Mistaking the Menu for the Meal

Do you ever read a book that is way outside your “comfort zone” (whether it’s a book on The Zen Approach to Expository Preaching or something written by an author who takes a completely different view on some aspect of the Christian life)? I recently chose such a book by Jack Deere, formerly an Old Testament professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, entitled Surprised by the Voice of God. It has been my traveling companion on my journey to Ireland and I have already shared a quote in a previous post.

With an endorsement by Wayne Grudem and published by Zondervan, the back cover asks the question, “Are prophecies, dreams, and visions for today?” We argued a lot of things between seminary classes, but I’m absolutely sure THAT question never came up. The blurb continues, “Jack Deere could have given you all the reasons why such things disappeared once the Bible was complete. That is, until Jack searched the Bible deeply enough for it to search him. What he found revolutionized his Christian walk—and it can transform yours as well.” [insert a couple of deep breaths here]

Deere is definitely out of my “comfort zone” but I am halfway through the book and I have found it very stimulating. It’s obvious that this brother loves God’s Word, but he speaks with a prophetic edge that makes a “recovering Pharisee” like me squirm in my Geneva robe. I suspect that I am an “almost” bibliolater: one who worships the Bible, studies it with clinical precision, dissects its parts, and shares one’s research with anyone who will listen with a due sense of awe and reverence. Sounds like I’m either describing the county coroner’s procedure for the autopsy of a corpse, or perhaps your next sermon series.

This blog is a confessional of sorts. I repent of these sins and I’m asking Father to help me cultivate a deeper relationship with Him. Please don’t hear me say that I’m throwing out the Bible, but I am seeking the Lord for a more healthy, relational walk with Him; and I am so thankful for others in the body of Christ who sharpen my thoughts and my walk with Jesus. And I am finding help in a lot of places that I would never have imagined, like this “strange” book on prophecies, dreams, and visions.

Here’s another good quotation from Jack Deere:

Normally, one of the first things you learn when studying a foreign language is the menu of that country. Ordering food is a basic necessity of life. In much the same way, the Bible is the menu of the Holy Spirit and the explanation of his language. The Bible not only tells the various ways in which the Holy Spirit will speak to us, it also tells us the very things we must eat if we are to live. And it warns us of spiritual poisons. No one who purposely avoids the Bible is ever going to hear God reliably and consistently.

There are people, however, who devote themselves diligently to Bible study and are still spiritually malnourished. This frequently happens in environments where people make Bible study an end in itself. They are like people who study a menu with great precision and can tell you every detail about it: when it was first written, how it has changed over the years, how each dish is prepared, how it ought to be served, which food should come first—even why the chef has organized the menu in its present order. Perhaps they even went to schools whose major goal was to explain menus. When they graduated, the ones who were the best at explaining menus were able to build the biggest “menu clubs” where many people meet regularly just to hear a new and inspiring explanation of the menu. Yet no one grows strong from an explanation of the menu or even from first-hand study of a menu. Only those who order from the menu and eat grow strong. Don’t mistake the menu for the meal.

Jesus Christ is the Bread from heaven. If our Bible study does not lead us to experience Jesus Christ, then it is leading us to spiritual malnutrition. The Bible is the menu meant to lead us to experience God in every facet of our lives. If we make Bible study our goal, we will end up just like the Pharisees who searched the Scriptures diligently but never came to Christ (John 5:39–40). They studied the menu regularly and religiously. But they never ordered. Never tasted. And that was both the irony and the tragedy. So close to the menu, yet so far from the meal. ((1 Jack Deer, Surprised by the Voice of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 174–175.))