A congregation looking for a new pastor was interviewing one of the candidates. A committee member asked, “Which part of the Bible do you like the best?” He replied “The New Testament.” Another committee member asked “Which part of the New Testament.” “The Book of Parables” the candidate answered. One of the pulpit committee members said, “I don’t believe I am familiar with that book. Could you share part of it with us?” This is what the candidate said:

“Once upon a time Samuel went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves. Part of him fell on the path, part of him fell on the good soil, and part of him fell on the rocky ground. And the thorns grew up and choked that man. So he cut off the branches and threw them into the fire. As he went along, he saw the Queen of Sheba taking a bath, so he called her Bathsheba. And she gave him a thousand talents of gold and a hundred changes of raiment. He got into his chariot and drove furiously to get away from her. As he was driving along under a tree, his hair got caught in the branches and left him hanging there. And he hung there forty days and forty nights, so the ravens of the air brought him food to eat and water to drink. Then one night while he was hanging there, his wife, Delilah, came along, cut off all his hair, and threw him into the fire. As the king walked past, he saw that the man was in the fire but not being burned. So he took off his sandals, thinking that was holy ground. Then it began to rain. And it rained for forty days and forty nights. In order to get out of the rain, he hid himself in a cave. While he was in the cave, a bright light knocked him to the ground and cried out “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” But he did not answer because his name was Samuel. And as he was sleeping, the voice cried out “Samuel”, so he got up and went out of the cave and met a man and said, “Come and take supper with me.” But the man said he couldn’t come because he had just married a wife. So Samuel went out into the hiways and the byways to compel him to come in. As he was on the hiways and byways, he found himself back in Jerusalem. When he looked up, he saw Queen Jezebel sitting high up in a window. When she saw him she laughed. So he said, “Throw her down.” And then he said, “Throw her down out of there again. And they threw her down seventy times seven times. Samuel said to her, “Go and sin no more.” Then they picked up her fragments, and they filled up twelve baskets. Now whose wife will she be in the day of judgment?”

After hearing this, the pulpit committee agreed that this man’s knowledge of the Scripture was far beyond their own, and immediately hired him to be their new preacher.

I hope you know that while what that man said is in the Bible, that is not what the Bible says. God’s Word is to be our guide for faith, life and living. In order for it to be that, you and I must know what it says. While it would be difficult to be as mixed up as that man in the story was, I think it is safe to say that none of us, myself included, know what the Bible says as well as we could or should.

John 7:37-39a On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.

When we spend time in the Word of God, we find Jesus. The Holy Spirit leads us to Him. That is what the Word is for, to point us to the Word made flesh, the one who died to pay for the sins of the world and rose in victory over death for us all. We need to believe in Him to have those streams of living water.

More on this tomorrow.