TOPIC: Do you believe in chance?

Before you get there, think to yourself how you define chance.

• What does chance mean to you?
• What role does chance play in your life?
• Do you have a lucky belt?
• Do you have a lucky anything?
• Do you consider yourself to be superstitious?

These are very important questions that affect our lives in very real ways.

Would you believe that the above is a bible study held by an evangelical church? No scripture, just ideas. Do we know the bible so well that we can abandon scripture for "hot" topics or best sellers?

I do not have a church home just now and have visited more churches than I care to admit. But something inside sinks quite low each time I learn the Sunday school class is studying a popular Christian self-help book or bible study series that more "life application" questions than biblical scholarship or theology. A friend recently told me that there is a church where the pastor's sermons consist of reading a chapter in The Purpose Driven Life.

I have studied the bible closely since I was fifteen. I have read it through from beginning to end ten times. Yet, I have only scratched the surface of this remarkable living text that God with which God has blessed us. I do not know it like I know the stories of Anne McCaffrey or Brock and Bode Thoene or Tom Clancy. I know the breadth and depth of them. I have delved beneath the surface to discover motifs and themes and marvel at their craftsmanship. I know these books.

But His word is too deep, a veritable mystery of love and life and wisdom. It sharpens me, chastises me, comforts me, sustains me, awes me. I read of His creation, His judgment, His salvation. I have read of the Fear of God, of obedience, of the narrow way. I have read of the rocky crag of the wild goat and a hundred men who could split a single hair with an arrow. I have read of friendship and betrayal, of love and war, of sacrifice and redemption. I have read of what was, what is, and what will be.

And still I know so little and understand less.

Can we really afford to abandon the scholarship of His holy word for popular books...in church...in Sunday school...in bible studies?