COG 68: Scripture Day | Preparing, Celebrating, Discipling

Are you ready to enjoy a brand new holiday! Join AMBrewster as he shares how he and the Celebration of God team chose this special day to celebrate God’s infinite, holy Word!

The Year Long Celebration of God is a family resource from Truth.Love.Parent., a ministry dedicated to rooting families in God and maturing families for God so they can harvest blessings from God.

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Transcript

Introduction

Many of this year’s episodes have had the same format. Since this was our inaugural year, we spent a lot of time talking about how we can prepare to worship God during our holidays. We also discussed how celebrating God during these holidays is very different than celebrating our own lusts and desires — and how it should be different from how the world celebrates. And we illustrated how we can be involved in corporate sanctification via discipleship during each of our holidays.

And today’s episode will discuss some of those key concepts as well.

But the majority of today’s focus will be put on giving you some background on this brand new holiday designed to celebrate God’s gift of the Bible.

But before we do that, I’m so happy that more and more of you are choosing to follow The Celebration of God on Facebook and instagram. We work hard to provide you worship-prompts all throughout the day.

So, if you enjoy Facebook and Instagram, we invite you to follow us there so you can have your mind turned toward God.

And we’d love it if you could leave us a Facebook recommendation while you’re at it. That would be very awesome.

And — lastly — don’t forget that we have free transcripts and tons of holiday resources at CelebrationOfGod.com so you and your fellow disciples can learn to better know, understand, and love God more and more.

And — with that — let’s talk about this brand new holiday called Scripture Day!

Topic

I can’t think of a better way to prepare our hearts to worship God this Scripture Day than to learn what it is and why we celebrate it.

Scripture Day is observed during the Season of Power. I hope you remember the four Seasons — we start the celebratory year in September with the Season of Mercy, then there’s the Season of Grace followed by the Season of Life and — finally — the Season of Power.

The Season of Power is about the ever-necessary empowerment of the Holy Spirit. We cannot be saved or grow in our sanctification without the power of God.

And each of the holidays in the Season of Power points not only to the empowerment of God in our lives, but also unique aspects of the holidays themselves.

During the Season of Power we celebrate the children in our lives — those little bundles of perpetual energy.

We also celebrate fathers — men who should represent both physical and spiritual strength and protection.

Independence Day is a celebration of freedom and liberty in God — which is a powerful reality that sets us free from bondage to sin and death.

And we also celebrate the family — God’s most intimate and important human community. When the families are spiritually healthy, the church, the community, the government, the nation, and everything will be better off.

And so those of you who know God and His power will agree that Scripture Day definitely belongs in the Season of Power.

Hebrews 4:12-13 reads, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

And Romans 1:16 tells us, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”

Another important reason for putting Scripture Day in the Season of Power is that the salvation focus of the Season of Power is sanctification. As we’ve already learned, sanctification is the process whereby God conforms His people into His image through the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Scriptures are a massive part of the work the Holy Spirit does.

Ephesians 4 tells us how God gave the church gifts to equip it for the work of the ministry which is adding more people to the Body of Christ and building them up. But what do the preachers, teachers, and evangelists use to equip the body for the work of the ministry? They use the Bible.

Psalm 119:9 reads, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.”

And Psalm 119:11 tells us, “Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You."

The Scripture is absolutely vital to our ability to be sanctified.

So, for all those reasons and more, every year on August 28th we celebrate Scripture Day.

But why August 28th? 

How does one go about deciding on what day to observe a brand new holiday?

Well, when we came up with Creation Week, that was pretty easy to schedule it given the beginning of the Celebratory Year and the belief that the world was created in — what we would call — September.

Stewardship Day was easy as well because it replaces Earth Day.

But what about the Bible?

Scripture Day isn’t intended to replace a secular holiday, and since the Bible was written by 40 authors over the course of at least fifteen hundred years, there really isn’t a single publishing date on which we could land.

I did toy around with celebrating Scripture Day in March since that’s when the first English Bible was printed on Gutenberg’s press. But I scrapped that idea pretty early on because it just wasn’t significant enough. The Bible had existed for many years in many languages on many mediums by the time Gutenberg did his thing.

As revolutionary as the printing press was, it wasn’t right for Scripture Day.

And then it came to me.

On August 28th in the year 397, a group of men met to discuss a number of issues, but the main one for which this council is remembered is canonizing the Scriptures.

In short, the Council of Carthage in 397 studied, researched, and discussed which of the biblical books actually were the Word of God.

Now, they rejected a lot of books that clearly were never inspired by the Holy Spirit, but — to be fair — they also included some apocryphal books that were later discovered to contain inconsistencies and inaccuracies that proved they too were not inspired.

So, the point is not to celebrate the Council of Carthage. It’s not Council of Carthage Day. We don’t want that. 

The point is, from that day on — due to the diligent work of those men and many other men and women since — the Body of Christ has had consensus on what writings belong in the Holy Scriptures.

Because of the books of the Bible prove their own inerrancy, efficacy, consistency, accuracy, and many other attributes, the Holy Spirit has allowed God’s people to collect His Word into the 66 books we know and love today.

That is a supernatural blessing and God is definitely to be celebrated for His gift of the Bible.

But August 28th seemed like as good a day to celebrate the God of the Bible as any.

But there was another reason we chose an August date. I’m not sure if you ever really noticed, but — in America — August is devoid of any national holidays. In fact, Family day is the biggest holiday in August, and it’s not officially recognized by most states. 

So, instead of trying to cram more holidays into other months, putting Scripture Day in August and the Season of Power just made all the sense in the world.

Lastly, its placement right before a new holiday called The Consummation is also perfect. But we’ll talk more about that new holiday next time.

So, August 28th it is!

And I’ll also share with you why we chose the name Scripture Day. We tinkered with the words Bible, Truth, canon, and even the word “Word” itself, but the results were either unclear about the focus of the holiday or they didn’t have the right sound for a holiday designed to celebrate God. That’s why we landed on Scripture Day — it sounds a little more substantial. Of course, if you have a better idea, we’d love to hear it. Send it to [email protected].

Now, as I conclude our discussion about how we can prepare for Scripture Day, I want to highlight our Scripture Day Bible Reading you can find at CelebrationOfGod.com. Just click on holidays, and you’ll find it.

I’ve always enjoyed the fact that the book of the Bible nearest the center of our canon is the book of Psalms, and the longest Psalm is also the longest chapter in the Bible, and it’s Psalm 119. And the primary focus of that Psalm is to celebrate the Scriptures and Its Author.

So, for this year our Scripture Day Bible Reading is going to be Psalm 119. In the future, the Bible reading will grow to include many other passages, but this year we’re starting with the oldest and longest celebration of the Bible . . . in the the whole Bible.

I recommend you and your disciplees take some time to read Psalm 119 together and discuss all of the amazing insights and praise David unpacks.

It’s quite a powerful portion of Scripture.

And don’t forget to get some portions of God’s Word up on your Celebration Wall. Being able to see it as you walk through the room makes it easy to hide it in our hearts so that we might not sin against God.

And with that, let’s talk about celebrating God on Scripture Day.

Since Scripture Day is always on August 28th, it can and will eventually land on every day of the week. That means the following:

Pastors, whether Scripture Day lands on a Sunday or not, you can plan to prepare your church members’ minds and provide them some ideas for celebrating. Perhaps you could invite a missionary to speak who works primarily on Bible translating on the foreign field.

But when Scripture Day lands on a Sunday, what do you think about taking a whole service for various members of the church to read passages from the Bible. Maybe they can share their favorites. Maybe the church can read through a book of the Bible together. There are so many possibilities, I hope you’ll use your creativity to make the experience memorable.

Parents, take some time on Scripture Day to talk about God, the Bible, and the reason He gave it to us. If your kids are older, you can share with them how we can be confident that we have God’s Word in our hands. Maybe you’re uncertain about that yourself, so studying about the process of canonizing the Scriptures could be a great way for you to prepare for Scripture Day. Just make sure you’re using good sources. There are so many heretical beliefs when it comes to how we got our Bible.

If you go to CelebrationOfGod.com and click on Scripture Day, you’ll find a couple resources that may be valuable for you. And if you purchase them using the Amazon links on the page, Truth.Love.Parent. will receive a commission from Amazon. It’s a win-win!

Teachers, you can spend time reading the Scriptures in your class, teach your students how we got our Bibles, discuss the impact of Gutenberg’s press, or have your students do an activity or project relating to the Scriptures. What about talking about Bible translation on the mission field?

Or you could take a field trip to a Bible museum. There are a number of them across the United States. In fact, TruthLoveParent.com is collecting various Bible-themed family attractions across the world. We hope to have some Bible museums added to that list soon.

But the Museum of the Bible with which most people are familiar is located in Washington D.C. But even the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum in Kentucky have amazing exhibits dedicated to the Scriptures.

I’m sure — if you look hard — you’ll find something — even if that something is merely an online video.

And — of course — regardless of who you are and who your disciplees are, we recommend you read the Scriptures, spend time in prayer praising God for the marvelous gift of His Word in our language, and have some discussions about what you love best about the Word and how God has used it in your life.

And almost everything I’ve said today has included our discipleship focus. The Celebration of God is a discipleship experience. As we learn to worship God better, we’re becoming better disciples of His, and as we teach others to do the same, we’re discipling them for God.

So, we should always be looking for opportunities to introduce people to God, include them in our worship of Him, and sharpen each other with the Word of God in the power of God.

Conclusion

I know the idea of Scripture Day may seem a little strange to you or — at least — just different, but if you’re a born again follower of Christ, I invite you to make time on August 28th to worship God — specifically His character and deeds that relate to the Holy Scriptures.

We have so much for which to thank Him, how can we not be eternally thankful for the Bible?

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets, and invite as many people as possible to enjoy this brand new Christian holiday!

And next time I’m going to introduce another brand new Christian holiday which will bring our celebratory year to a close . . . The Consummation!