Author and Finisher

I like finding verses in the Bible with literary imagery or that have to do with reading and writing. One of them that I like is 2 Timothy 4:13 where Paul asks Timothy to bring him a cloak that he left behind and to bring "the books but especially the parchments." I love it because even though Paul was in jail, possibly awaiting his execution, he still wanted things to read to keep his mind sharp and he wanted parchments for the sake of the written word. I also like non-spiritual minutiae like leaving cloaks behind, etc. It makes spiritual giants like Paul seem more human.

I was trying to think of another literary scripture to talk about for my post and I thought of Hebrews 12:2, which, in the King James Version, declares Jesus as the "author and finisher of our faith." It's something that people say exhortingly all the time, but I really did wonder what it meant for Jesus to be the "author and finisher" of our faith. I conjured up images of Jesus as an author, pen in hand, musing over a piece of parchment, etching out the story of our lives.

But the KJV can be a tricky little guy. I was getting all excited about the fact that we're characters in Jesus' grand novel when I dug a little deeper. I discovered that 'author' in this sense is actually referring to the founder or establisher of something. Not a writer of something. 'Finisher' is not someone who ends something, as in Jesus finishing off our story with a grand denouement, but rather a 'perfecter.' Like someone who fine tunes something. (sigh.) So much for my author analogy. Thanks, KJV. Your grandiloquent, antiquated words pull yet another fast one before 21st century eyes.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trash talking the KJV. Years of reading that version and Bible Quizzing in that version have made it second nature to me. All of the Bible verses I've ever committed to memory are in, literally, the King's English. Or if I want to be a little more literary about it, Shakespearean English.

But then, I thought about it some more . . . wouldn't it be okay for me to think of Jesus as the "author" even if that weren't the verse's actual intent? Other verses suggest His omniscience, so why couldn't He be the story writer of our lives? Should original intent always be the driving factor when applying scripture and non-scriptural literature to our lives, and/or subjecting it to interpretation?