How do you see?

About seven months ago I got my first pair of “full-time” glasses. It’s amazing to me just how distorted my vision was before my glasses. Things far away became fuzzy, things up close gave me headaches, and everything in the middle just was not sharp.

Of course I didn’t really notice any of this until I got the glasses (except the headaches of course). Without the little warning sign of pain I would have gone through my life never being able to see everything clearly. Thanks to the miracle of science – I can really see well.

Yesterday, in my sermon, I made a statement about the role of Scripture (The Text, or the Bible – you choose the name you like best) in helping us see and understand our human experience. I said that the Bible is “the lens through which we interpret everything we see.” When we look at good art we see many things, but when we look through the lens of scripture a piece of art may say something completely different. When we spend time in Nature, we may experience transcendence and the lens of Scripture shapes that experience and helps us make sense of it.

Reading and studying scripture is like getting the right prescription for glasses. When we finally put on those glasses we can really see things for what they are.

The thing is, before we put on Biblical lenses – we were already wearing glasses. These glasses are the glasses of culture, personal experience, politics and others opinion. These other glasses, just like the lenses of Scripture, shape how we see.

So my question (this one rhetorical) is, “How do you see?”

Here are a few not so rhetorical questions that will help you answer that question…

How have the scriptures informed your politics, your view of others, your daily living? How has the Bible transformed you as you have grown in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ?