I Believe In The Scriptures. In the beginning there were words For no sky nor dirt Rocks nor birds Heaven nor earth Death nor birth Had been given the proper syllabification So nothing physical had yet entered creation But despite the lacking of material manifestation There did hang one true annunciation Words Words of God Spoken Script Speaking Scripture Holy writ The Writing Builder Building mountains out of nouns Plants and herbs from active verbs Planting nations in punctuation Preparing solar positions with prepositions Nature’s narrative rich with adjectives Man was dust and needed an additive So God added his imperative Impairing the dust of its ability to be sedative The breath of #life, a word that made dirt our relative We are born of Bible Letters formed our limbs How can I deny God’s words When they are written on my skin? In this breath of #life God breathed to begin An exhalation for the ages The inspiration of men You know the words of which I speak You’ve memorized them They are the Pentateuch Torah History Books Poets Major and Minor Prophets Synoptic Gospels Acts of the Apostles And their Epistles They are our Scriptures Those ancient divine whispers Scribed by enlightened scriptors Now Supplied to modern listeners The mouth by which the universe was founded Is the fount from which our words are grounded And this radical statement this ludicrous pronouncement Has been hounded By many who question where scripture was originally sounded For we call it Inspired Inerrant Infallible But those words aren’t found in our bibles I’m not saying these descriptions are or aren’t rightful But I want you to be mindful Of what our bible Claimed to be And what that is Is far better than what we have lobbied Or from tradition copied Or what our own doctrines embodied That scripture says that scripture is God-Breathed That means The breath that filled the nostrils of the ground The #life blown into dirt The exhaling heartbeat that made the simple renowned That is the breath that can be found In what has been written down So, I believe in the Scriptures Where God has breathed the breath of #life Where we find the vows between eternal husband and earthly wife Where martyrs and saints find comfort for their strife Where stone hearts come to be cut with a knife I believe in the Scriptures When God breathed on dirt he got man When he breathed on man he got words The words are not in the dirt, but in the breath The breath passes from man to man until they return to dirt The eternal chain of command, the passing of words Now the words are in our hands But so often they are only found behind our lips or on our eyes Within church doors in red and black lines Printed on shirts, our commitment’s disguise What we claim as truth our lives say is a lie I believe in the Scriptures The Scribal Scribbilings that refuse to stay on the page They give #life and so #life is required to be paid The words in your bibles are not meant on paper to lay But to be resurrected in your flesh as you die to them everyday I believe in the Scriptures For by them, through them, and to them I was made For they are the words of Genesis the Exodus of shame They are the breath that formed my bones, And the ones that will call me from the grave They are the ink on my flesh, the pen on my tongue They are the ones by which creation begun And through which recreation will be done They are the words of God, and we are his listeners I believe God stills speaks I believe in the Scriptures