We are not to make the Torah into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope." The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the distinction between sacred texts and the divine Word of God, warning against treating the Bible as a mere magical object.
Jacques Ellul's quote suggests that while the Bible is an important text reflecting the Word of God, it should not be idolized or regarded as a substitute for a living relationship with the divine. He encourages the experience of God's living Word in the present rather than viewing the Scriptures as an infallible oracle or talisman that can be consulted at will. This highlights the importance of genuine faith and engagement over ritualistic reading.
In practice
This quote can be used in a sermon to emphasize the importance of living faith.
The intellectual who wants to do her work properly must today go back to the starting point: the woman whom she knows, and first of all to herself. It is at that level, and at no other, that she ought to begin to think about the world situation.
There is one act par excellence which profanes money by going directly against the law of money, an act for which money is not made. That act is giving.
It is inconceivable that the God who gives Himself in His Son to save us, should have created some people ordained to evil and damnation. There can only be one predestination to salvation. In and through Jesus Christ all people are predestined to be saved. Our free choice is ruled out in this regard. God wants free people, except in relation to this last and definitive decision. We are not free to decide and choose to be damned.
Education no longer has a humanist end or any value in itself; it has only one goal, to create technicians.
Technological society leads to increasing numbers of people who cannot adapt to the inhuman rhythm of modern life with its emphasis on specialization. A class of people is growing up who are unexploitable because they are not worth employing even for the minimum wage. Technological progress makes whole categories of people useless without making it possible to support them with the wealth produced by the progress.
Human life as a whole is not inundated by technique. It has room for activities that are not rationally or systematically ordered. But the collision between spontaneous activities and technique is catastrophic for the spontaneous activities.
My memories of Kabul are vastly different than the way it is when I go there now. My memories are of the final years before everything changed. When I grew up in Kabul, it couldn't be mistaken for Beirut or Tehran, as it was still in a country that's essentially religious and conservative, but it was suprisingly progressive and liberal.
So the unwanting soul sees what's hidden, and the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
Time is not an empirical concept. For neither co-existence nor succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not exist as a foundation a priori.
Others indeed may talk, and write, and fight about liberty, and make an outward pretence to it but the free-thinker alone is truly free.
No matter whether one is flying over Newfoundland or the sea of lights that stretches from Boston to Philadelphia after nightfall, over the Arabian deserts which gleam like mother-of-pearl, over the Ruhr or the city of Frankfurt, it is as though there were no people, only the things they have made and in which they are hiding.
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