My love for God's word goes back to the earliest days of my being awakened to faith in God through faith in Jesus Christ. I was a 20 year old college student and once my heart was opened to God, I could not get enough of reading scripture. I didn't understand most of what I was reading, but I began to learn and little by little I began to understand the depth of insight and the wisdom that came with that understanding.
When I felt God's call to go into training for ministry I went to a seminary down south. While in chapel one morning I listened to the teacher - who frankly I've long ago forgotten who it was - teaching from the book of Ezra. He was speaking on the text: Ezra 7:8-10
8 And Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king.
9 For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him.
10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.
I believe it was the Holy Spirit who took the words from the book of Ezra and made it my life's desire. I wanted to study God's word, do it, and teach it to God's people. It was etched into my spirit by God's Spirit and I have been doing it ever since.
In reading Calvin's Institutes I found a kindred spirit who loved God's word and was faithful to it's authority in all areas of life. From Book 1, chapter 8, section 11 read his exultation of the four Gospel letters, and the New Testament letters that follow:
"When we proceed to the New Testament, how solid are the pillars by which its truth is supported! Three evangelists give a narrative in a mean and humble style. The proud often eye this simplicity with disdain, because they attend not to the principal heads of doctrine; for from these they might easily infer that these evangelists treat of heavenly mysteries beyond the capacity of man. Those who have the least particle of candour must be ashamed of their fastidiousness when they read the first chapter of Luke. Even our Saviour’s discourses, of which a summary is given by these three evangelists, ought to prevent every one from treating their writings with contempt.
John, again, fulminating in majesty, strikes down more powerfully than any thunderbolt the petulance of those who refuse to submit to the obedience of faith. Let all those acute censors, whose highest pleasure it is to banish a reverential regard of Scripture from their own and other men’s hearts, come forward; let them read the Gospel of John, and, willing or unwilling, they will find a thousand sentences which will at least arouse them from their sloth; nay, which will burn into their consciences
as with a hot iron, and check their derision.
The same thing may be said of Peter and Paul, whose writings, though the greater part read them blindfold, exhibit a heavenly majesty, which in a manner binds and rivets every reader. But one circumstance, sufficient of itself to exalt their doctrine above the world, is, that Matthew, who was formerly fixed down to his money-table, Peter and John, who were employed with their little boats, being all rude and illiterate, had never learned in any human school that which they delivered to others. Paul, moreover, who had not only been an avowed but a cruel and bloody foe, being changed into a new man, shows, by the sudden and unhoped-for change, that a heavenly power had compelled him to preach the doctrine which once he destroyed.
Let those dogs deny that the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, or, if not, let them refuse
credit to the history, still the very circumstances proclaim that the Holy Spirit must have been the
teacher of those who, formerly contemptible among the people, all of a sudden began to discourse
so magnificently of heavenly mysteries."
He follows this with an apology (not apologizing, but a defense) of the work of the Spirit in making scripture alive in our own spirit. From Book 1, chapter 9, 1 & 2 we read this:
"...it had been so foretold by the mouth of Isaiah. For when he says, “My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever,” he does not tie down the ancient Church to external doctrine, as he were a mere teacher of elements;7 72 he rather shows that, under the reign of Christ, the true and full felicity of the new Church will consist in their being ruled not less by the Word than by the Spirit of God...
But what kind of Spirit did our Saviour promise to send? One who should not speak of himself (John 16:13), but suggest and instil the truths which he himself had delivered through the word. Hence the office of the Spirit promised to us, is not to form new and unheard-of revelations, or to coin a new form of doctrine, by which we may be led away from the received doctrine of the gospel, but to seal on our minds the very doctrine which the gospel recommends.
2. Hence it is easy to understand that we must give diligent heed both to the reading and hearing
of Scripture, if we would obtain any benefit from the Spirit of God..."
This is timeless truth. We still have the temptations to teach something other than the word of God, but there is no truth so timeless, and with such eternal implications than the truth contained therein. And it is God's word that God's Spirit will always make alive in all who love his word.
Peace
When I felt God's call to go into training for ministry I went to a seminary down south. While in chapel one morning I listened to the teacher - who frankly I've long ago forgotten who it was - teaching from the book of Ezra. He was speaking on the text: Ezra 7:8-10
8 And Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king.
9 For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him.
10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.
I believe it was the Holy Spirit who took the words from the book of Ezra and made it my life's desire. I wanted to study God's word, do it, and teach it to God's people. It was etched into my spirit by God's Spirit and I have been doing it ever since.
In reading Calvin's Institutes I found a kindred spirit who loved God's word and was faithful to it's authority in all areas of life. From Book 1, chapter 8, section 11 read his exultation of the four Gospel letters, and the New Testament letters that follow:
"When we proceed to the New Testament, how solid are the pillars by which its truth is supported! Three evangelists give a narrative in a mean and humble style. The proud often eye this simplicity with disdain, because they attend not to the principal heads of doctrine; for from these they might easily infer that these evangelists treat of heavenly mysteries beyond the capacity of man. Those who have the least particle of candour must be ashamed of their fastidiousness when they read the first chapter of Luke. Even our Saviour’s discourses, of which a summary is given by these three evangelists, ought to prevent every one from treating their writings with contempt.
John, again, fulminating in majesty, strikes down more powerfully than any thunderbolt the petulance of those who refuse to submit to the obedience of faith. Let all those acute censors, whose highest pleasure it is to banish a reverential regard of Scripture from their own and other men’s hearts, come forward; let them read the Gospel of John, and, willing or unwilling, they will find a thousand sentences which will at least arouse them from their sloth; nay, which will burn into their consciences
as with a hot iron, and check their derision.
The same thing may be said of Peter and Paul, whose writings, though the greater part read them blindfold, exhibit a heavenly majesty, which in a manner binds and rivets every reader. But one circumstance, sufficient of itself to exalt their doctrine above the world, is, that Matthew, who was formerly fixed down to his money-table, Peter and John, who were employed with their little boats, being all rude and illiterate, had never learned in any human school that which they delivered to others. Paul, moreover, who had not only been an avowed but a cruel and bloody foe, being changed into a new man, shows, by the sudden and unhoped-for change, that a heavenly power had compelled him to preach the doctrine which once he destroyed.
Let those dogs deny that the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, or, if not, let them refuse
credit to the history, still the very circumstances proclaim that the Holy Spirit must have been the
teacher of those who, formerly contemptible among the people, all of a sudden began to discourse
so magnificently of heavenly mysteries."
He follows this with an apology (not apologizing, but a defense) of the work of the Spirit in making scripture alive in our own spirit. From Book 1, chapter 9, 1 & 2 we read this:
"...it had been so foretold by the mouth of Isaiah. For when he says, “My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever,” he does not tie down the ancient Church to external doctrine, as he were a mere teacher of elements;7 72 he rather shows that, under the reign of Christ, the true and full felicity of the new Church will consist in their being ruled not less by the Word than by the Spirit of God...
But what kind of Spirit did our Saviour promise to send? One who should not speak of himself (John 16:13), but suggest and instil the truths which he himself had delivered through the word. Hence the office of the Spirit promised to us, is not to form new and unheard-of revelations, or to coin a new form of doctrine, by which we may be led away from the received doctrine of the gospel, but to seal on our minds the very doctrine which the gospel recommends.
2. Hence it is easy to understand that we must give diligent heed both to the reading and hearing
of Scripture, if we would obtain any benefit from the Spirit of God..."
This is timeless truth. We still have the temptations to teach something other than the word of God, but there is no truth so timeless, and with such eternal implications than the truth contained therein. And it is God's word that God's Spirit will always make alive in all who love his word.
Peace
Comments