Beth writes today on her blog about the true, joyful community she witnessed after church this Sunday, looking around at the people from nine different language groups and various ages…
Coty Pinckney
An Anglican church in central London has produced two excellent 3-4 minutes videos aimed at skeptics. The first, "That's Easter: Life to Death" highlights the pervasive nature of sin and…
(For a version of this devotion that is easier to print, follow this link.)
Many people today want guidance. They want a word from God to know:
- Whom to marry,
- what job to take,
- whether or not to buy a house,
- whether to take money out of the stock market or leave it in.
There are also many decisions considered more “spiritual” in which we want God to lead us:
- To attend one church or another;
- to go into long-term missionary work or not;
- to go into full time ministry or not;
- to focus on one unreached people group or another;
- to go on one short term mission trip or another.
Can you count on God’s guidance in making such decisions?
The Bible clearly teaches that God sovereignly calls and guides His people to carry out His plans. We saw a wonderful example of this last Sunday in Acts 15:36-16:15. Paul makes decision after decision about his second missionary journey, fulfilling God’s missionary mandate as best as he can determine; most of his decisions – to take Silas with him, to travel by land to Galatia, to circumcise Timothy, to stop in Philippi, to seek those worshiping God by the river, to stay with Lydia – are made without any noted supernatural direction. But then at times the Holy Spirit supernaturally guides Paul, redirecting him away from Asia and Bithynia (Acts 16:6-7) and towards Macedonia (Acts 16:9).
God does call and guide His people to carry out His plans.
Will He guide you?
Do you know all about God?
Even the question sounds presumptuous, doesn’t it? How can any man fully comprehend the God of the universe?
David makes this point in Psalm 139.…
Which culture is the most Christian?
There is a definite Islamic culture; there are elements of life on the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century that continue to serve as…
(This sermon on Acts 13:13-52 was preached February 22, 2009. The audio is available here.)
What is the Bible? What do you think of it? How do you approach it?
Many want nothing to do with it. They might respond to such questions by saying, "The Bible - that's old and out of date. It's not relevant for today. If I'm going to read something hundreds of pages long, I want it to be fresh, new, written for this time period, and informed by all the recent advances in knowledge. Why should I spend time looking at that old book?"
Others might see historical or sociological value in the Bible: "Oh, yes, the Bible is an interesting record of a number of the spiritual encounters of great men and (a very few) great women. Perhaps some of those encounters have a basis in a supernatural being intervening in this world. In addition, the Bible has been esteemed by millions of people over the years; it has had a major influence on this country's history and literature. Indeed, we can't understand the US today without understanding the Bible. So, yes, I read it, I have studied it - as history, as an important core document of several religious traditions."
Yet others might say more: They value the Bible for personal spiritual benefits: "Yes, the Bible has had a profound influence on me. Jesus is an amazing figure, as are Moses, Elijah, Daniel, David, and others. Jesus surely was a great teacher who was closely in touch with God. He is my example; I try to live like him. There is much we must learn from the Bible. But today, we can't even know what the Bible originally said. The church may well have massaged the text to make it say what it wanted. And, in any event, the Bible is a pre-scientific account of origins and human psychology. We've learned so many things that make the Bible's worldview archaic and obsolete. So, yes, it's very interesting, impressive, and helpful - but today we must pick and choose what topics, what passages still make sense."
Do those attitudes sound familiar to you? Do you yourself agree with one of them?
Consider the difference between those three attitudes toward the Bible and the psalmist's attitude, expressed in Psalm 119:169-174: