There have been a few bands and musicians I did not particularly care for when I first heard their music. I came across them on a cassette or CD in the old days, or on YouTube or Apple Music in more recent days, and found that their music didn’t really resonate. I set them aside and turned to others who held more immediate appeal.
But in some cases, I later met those musicians or shared a meal with them, and suddenly their music appealed to me in a whole new way. There was something about seeing those musicians as whole people rather than disembodied ones, and something about having an actual relationship with them that changed my experience of their music. Relationship somehow made their music real, more genuine, more meaningful. I began to experience their music as their friend.
You have probably pondered the words of David as he proclaims his love for God’s Word in the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm. “Oh, how I love your law!” he cries. “It is my meditation all the day.” “How sweet are your words to my taste,” and “I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.” David gives words to each of God’s people as they consider God’s goodness in giving us his Scriptures.
Yet each of us can attest that we did not always love God’s Word. It was not always sweet to our taste and not always our delight. In fact, there may have been times in which we hated it, in which we found it bitter, and in which we mocked and belittled it rather than find delight in it. There were times when the Bible was like those musicians—we skipped it, we tossed it, we moved on to something we liked better.
So what happened to transform hatred to love, bitter to sweet, disgust to delight? We met the one who wrote it! We met him, then came to know him and to love him. We now read his book through the eyes of a friend, and that utterly transforms the experience.
Love transforms the Bible so it is no longer a message from a stranger but a message from a friend, no longer words written to others but words written to our very selves.
I was once told of a young lady who purchased a new book and read just a few of its pages before setting it aside. It just didn’t grip her, and she just wasn’t interested. But then a few months later, she met the author and a friendship grew up between them. That friendship ripened into love and eventually blossomed into marriage. And now, when she reads the book, she treasures each of its words. The book is no longer dull but charming, no longer drab but fascinating, for it’s an expression of the heart of the one she has come to love. Thus, “Love is the interpreter,” said the one who relayed the story. Love is the interpreter of the book, the author, and his message, and love changes everything.
It is not surprising that those who do not love Christ do not love his Word. Neither is it surprising when those who do love Christ do love his Word, for love interprets its every page, its every verse, its every word. Love transforms the Bible so it is no longer a message from a stranger but a message from a friend, no longer words written to others but words written to our very selves. Love allows us to read the Bible as a joy, as a delight, as the best of all blessings from the best of all friends.
(Inspired in part by J.R. Miller)
