The Bible in a Tree

Dusk gloomed the back of the plaza where I was walking early one morning. Against the horizon, the shapes of several trees loomed dark, their branches barren and brittle due to winter rest and possibly disease. Never a pretty sight, no matter the season, these trees seemed slated for an appointment with an arborist’s pruning shears or even a chainsaw.

Suddenly a black shape leaning against a gnarly trunk snagged my curiosity. I came closer. A book rested on the tree’s lowest limb. I reached for it and read the title: The Story: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People.

What? The Bible in a tree?

How did it get there? I wondered. Did a shy evangelist set it there, hoping someone would discover the gospel? Perhaps the story of Jesus and his love had greened up the shy evangelist’s barren life , but the thought of explaining the good news to someone else was too intimidating. Hence, the solution: place the Bible in a tree.

As I walked on, I puzzled over the hands and heart that had landed the Bible in such an unlikely place.

The next morning, I checked to see if the Bible was still there. As I came closer, I noticed that it was no longer perched on the limb. Had the shy evangelist’s goal been attained? Had someone taken the Bible home and met Jesus on its pages?

No, there it was beneath the tree, possibly knocked down by the wind or a squirrel.

I put it back on the limb and kept on walking, pondering the connection between the Bible and trees.

The next time I stopped at the tree, the Bible was gone. I was curious about who took it. God knew even though I didn’t.

But I know this: If the Bible gets knocked to the ground, rained on, crumpled, and destroyed; if it’s left to collect dust in cupboards or stored away with antiques; if it is maligned—even then the Story will live on. It’s an alive and active, sharper-than-a-two-edged-sword Story that penetrates people’s hearts and minds (Heb. 4:12).

With something so powerfully dynamic bringing springtime salvation and summertime sanctification to all who believe, one might begin to see a new relationship between the Bible and trees. Trees are repeatedly mentioned in the Bible, but Scripture in trees is also alluded to.

Sound strange? Yes, it is surprising and mysterious—but also divine! Psalm 1 gives us insight into this truth when it describes believers in Yahweh who delight in the law of the Lord and who meditate on it day and night: “That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers” (Ps. 1:3).

Though all believers are like trees planted by streams of water—trees made alive through the power of Jesus and his Word—we’re not all the same. When I look in my backyard at the seven trees my husband, Rinke, and I have planted since 2007, I celebrate each one’s uniqueness, beauty, and usefulness. A Bloodgood Japanese maple, a Royal Red maple, an Eastern redbud, a Forest Pansy redbud, a gingko biloba, a Milky Way dogwood, and an Emperor Japanese maple each proclaims the glory of the Lord in the exact way God designed them to.

The same is true of each Jesus-follower. We’re in different places on our faith journeys—mature trees, saplings, split-trunk trees, healthy trees, and more. But the truth of what Christian musician Ken Medema sings in the refrain to “The Tree Song” is true for all who believe: “I’ve got roots growing down to the water, I’ve got leaves growing up to the sunshine, and the fruit that I bear is a sign of the life in me.”