People of the Book

         

Christian are people of the Book. That is to say as believers we believe the Bible is a living Book. Living in that God speaks through his Word and his Spirit works with power from the Word of God, which is contained in the sixty-six books of the Bible. So Christians, those who have come to God through Christ by faith, are people of the Book.

As people of the Book we are a Scripture based movement, for in the Scriptures we find doctrine, direction, guidance, and grace, just to name a few of the benefits. For us, the Book is our lifeline to God and from it our relationship with God is nourished on a daily basis.

The Puritan pastor Thomas Watson, speaking over 200 years ago about the Word of God said, “Come to the Word with a holy appetite and a teachable heart. Sit under the Word attentively, receive it with meekness, and mingle it with faith. Then retain the Word, pray over it, practice it, and speak it to others about it.”

It is the calling of a pastor to be a person of the Book and feed upon the Word of God.  It is the first duty of a pastor to feed the flock by the diligent preaching of the Word of God from the Book. We would call this biblical preaching.

For Puritans like Watson, biblical preaching was not just hinged to Scripture; it quite literally existed inside the Word of God; the text is not the sermon but the sermon is the text. So listening to a sermon was being in the Book. They pondered the rich truths revealed in the Scriptures as a gemologist examines a ruby or a diamond.

We can all learn a great deal from this approach. The Puritans sounded a clarion call, as people of the Book; we should strive to become Word-centered in our faith and its practice. Then all those we touch will know we are people of the Book.

RefRev

Pluck Up

Pluck Up

How do you handle the difficulties of day-to-day life? This is a question I have often asked others and it is a question I often ask myself. After all, life does have its difficult moments, and none of us can expect to be completely spared.

There are difficulties that fall upon us that we cannot control. Yet there are also others that come from poor decisions we have made and these are the ones I am speaking about, the ones we have brought upon ourselves.

Some folks get angry, feeling they deserve a life free of difficulties, and struggle to cope when hard times fall upon them. Others take a more pessimistic view, believing they have somehow been assigned to failure, by a divine presence that cares little about them. Still others seek to place the blame on the perceived callousness of their environment or society as a whole.

Today there is little talk of the fall of mankind and the sinfulness that entered the world at that moment and continues today. We are often tempted to blame the difficulties we create by the choices we make on anything or anyone but ourselves, even God himself. It often seems the act of taking responsibility is not a popular course of action to follow. I believe we have all been guilty of this type of thinking at times.

Stepping up, taking responsibility, and acknowledging our failures is always the right way to go. It is a huge part of our maturing process as Christians. It keeps us balanced and on the straight and narrow path. It reminds me of some of my favorite lines in John Bunyan’s classic book, The Pilgrim’s Progress. As Christian begins his climb up the Hill of Difficulty he recites these words to himself,

“The Hill tho’ high, I covet to ascend,

 The difficulty will not me offend;

 For I perceive the way of life lies here:

 Come, pluck up, Heart, let ‘s neither faint nor fear;

 Better, tho’ difficult the right way to go,

 Than wrong, though easy, where the end is wo.

Pluck up and keep moving, it’s always the right way to go.

RefRev