Pass the biscuits, please

One of the bridges a Christian must cross on his way to the new life is the awareness of filtering his Christian beliefs through his own worldview. He thinks, “Shouldn’t it be this or that way?” He attempts to mold what Scripture intends into his own utopian beliefs. He may take from his surroundings, his upbringing, his peers, and his objective experience those beliefs he finds that serve him in finding his place in the world. Having formed this worldview, he then takes from Scripture those passages agreeing with him while overlooking or ignoring those that trouble him. This is fatal if he persists.

We are called to find our place in God’s kingdom, the purpose for which we were created. To do this, the Christian must look upon Scripture as God speaking and place himself in a position to listen. We must put aside what has served us in this life, look at what is actually there in the pages of the Bible and seek to understand what it means. The effort is a lifetime of unending discovery. Anyone in Christ, everyone in Christ, must be prepared to be surprised, challenged, conflicted, and enlightened by what God reveals from Genesis to Revelation. What we find may affirm some long-held belief or may destroy it, and if destroyed, we must quickly adopt the truth we have discovered, for it comes from God. Be encouraged and bathe in the joy of the revelation, for in discovering it, we are being transformed into Christlikeness.

This is like a biscuit and a pat of butter. A skilled baker’s hand mixes flour, salt, baking powder, fat, and buttermilk into the perfect dough. He cuts biscuits from the dough and readies them for baking. The oven is set at the right temperature and time, the biscuits are placed in the oven to rise and bake and then removed from the oven at the right moment. The biscuits appear as perfection, good and nourishing. A bite is taken. Something is needed. Aha! It needs butter. A knife is taken. The baker halves the biscuit. A pat of butter is cut and spread onto the biscuit. The two are put together. The butter melts, thoroughly soaking into the biscuit. Though it looks the same outwardly, it has become something altogether different. By itself, the biscuit was good. Slathered in butter, the biscuit has become something you did not experience. And once you have eaten one, you will want another. At the dinner table, you will find yourself saying, “Please pass the biscuits.”

The biscuit is God’s word, formed by His hand, rising in this oven we call life. The butter is His revelation, there to be found when read, seeping into every part of you. When you come to the table and partake of its goodness, you understand what the Baker intended.

Now, when you give someone a biscuit, he’ll need some butter to go with it.