I tend to be an anti-trend guy. So when I see a trend, be it in ministry or elsewhere, my first inclination is to question it. One trend I've seen in the North American evangelical church is a recurring desire to strive for "biblical relevance." That is, to make sure that the Bible's teaching is relevant to people's lives today, be it through themed sermon series, or Bible studies that address specific topics or just practical 1-2-3-step application.

Now, this entire trend, to me, presupposes that the Bible itself can be irrelevant or has become irrelevant over the years. That's a myth that simply does not hold up to scrutiny by anyone who is a student of the Word. Worse, it puts people's needs (relevance) ahead of God's commands (the Word) in the approach that most churches take to "keeping it relevant." The Bible is simply, always, without a doubt or necessary explanation, relevant, all the time, period. Remember:

The Word is foundational. A core belief of the North American evangelical church is the authorship, authencity and completeness of the Word of God. In other words, church leaders will tell you that they believe the Bible is true, accurate, complete and given by God to man. If we believe that to be true, then we are standing on the Bible as a foundational authority for life. We'll get ourselves into trouble quickly if we begin to calculate which commands and accounts in the Bible "most apply" to us versus others. It's all applicable. It's all there for a reason. If we do not start with this foundation, anything else we do is necessarily questionable because our foundation is questionable.

The Word is timeless. The is probably the biggest argument pertaining to God's Word--"Well, it was written thousands of years ago, and some of it is just not applicable to today--or at least it has to be interpreted so that modern man can understand it." Well, if we accept the Word as foundational and as God's inspired work, then in order to hold the opinion that the Word must somehow be brought "up to date" we must suppose that God is stupid. I mean, really, He gave us this book but it just has not kept up with the times? If God is God, then He is perfect, omniscient and omnipresent. It would therefore be impossible for Him to be God and to give us something incomplete or inadquate.

In reality, God's Word is timeless when you begin to consider its teachings. Often we would take Scripture out of context to prove it has lost relevance. "Well, what about those versus where people get stoned as punishment for offering an unworthy sacrifice?" Yeah, we no longer stone people. But the point of the passage in context may be more about unworthy sacrifices than about stoning people. It's important that we do not mislabel the Bible as an "out of touch" work by trying to apply it before we understand the context in which it was written. It was recorded during a certain time period, and to try to interpet its teachings without understanding the time period is why we often try to dismiss parts of it as irrelevant.

The Word is cross-cultural. One thing I've observed about the Word in my travels abroad recently is that it is cross-cultural. That is, it translates into any language and culture. There's no other book I am aware of that has this ability--to be understandable and applicable in any culture anywhere. It was so interesting to me when in Latin America, for instance, to be able to relate to others through Bible stories and teaching even though I did not know more than a few words of Spanish. Yet those I was with knew and understood the same Bible teaching that I did. You simply cannot make this kind of observation about any other book.

The Word is about God. The clincher when it comes to understanding the timeless relevance of God's Word is to know that the Bible was not written as an instruction book for man. I've often heard the Bible referred to as "God's instruction book for life." That's simply not at all what the Bible is. The Bible is about God, and it was written by God to teach men about Himself. It is everything we need to know about God right now while we live on the earth, but not a complete book of knowledge about everything that is God. When we refer to it as an "instruction book" for man, it makes us the object or center of the Bible's purpose and not God.

So, it does not have every specific answer to every question, nor is its purpose to help us live our lives better. The Bible is here for us to know God better, and to know how to become more like Him. Often church leaders try to make the Bible into a practical "here's a verse for today" reference for our lives. That misses the point of the Bible entirely by making our lives the focus.

Consider when you approach the Bible that it is God's way of teaching you about Himself. Instead of wondering "What verse is applicable in this situation," think about what you can learn about God's character through a given situation. Remember that old phrase, "What would Jesus do?" The truth is, most people don't have a clue what Jesus would do most of the time because they've spent their time in the Word consumed with applying Christ's instructions versus studying His life. Relevance as a goal moves us to do actions to affect our lives versus know Christ to affect our whole being.

When you stop making relevance a goal in Bible study, you can begin to know God more through His Word and apply it as it was mean tot be applied. Not as a "how to" book for living, but as a "who is" book about God. Relevance is a word that would have us believe we must adjust, change, modernize or interpret the Bible in such a way as to "shoehorn" it in to our lives. Really, the opposite is true. Our lives must adjust and align with God's Word, so that we can become more like Him. If we believe that, then the Bible is and has always been the most relevant piece of language we possess.

About the Author. Eugene L. Mason has more than two decades of experience in ministry communications and technologies. More...