Scriptural truth is not a passive object for examination and presentation. The Word examines us.
Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 28
Tag Archives: Bible
Thinking God’s Thoughts
To think God’s thoughts requires much prayer. If you do not pray much, you are not thinking God’s thoughts. If you do not read your Bible much and often and reverently, you are not thinking God’s thoughts.
The Bible IS Our Theology
As the Word of God is enclosed in the Scriptures, so the Scripture is our theology, to such an extent that we assign complete authority to every part of it, and to each and every truth contained in it.
There Should Be No Rival to the Bible in Our Reading
Let all writers have their due esteem, but compare none of them with the Word of God. We will not refuse their service, but we must abhor them as rivals or competitors.
The Moral Emergency Answered by the Bible
The Bible was called forth by the moral emergency occasioned by the fall of man. It is the voice of God calling men home from the wilds of sin; it is a road map for returning prodigals; it is instruction in righteousness, light in darkness, information about God and man and life and death and heaven and hell. In it God warns, commands, rebukes, promises, encourages. In it he offers salvation and life through His Eternal Son. And the destiny of each one depends upon the response he or she makes to the voice of the Word.
Making the Scriptures Come Alive in Your Preaching
True preaching is never stale or dull or academic, but fresh and pungent with the living authority of God. But the Scripture comes alive to the congregation only if it has come alive to the preacher first. Only if God has spoken to him through the Word which he preaches will they hear the voice of God through his lips.
God’s Word
God’s Word mediates God’s presence to us.
God’s People Will Be Readers
One of the great suppositions of the Bible is that God’s people will read. The existence of Scripture is in itself an argument for the necessity of reading. That God inspired a book indicates His desire that His servants should be readers.
Dinsdale Young, Messages for Home and Life, p. 61
Do You Recognize God’s Chastening Rod in Your Life?
The Spirit of God often sends home the reproofs of Scripture to our hearts; while we are reading the word we feel that it searches us and rebukes us. So also the Lord will employ his ministers to chide us. Little is that ministry worth which never chides you. If God never uses his minister as a rod, depend upon it he will never use him as a pot of manna, for the rod of Aaron and the pot of manna always go together, and he who is God’s true servant will be both to your soul.
The Lord will also chide you through your own conscience, causing you to judge and condemn yourself. The Spirit of God will quicken your understanding, and then it will be said of you as of David, “David’s heart smote him.” It is hard hitting when the heart smites, for it comes to such close quarters, but blessed is that man who can thus be corrected: it is a sad sign when conscience is too dead to be of any service in this direction.
Life Is Worship 