David Buttrick tells the story of an inner-city church which had a large, stained-glass window directly behind the pulpit. The theme of the window was “the holy city coming down from heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.” It was a beautiful work of art, featuring a sapphire-blue river of life, adoring angels hovering here and there, and jewel-laden towers rising up from the streets of gold.

However, many in the congregation disliked it, complaining that it was too pious, too otherworldly. How could they possibly relate to such an extravagant vision? After all, the streets they walked weren’t paved with gold; they were covered with filth. Their rivers didn’t sparkle like sapphires; they reeked of industrial waste. They never witnessed any angels winging their way amidst the office buildings; they saw only bag-ladies pushing their bulging shopping carts.

But as time went on, the colors in that window started to fade a little bit. Eventually, the congregation began to see the outline of their city through the stained-glass vision of God’s holy city. It was at that point that the window began to take on real power, because each Sunday morning they had a chance to behold their surroundings through a heavenly lens.

I think that the Bible can be understood in a similar manner. Some complain the vision of life presented in the Scriptures is too impractical, too otherworldly to be of much good in one’s day-to-day life. But the world the Bible describes is not meant to be a fanciful escape from earthly existence. It’s meant to be a window through which we can catch a glimpse of God’s intent for our lives. The reason the Bible sometimes asks us to look beyond this world is not so that we can avoid our present circumstances, but rather so that we will be moved to change those circumstances in light of what we have seen through God’s lens.