’t do since he still had half of the verse to write).
The problem with making a mistake is – obviously – that I’m wrong. But in this case I can live with it because my mistake left me asking a pretty good question: do I think that the scripture has no purpose?
It’s a pretty good & timely question to be asking myself during Week 50 because in a couple of weeks I’ll be deciding whether to start back in Genesis 1. Let’s face it…if the bible doesn’t have a goal or purpose then why should I bother?
So does the bible speak to no purpose? There’s two basic answers to the question:
Answer #1: Yes. The bible doesn’t really have any purpose.
Answer #2: No. The bible does have a purpose in mind.
I think it’s a pretty good self-administered bible-reader’s question to ask: if there’s no purpose or value or merit in the bible then why read it? On the other hand if there is something to be discovered then why not? There’s nothing much to lose…and maybe something to gain.
Note: This question is completely different than asking: is the bible difficult to understand? (if I asked 1,000,000 people that question only a couple of outliers would say: no the bible is simple.)