Friday, December 12, 2014

Authorship of the Bible, a research paper for school

Introduction
‘Of every word of Scripture is it to be affirmed, in turn, that it is God’s word and that it
is man’s word. All the qualities of divinity and of humanity are to be sought and may be
found in every portion and element of the Scripture’. [1]  Scripture is both human and divine.  It is just as important to recognize and embrace this fact as it to embrace the full humanity and divinity of Christ our savior.  He cannot be our savior if he is less any side of this.  His word must also be fully both. 
For many people the Bible, unfortunately, is nothing more than a fanciful book about times long since passed.  There are characters that we can see their lives and witness the birth of a Nation.  They see the good times and the bad, but in all of that they still only see fiction.  To them, the Bible is just another story book.  But it is not.  It is so much more than that.  The Bible is the written Word of God, the creator of the universe and all that is in it penned by the hand of the very creation of God.  The Bible was written by man by the inspiration of God.  The key difference between the Bible and other works also written down by men is that the Bible has this inspired nature.  It is the divine nature of scripture that separates it from other human writings.  Because of the divine nature, belief in scripture requires saving faith in order to see it as truth.
Throughout history man has made one attempt after another to discredit scripture.  Every attempt is based on the humanity of the Bible.  It is important for Christians to research scripture and understand how faith comes into play in helping us to see how the humanity complements the spirituality.  The Bible is both human and divine for a reason.  One reason that it is important for us to embrace this is because detractors essentially do the same thing as Christians with one main difference.  They also believe in documents and writings of humans and they place their faith in them as truth as they believe them over the Bible.  The difference is that Christians have saving faith in Scripture and they do not.
In this paper one can take a look at the human authorship of the Bible.  There is biblical support for this authorship throughout the Old and New Testaments.  In addition, the next section will discuss how this human authorship was actually one inspired by God.  The human and divine authorship working together so that both sides are partnered rather than one controlling the other.  Or one making up the word of the other.  The human authors did not just make up a collection of interesting stories, nor did they just write down an account of things that they witnessed.  Far more than this they wrote the word that God inspired them to write. 

Human Authorship

What Lanes points out, though, is that in the writings of of Warfield there does seem to be an imbalance toward the divine authorship.  This is explained because at the time Divine authorship was being attacked, the writers themselves attested to the divine nature, and finally that “Warfield maintained that the human authorship of scripture was in his time all but universally acknowledged.”[2]  The humanity was accepted and known in Warfield’s day and because of this he saw little need to over emphasize this.  This is something that many today neglect to emphasize.  He also quotes Warfield to say “Probably no one today so emphasizes the divine element in Scripture as to exclude the human altogether.” [3]  In his day this was common but for today we seem to want to exclude this.  The human authorship of scripture is also something that is well documented in scripture.  In 2 Peter 3:15 we read how Paul wrote to us.   “15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him.”  Not only there but in 2 Corinthians 2:4 Paul himself takes the credit for the writing.  This is not to say that his letters are not scripture, but it is important for the Christian to fully acknowledge the human authorship and Paul leaves little doubt. “For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.”  These men wrote about things that God shared with them.  He shared wisdom, knowledge, and His love with men and they wrote it down for us.  In joy and in pain, man wrote scripture to give us joy and to show us how to deal with pain.             
            Not only can we look at the New Testament, though.  The Old Testament has much documentation of the human authorship.  Numbers 33:2, “Moses wrote down their starting places, stage by stage, by command of the Lord, and these are their stages according to their starting places.”  Moses wrote.  These two simple words gives us a large chunk of the Old Testament.  Joshua 24:26, “And Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took a large stone and set it up there under the terebinth that was by the sanctuary of the Lord.”  Joshua too is credited as a human author.  1 Samuel 10:25, “Then Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship, and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the Lord. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his home.”  Samuel gave us the duties of the Kings.  Jeremiah 45:1[ Message to Baruch ] The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the dictation of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah.”  Jeremiah wrote prophecy.  Scripture is written from start to finish by the hand of man.  To deny this is to deny that anything written in scripture is also false. 
    By embracing this humanity Christians can better understand and even defend scripture.  The Bible is not some detached extra-spiritual document.  The Bible is an entire collection of human writings that happens to also be inspired by God.  As a point can be made as a way of transition about the passage in John 17:18, “18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”  Jowers, when speaking of the canonicity of scripture, tells us “Jesus testified to his approval of the apostles’ teaching, first by characterizing the apostles as divinely sent.”[4]  Just as God sent Jesus into the world, so did Christ send His apostles.  This point implies that the New Testament for sure is inspired because the human authors we directly sent by God.  While it was written down by men, they were inspired to do so.  In the next section this divine inspiration will be discussed further.  For now we can also call on the fact that the human authorship is also affirmed.   The apostles are credited with the written word, and Christ backs the inspired nature. 
            It is important, though, to understand that human authorship is quite important and must go hand in hand with the inspiration from God.  Scripture is not simply true because the human writers witnessed what they wrote about.  From Geoff Lienert we can read about how Vilmar was against the verbal inspiration of Scripture, and still maintained the inerrancy of the Bible.  He believed this to be true because “’those people (that is, the writers) viewed these things’.”[5] This certainly shows us a dangerous position that one could be in to tout the inerrancy of Scripture, but to deny the inspiration.  It is not possible to have one without the other as it relates to Scripture.  Much like the preacher casts his sermons with the divine help of God, the writers of the Bible did the same.  This is two fully equal partners in writing one book, and Lane warns that “it is a mistake to imagine that the divine and human in the Bible are competing elements.”[6] There is no competition here, only the Almighty God choosing to use fallen humanity to bring His word into the world.  Human authors, and divine inspiration.  A divine partnership to bring the Bible to a lost and dying world.  Best explained again by Lane quoting Warfield, “The fundamental principle of this conception is that the whole of Scripture is the product of divine activities which enter it, however, not by superseding the activities of the human authors, but confluently with them.”[7]  This confluence is the key to the partnership of divine and human in the Bible. 

Divine Authorship
The method God chose to bring His Word to the world is without doubt the hand of man.  They drew from their lives and experiences to pen His Word.  Many people call this process “inspiration”.  A good place to start out is with Lane who makes some very good points about the authorship of scripture.  Using B.B. Warfield he gives a very good lesson on the authorship of scripture.  An interesting first starting point is the word most use to describe the divinity of scripture:  inspiration.  The problem with this word is that it means something closer to God breathing in.  According to Lane this is not a biblical concept.  In fact, the “biblical picture is more one of the scriptures being ‘breathed out’ by God, of the Bible as ‘a Divine product produced through the instrumentality of man’.”[8]    As God breathed out on the lives of biblical authors the product was a book that is both fully human and fully Divine.  Just as there is biblical support for the humanity of scripture, there is also much support for the Divine.  As already mentioned in John 17, there is perhaps the most quoted passage in II Timothy 3:16-17 “16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[a] may be complete, equipped for every good work.”  This passage accomplishes two things for the reader of scripture.  Here one can find the authority in scripture and know that it is God’s Word.  Not only this, but in this passage one can find the purpose is equip the man of God in good work.  It can also be seen in scripture just what would have happened if the task had been left for man alone.  In II Peter 1:20-21 Peter shares with the reader that man cannot do this alone.  It says, “20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”  Alone man does not have the will to do God’s work.  Also notice, though, that verse 20 says that it is also not the man’s interpretation either.  If left to man, there would be no scripture.  This makes a very good argument in opposition of the religion that claims scripture written by men alone.  What we see in scripture, though, is an important concept that carries to both the human and the Divine authorship.  Just as Jowers reminds us, scripture is “self-authenticating”.[9]    These truths written here are not something that one must draw out of the air.  Scripture attests to its own origin and we need look no further. 
Just like the human authorship is clearly affirmed in both the New and Old Testaments, Divine authorship is no different.  The old speaks to the same.  In Deuteronomy 18:20-22 we can find that not only did God give these words, but his passage can be used as a yardstick to measure all scripture.  “20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ 21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.”  There are enough prophecies and predictions in scripture to keep scholars busy for the last nearly two thousand years, and there are still more remaining.  The reader is told quite plainly that if something written in the book that did not actually happen then it is not a word from God.  This is not something that is made up.  God “breathed out” this word to the writers.  Just as Paul reminds us in Galatians 1:11-12 "I want you to know, brothers that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather I RECEIVED IT BY REVELATION...” (emphasis added)  He may have written these words but it is something that he received and not made up.  Matthew Henry gives a great note from his commentary.  Paul was one to recognize that He needed the Lord’s wisdom more than his own.  Henry tells us, “In preaching the gospel, the apostle sought to bring persons to the obedience, not of men, but of God. But Paul would not attempt to alter the doctrine of Christ, either to gain their favour, or to avoid their fury. In so important a matter we must not fear the frowns of men, nor seek their favour, by using words of men's wisdom. Concerning the manner wherein he received the gospel, he had it by revelation from Heaven. He was not led to Christianity, as many are, merely by education.”[10] (http://biblehub.com/commentaries/galatians/1-11.htm)  The last sentence is perhaps the most telling of the problem that one will have with any other writing.  In the end the purpose of scripture is to bring mankind to Christ and this is not something that can be done through education alone.  Knowledge must come from God in order for one to come to the right understanding.  Steven Nadler tells us in this way, “When prophecy or divine revelation is correctly understood in this broad sense, as whatever knowledge causally and epistemically depends on God, then it includes natural knowledge. More specifically, it includes philosophy and science, as well as other products of the intellect, and is therefore ‘common to all men.’”[11]  For scripture to be work in bringing people to Christ and equipping the man of God, it must come from God.  The detractors that mention philosophy and science as if they are separate, they have missed the truth that this is also comes from God.  Also the detractors will use this “inspiration” to say that the human mechanically wrote the word that the Lord gave them.  This is something that Warfield denied.  While he acknowledged that there were people that held this view, Lane quotes Warfield and tells us that “the ‘obvious marks of human authorship’ in the biblical books prevented this view from becoming dominant.”[12]  How, then does this inspiration work in order that God’s word could be written by men?  Lane continues by sharing the work of Warfield.  This is something that Warfield worked closely with A.A. Hodge to define verbal inspiration.  Lane shares with us that, “Inspiration is called verbal to make it clear that it extends not just to the thoughts of the writers but to the very words that they used. It must not be supposed that God merely put ideas into the minds of the biblical authors and then left them to put them into words as best they could. But in claiming that words themselves are inspired it is not implied that the human writers are not also their authors. ‘The thoughts and words are both alike human, and, therefore, subject to human limitations, but the divine superintendance and guarantee extends to the one as much as the other.’”[13]  The thoughts and the words of the human authors were inspired in such a way that their human influence remains but with a Divine guarantee.  The reader can know that what they are reading God’s word and at the same time that He can use man for great and mighty things. 

Conclusion
When the Christian goes to their Bible to read what God has to say to them, it is a trip to a book unlike any other in the world.  This book shares one important trait with every other book: that it was written by men.  What makes it different is that even though it is penned by the hand of men, it also carries the hand of God in its inspiration.  This single fact is one that is denied by most, but to those who have saving faith it is held closely to their hearts to bring them hope, and comfort, and knowledge of the Savior of the world.  And as it has already been mentioned, it takes more than just human faith.  It must be faith that comes from God in order to believe.  Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,” and it is only in this faith that one has any hope to truly understand the nature of God’s word. 















Bibliography
Henry, Matthew. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary On the Whole Bible (Super Value Series). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003.
Jowers, Dennis W. "THE SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE AND THE BIBLICAL CANON." Trinity Journal 30, no. 1 (Spring, 2009): 49-65, http://search.proquest.com/docview/346985617?accountid=12085.
Lane, A.N.S. “B.B. Warfield and the Humanity of Scripture,” Vox Evangelica 16 (1986): 77-94.
Lienert, Geoff. "Scripture, the Divine and the Human in the Negotiations Leading to the Theses on Principles Governing Church Fellowship and Theses on Scripture and Inspiration." Lutheran Theological Journal 47, no. 2 (08, 2013): 110-21, http://search.proquest.com/docview/1429383673?accountid=12085.
Nadler, Steven. "Scripture and truth: a problem in Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus." Journal of the History of Ideas 74.4 (2013): 623-642. Academic OneFile. Web. 27 Nov. 2014.



[1] A.N.S. Lane, “B.B. Warfield and the Humanity of Scripture,” Vox Evangelica 16 (1986): 78
[2] Ibid. 78-79
[3] Ibid.  79
[4] Dennis Jowers, “The Sufficiency of Scripture and the Biblical Canon.” Trinity Journal 30, no. 1 (Spring 2009):  53
[5] Geoff Lienert, “Scripture, the Divine and the Human in the Negotiations Leading to the Theses on Principles governing church Fellowship and Theses on Scripture and Inspiration.” Lutheran Theological Journal 47, no. 2 (August 2013):  111
[6] A.N.S. Lane, “B.B. Warfield and the Humanity of Scripture,” Vox Evangelica 16 (1986): 81.
[7] Ibid. 82
[8] Ibid. 79
[9] Dennis Jowers, “The Sufficiency of Scripture and the Biblical Canon.” Trinity Journal 30, no. 1 (Spring 2009):  49
[10] Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary On the Whole Bible (Super Value Series) (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 25731.
[11] Steven Nadler, “Scripture and truth:  a problem in Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.” Journal of the History of Ideas 74.4 (2013): 628.
[12] A.N.S. Lane, “B.B. Warfield and the Humanity of Scripture,” Vox Evangelica 16 (1986): 79-80
[13] Ibid. 80

Friday, January 11, 2013

Marriage, would you like to know more?

Tonight I read a story about a Pastor that was asked to pray at the President's inauguration.  He was chosen because of his support and work against human trafficking.  This is a man we should all be proud, as Americans, to have pray for our President.  All of this changed when a group that is opposed to the Gospel of Christ found out that this Pastor, Preacher of God's word, spoke a message many years ago that defined Biblical marriage.  

I see so many problems with this that I could spend many pages writing about it, but what strikes me the most is that these groups had to dig too far into his past to find a message that identified his belief in Biblical marriage.  It strikes me that I do not want to make it so difficult for any person or group opposed to the Gospel of Christ to find out how I believe and what my definition of marriage is.  As I embark on this voyage with the Lord to preach His Word to the people of this world, I want it to be crystal clear that I know that marriage is an institution of God's that exists between a man and a woman alone.  That there is no room for men with men and women with women.  My apologies on the poor writing, but I felt that it was a good trade for getting this our without delay.

I know this position is offensive to some people.  In fact, I have distant family members that would take issue.  But none of this matters because all that matters is that we acknowledge Christ before men so He will acknowledge us before the Father.  I want Christ in Heaven speaking my name before God, so I had to go on record with what I believe the Bible says about marriage.  

Here are some verses that the Bible has to offer us to tell the story of marriage.

Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

From the beginning God establishes that a man and a woman would "hold fast" to one another.

Deuteronomy 24:5 “When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be liable for any other public duty. He shall be free at home one year to be happy with his wife whom he has taken."

When speaking of marriage and making rules that would determine how God's chosen would conduct themselves when they married.  Here it is obvious that marriage would be between a man and a woman.  

Matthew 19:4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Matthew confirms what was written in the beginning and shows us that this is not just some old covenant rule that ended with the new convenant.

1 Corinthians 7:16 For how do you know, wife,whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

Here again in Corinthians Paul confirms again that marriage is between a man and woman.

Colossians 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

And again here in Colossians Paul once again identifies to us that a man and a woman are to be married.  

You can search the Bible through and through and you will find no reference explicit or implied that would lead us to be believe that it is alright for two people of the same sex to marry.  While there are many that would say differently, their only real hope is to convince us that the Bible is an archaic document that is no longer relevant.  In the end this is what we are left with; you either believe what the Bible tells us or you do not.  

I want to be sure that there is no doubt what I believe.  This semester I will have an assignment to write a statement of faith.  One element of this assignment will include this belief.  I want for there to be no doubt about what I stand for.  I want to make sure that it is not difficult for anyone to find proof that I stand up for the real "natural".  


Wednesday, November 7, 2012

What is really important anyway?

For the last several years I have watched our country disintegrate over the now past Presidential election.  During this time I have thought long and hard about how important this should be for those of us who are truly in Christ.  How much of ourselves should we be putting into these political processes?  This morning on while sitting in traffic, I think it came to me.  I now believe I have the answer. 

As Christians we first have to figure out what is important.  I say we must figure it out, because it is already there for us to read in Scripture.  Many would try to "interpret" and make a "decision" about this, but likely they will fall on the wrong side of the issue.  I want to point out two passages in Scripture and give an idea what I think we should be doing. 

1)  In Matthew 22, Christ Jesus tells us "Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's".  What this means is that we are to exercise our civic duties until it interferes with our duty to God.  Yesterday, we all were able to exercise our civic duty and vote for our next human leader.  This is scriptural that we do this.  It is our duty to participate in as much as we can up to the point that it interferes.  Here is where we reach the problem.

2)  In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul tells us that we are to "preach Christ crucified."  When you take this in context with Matthew 28, the Great Commission, you see we are to go and make disciples by preaching Christ alone. 

Today as I came to work and sat in the endless traffic of the Claiborne fly-over ramp, I realized that we have failed God by immersing ourselves in electioneering and politicking.  I recall recently a conversation with someone who told me that they never had opportunites to talk about their faith at work.  This morning I meditated on that thought and realized that this same person would likely never have a problem to talk politics to the same folks all day about politics.  How can we square this with a clear mandate from Christ to give to God what is His, and to preach Christ?  The answer:  we can't. 

The reason that we are having problems in our world today is because of sin.  The only cure for sin is Christ.  If we stop spending all of our time preaching politics and start preaching Christ crucified, then we will be injecting the cure for sin into the world, and the only thing this can do is help make it better.  It will Glorify God, offer opportunities to us to see Him work, and grow His kingdom here until that day when Christ comes for us. 

Today, stop wasting your time trying to change this world and our country.  Stop pushing your political agenda around.  Stop wasting your opportunities to witness Christ's work in your life.  Instead, turn those opportunities into God honoring, Christ preaching sessions where His most precious name is shouted above all names.  Only this way wil knees bow and tongues confess Him and sould be saved. 

What are you going to do with this?  Are you going to preach Christ today?  I challenge you to speak to one person today and invite them to know Christ.  If they are a believer already, then edify them and strengthen them to the task at hand.  I challenge you to stop wasting your time in the world and help people come out of it and into God's hand. 

Amen!


Friday, June 1, 2012

I have thought a lot in the last few days about something that was posted on Facebook.  I know I should not give too much time to Facebook, but this really made me think.  The post was in reference to a cross that an activist atheist group is trying to remove.

Romans 1:18 comes to mind when I ponder on these people.  "For the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth."

This activist group is fighting so hard against a symbol of our salvation.  The truth is plain to them that god exists.  If it were not so then they would not have to fight so hard to remove any symbol of Him.  The idea of suppressing something requires action on the part of those that suppress.  God makes the truth plain to us so that it will spring to view and the unrighteous must hold this truth down in order to "not believe" in it or in God the creator.

Where does this leave the activist atheist group?  Without an excuse when judged.  They fight every day to remove any sign that God is real and when one truth is suppressed another becomes plain.

What does this all mean for the Christian?  Here is where I think we may over react.  We tend to get up in arms over these displays of the atheist groups and want to fight their inevitable suppression of the truth.  We tend to forget that it still remains true whether this man made sign of the truth exists or not.  In this specific situation, the man-made cross that was erected as a memorial has no bearing on Christ's sacrifice for our sin (and theirs if they believe in Him).

We have very few commands in scripture that we are to follow.  Love our neighbors as ourselves and we are to go and make disciples.  We should let God retain the right to righteous indignation and just do our job of going and making disciples of these atheists so they will start believing the truth and stop suppressing it.  There is nothing wrong with being upset with these groups, but our energy would be better placed in spreading our gospel.

What am I going to do?  I'm going to follow the example of an old friend tonight.  After dinner in a restaurant we talked of fulfilling the Great Commission.  Without another word he got up from the table and invited a family at the table next to us to his church on Sunday.  We are not ashamed to blast away at non-believers for suppressing the truth, but we seem to be ashamed to share that truth with them instead.  I plan to fix this in my own life.  What will you do?

Monday, March 12, 2012

Grace and Peace to God's children, co-heir's with Christ, or to the non-believer that stumbled accross my post by "accident",


This is another post that I had to copy.  This was really good information to have today as the Holy Spirit is working on me.  Pay particular attention to where the commentator calls attention to the fact that when we serve the Lord it is the Spirit that is working and not our own "natural capabilities".  also that ever task that we complete for the service of the Lord is "accomplished by His grace".  This ties to my last post because we do not do enough.  We have no excuse because the answers are there and now we see that all we really have to do is just move out of the Spirit's way and much can be accomplished through us by His power. 


Subject: Blue Letter Bible: Day By Day By Grace

Day By Day By Grace

Bob Hoekstra

March 12, 2012

Reflecting on the Holy Spirit and Grace

"And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of
Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication." (Zechariah 12:10)

Let's take a reflective look at our meditations on the Holy Spirit as a
reminder that we are still studying about the grace of God. In
considering how to live by the fullness of the Spirit, we have examined
how to live more fully by the grace of God.

In Zechariah 4:6, we observed the connection between living by the
Spirit and living by the grace of God: "Not by might nor by power, but
by My Spirit." Serving the Lord is accomplished by the work of the
Spirit in and through our lives, not by natural capabilities. The next
verse restates this truth in terms of God's grace. "And he shall bring
forth the capstone with shouts of 'Grace, grace to it'!" Every
completed task in the service of God is accomplished by His grace
(God's undeserved resources), not by our ingenuity or merit.

We also saw how the early church experienced this relationship between
the Spirit and grace. "They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and
they spoke the word of God with boldness...And with great power the
apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great
grace was upon them all" (Acts 4:31, 33). The boldness they experienced
through the Holy Spirit is described as a result of great grace at work
upon them.

Jesus came to establish a new covenant. "This cup is the new covenant
in My blood" (Luke 22:20). This covenant was characterized by grace, in
contrast to the old covenant that Moses set in place. "For the law was
given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"
(John 1:17). This new covenant of grace is also a covenant of the
Spirit. "Our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as
ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for
the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Corinthians 3:5-6).

When the Lord Jesus returns and Israel humbly bows to Him as their
Messiah, this wondrous response will be the result of "the Spirit of
grace" being poured out upon them. This glorious title, identifying
grace with the Holy Spirit, beautifully sums up the grand truth that
living by grace and walking in the Spirit are two perspectives on the
same precious reality.

O God of all Grace, I long to live by Your grace day by day. Lord, I
thank You that grace is not merely some principle that I must apply,
but rather a resource You must impart. Would You therefore pour out
upon me in fullness the Spirit of grace?



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You know what to do and you know where to find the answers.

Grace and Peace to you all,

I won't take credit for any of this.  Someone I work with sent it out via email and it came from a daily devotion.  I left the subject line to give as much credit as possible.  My comments will be below. 

Subject: FW: "Guaranteed Guidance" -- Harvest Daily Devotion for 3/12/2012

       MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2012

Guaranteed Guidance

       Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.      
     
—James 4:17 <http://bible.us/Jas4.17.NKJV>


Sometimes we cry out to God, "Lord, show me Your will—just speak to me right now," when all the while, we are holding the answer in our hands. God's will is revealed in the pages of Scripture.

It would be like waiting for a letter containing directions that tell you what you should do, and when the letter finally arrives, you hold it in your hand, never open it, and then wonder why you could not get the information you needed.

In the same way, God has revealed His plan and His purpose, but we must study the Scripture to know what it is.

David prayed, "Teach me to do Your will" (Psalm 143:10). Notice that he did not say, "Teach me to understand your will." Rather, he said, "Teach me to do Your will." This carries the assumption that it is not a matter of information, but obedience. Sometimes I think the problem is not that we don't know the will of God; it is that we don't like the will of God.

I have a granddaughter who engages in selective hearing. She hears me when I say something she likes, such as, "Let's watch a cartoon." But then when I tell her to do something that she doesn't want to do, all of the sudden it is as though I never said it.

We are that way with God sometimes. It is not that we don't know His will. It is that we don't like His will. But James 4:17 tells us, "To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin."

Do you know something to be the will of God for your life that you are not doing? Obedience to revealed truth guarantees guidance in matters unrevealed.

My Comments:  This hit me square in the heart like a sharp knife.  We can be such hypocrites because we scold our children for doing the same things to us, that we do to God.  We ask for answers but we have them in our Bibles.  We want to be closer to Christ but we fail to pray and seek that relationship. 

Today I have been under heavy conviction by the Holy Spirit for my actions, and the answer came to me on my run:  I am not doing enough.  When I sat back at my desk this was waiting in my inbox.  We are all without excuse.  God thought of everything well before he even created us and left us without excuse.  Whether it is the un-believer that is "doesn't believe" or it is the Christian that "doesn't know what to do" we cannot claim ignorance.  Creation testifies to it and scripture proclaims it. 

The only thing left to ask is, "What are you going to do about it?"

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Just some thoughts I believe God is sharing with me today.

We live in a world that is ravaged by sin.  The level of depravity displayed by humans today is sinking rapidly by the minute and the world is going with it.  Christians preach how we have to "change the world".  I think this is the wrong stance to take, and the wrong battle to fight. 

I was thinking today that God isn't trying to change our world.    He allowed Satan to come in and currupt it through sin in us.  The world is a result of sin's presence and degredation of a once perfect creation.  Many cannot grasp how a perfect God created a perfect world and a perfect people only to allow a sinful force to corrupt it.  The answer is becoming more and more obvious that it was to show His power and glory.  I just cannot get on board the idea that He has any intent to change this world from its present course. 

What does this mean for Christians who desire to change the world?  If we are not to change the world then what are we to do?  One of the more well known passages in Scripture is Matthew 28:18-20.  Jesus approached and said to them "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  So go and make disciples of all nations.  Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.   An always remember that I am with you to the end of the age." (paraphrased).  What does this mean?  How does it fit into my theory above?  Nowhere in this commission does He say that we are to change the world.  We are to change the people and save them.  Now before you argue, I realize that there is nothing that a mere human can do to save anyone.  My larger point is that we are to be the tool that God uses to fix His people by going out and making disciples of the nations.  All nations.  We are not doing anything for the world, just the people.

God sent His son, Jesus Christ to save us from this world.  I read Matthew again in chapter none v17 and realize that this world is the old wineskins and believers are the new wine.  I don't want to over spiritualize this passage, but the comparison seems obvious.  Our true salvation comes at the end of our life on this world and we will be taken from it.  We won't be back until it is a new world.  He won't put new wine in an old wineskin.

Satan took over the world in the garden and has corrupted it.  While God could change it and make it fresh, this doesn't show His true power.  I think He always planned to just let it die and then let us live.  To truly make His power and glory known He must show that He has the power over Satan and death to destroy them and make it new.  He does this with our lives, and He will do this with the world.  What we see in the world today will pass away and die. 

This begs the question, then, are you planning to just stay in the world and die wth it?  Or will you open your heart to accept His grace and be saved from it.  The choice is simple.  Do you choose real life or real death.  Will you die with the world, or live free with Christ?