Father of Providence,

Your all-sovereign hand is on the affairs of men.
Every breath of our lungs,
every contraction of our hearts,
every impulse of our will,
is as a stream of water in your hands. 

You alone are God. And Christ your Son is Lord.
Leaders of men rise and fall,
     but you are unchanging, unfailing, eternal;
     and Jesus Christ is the same yesterday,
     and today,
     and forever.

We know not the length of our days;
     nor their quality,
     but you know all things.
So we humble ourselves before your wisdom
to confess anew our dependence on you.
When we are uncertain,
               give us confidence in your immutability
When we are afraid,
               give us confidence in your power.
When we are tempted by pride to rejoice in human victory
               bring us low, to know that our might is feeble,
               our wisdom is folly,
               our power utter weakness.

We recognize that all who are in positions of power
are there by your providence and appointment.
Cause them to see their station as one to be stewarded
               for justice and the good of all men,
               by the help of your wisdom,
               to the praise of your name only.
Judge justly all those who squander this power.
Guard the lives of all who lead
from the wicked intentions of evil men.
By your Spirit, convict all men of sin and righteousness
and lead them to the truth,
               to light,
               to life in Christ,
               and to salvation. 

Remind us each that apart from your grace,
               we stand condemned for sins,
               under your wrath,
               lost and without hope.

And refresh our souls to know that by your grace,
               we stand justified,
               changed by mercy,
               adopted as sons and daughters,
               by faith in Jesus only. 

Insofar as you will, O God,
let your people live peaceful and quiet lives
for the sake of your name
and the spread of the gospel.

Give us to loving our enemies,
               to praying for our persecutors,
               to caring for our neighbors,
               to adoring you above all others. 

We deserve nothing from your hand, O God,
but you have taught us to ask you for our needs.
We need your mercy.
We need your wisdom.
We need your aid.
Lord, give in overflowing measure
               all this which will lead to your exaltation.              

The world is the Lord’s
               and everything in it.
Thus, we give our lives back in worship
               to You, our Source and our King,
               by the name of Jesus. 

The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
               are Yours;
               forever and ever.
Let this truth never escape our minds.
Let this truth ever shape our souls. 

O, Sovereign King, we are yours,
               by grace alone,
               through faith alone,
               in Jesus the Son alone,
               all for your glory alone. 

O, do Lord, hear our request,
               and answer with the riches of our glory.

 AMEN.

     The reason I haven’t said much about the election this year is mostly because I have very little new to say. One of the two major candidates has remained the same for the last three election cycles. The other party’s face and name have changed, but their platform has not at all. And the rhetoric in ads continues to be just as hyperbolic, vitriolic, and divisive as ever. Nevertheless, in less than seven days, America will cast its vote for president—and you, if you are registered, will be among them.

     I, as one of your pastors, have an obligation from God to shepherd souls—souls who will vote. And as this election cycle stirs a host of varied emotions and convictions, I hope here to offer a few words, not to tell you for whom to cast your vote, but prayerfully to put your soul at ease as you do.

Our Republic and Christ’s Other-Worldly Kingdom

At the close of the constitutional convention held on September 18, 1787, Benjamin Franklin was reported to have been asked, “Well, doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” To which Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” The genius of America’s democratic republic has ensured popularly chosen representation in government for nearly 250 years. It has had to grow to extend the promise of representation to groups who were once held out by ethnicity, skin color, or nationality—but it has endured as perhaps the greatest example of representative democracy in the modern world. This republic constitutes a great nation, with great liberties, and great responsibilities.

In this election cycle, I have heard from both major parties that a vote for their opposition would either be, “the end of democracy,” or “the end of our great nation.” Statements like these are effective at riling up a voting base, but rarely are they as true as those making them would like. More often, these are attempts at using fear to drive action—and fear is an effective motivator.

Benjamin Franklin’s recognition that this republic, genius as it was, had also an inherent fragility to it. It is not guaranteed to be perfect, nor even to endure for many centuries. It can be lost, and so the care of the republic is a duty of every citizen. And the election of wise leaders who will likewise protect it is an important step in safeguarding it. But our republic is not where our ultimate citizenship, nor allegiance as Christians, lies.

In John 18:36, Jesus was asked by Pilate if he was indeed King of the Jews, and if so, why all his people had turned against him. Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Our American republic is of this world. Yes, we do see it as a gift of God’s providence, and we do see much of God’s common grace in it, but this republic is not Christ’s kingdom. In fact, Christ’s kingdom is not bound to geo-political boundaries or ethnic groups or even to a particular arrangement of government. His kingdom is his own and it transcends all human barriers and boundaries—it is other-worldly. If you are a citizen of Christ’s kingdom by faith in Jesus Christ, your home is with him, your fellow kingdom citizens are Christians of every stripe and ethnicity and nationality. Your King is Jesus. And in Christ’s kingdom, there are no votes! Only praise and worship of the one true King.

As Christians, we are citizens of two worlds at the same time. We are citizens of the nations that God has providentially placed us in with all their rights and responsibilities. And we are citizens of Christ’s kingdom. In the former, we exercise godly character and proclaim the gospel of Jesus, even as we work toward the betterment of our respective nations. In the latter, we strive for obedience to Christ first and most and only. Of the former, we know that it is temporary and so we do not bind all our hopes to the success of our republic or a particular candidate. Of the latter, we know that it is an everlasting kingdom with an everlasting king who will reign forever and ever to the glory of God. And we rest in the confidence that comes with knowing our great king.

Voting Booth Wisdom

As I noted earlier, politicians reflect policies, and policies affect people. This is perhaps the most important thing to remember when entering the voting booth this week. Christians know that there are some policies that directly impact people’s lives in better and worse ways than others. More than voting for a particular party, my encouragement is to vote for persons who will enact policies that best reflect Christ’s character and God’s revealed intentions for human flourishing. Doing this requires wisdom because there are no perfect candidates, and, thus, no perfect policies.

I have been helped by some Christian thinkers lately to try to think about policies and voting in strait-line versus jagged-line issues. Straight-line issues are issues like abortion or transgender so-called “care.” Scripture is clear that the intentional destruction of human life is murder. Scripture is clear that our created gender is good and God’s design. To advocate for abortion, or to deceive persons about their created gender is clearly contrary to God’s Word. These are contemporary straight-line issues that Christians ought to decide with obedience to scripture as they vote, and when they vote to cast their ballot in favor of biblical ethics.

Jagged-line issues, though, are more prevalent. Take for instance differing approaches to health care. Suppose there are two candidates who are both pro-life, but one, on the basis of his pro-life conviction advocates for single-payer, government run healthcare. The other, on the basis of her pro-life convictions, advocates for private health insurance. But the Bible has no clear prescription for which kind of healthcare system is most godly. The Christian who goes to cast her vote between two politicians like this will have to find her way through the path of wisdom to a candidate that she feels will lead to the most human flourishing on a specific policy issue the Bible is relatively vague about.

Because politics are not a spaghetti western where all the good guys where white hats and all the bad guys wear black hats, it is crucial for us to practice wisdom in the ballot box along those jagged-line issues. Such issues tend to be more tangibly felt at the local level as state senators and representatives, city counsellors, and municipal judges shape and enact policies that directly impact our daily living. That being the case, voting on down ballot issues can often have a greater impact than even candidates at the top of the ticket. Be wise, Christian, when you vote, and slow down to understand issues, candidates, and policies so that you may exercise godly wisdom as you cast your preference for the world we will live in.

Your Vote and Your Conscience

Baptists have long held the human conscience as something sacred. The doctrine of “soul competency” which Baptists advocate states that God gives human beings the ability to make meaningful decisions. Specifically, it relates that God gives human beings the capacity to make meaningful spiritual decisions, like whether or not to worship God and follow Christ or to reject him. This doctrine holds that God alone is Lord of the conscience and that conversion to Christianity cannot be effected by mere religious affiliation nor by coercion, but that true Christians are those who have personally and willfully repented of sin and trusted Christ as Lord. This being the case, those who hold to soul competency also believe that God alone is the final judge of the conscience, and all will stand before him to give an account for what they have done in life and with the knowledge they had of him (Lev. 5:17; Jer. 17:9-10; Matt. 15:18-19; John 3:18; Rom. 1:20; Acts 17:30).

Soul competency, and the sacredness of the human conscience, also matters for elections. It is not uncommon to hear today people, even pastors, commanding Christians that they must vote for this or that candidate, lest they deny their Christian faith. Most of the time when I hear this it is in favor of voting for a republican candidate. Presently, it is in favor of voting for a republican candidate with a checkered moral record and a character of less than admirable quality. For Christians who believed that character mattered when a democratic president was engaged in an affair with a staff intern, it can be difficult to say that character now does not matter as much when it comes to presidents. Likewise, those same Christians would likely agree that it is equally impossible to vote for a party whose top-line issue is the enshrinement of freedom to murder pre-born children. Christians vote with choices like this before them knowing they will have to make decisions that will not perfectly please others, nor satisfy their conscientious ideals.

Some political pundits would have Christians believe that to preserve their Christianity they must vote for a morally dubious candidate, or that they must vote for an ethically deficient candidate. Others will argue that a vote for a third-party or write-in candidate is wasted in what is effectively a two-party race. Some will argue that not to vote at all is a dereliction of civic duty.

This is where soul competency is key. The Lord knows your heart and your decisions and the motives behind them better than any human can. No vote can cause you to lose your salvation if you have received it by faith in Christ alone. And no vote should cause you such spiritual consternation that in casting it you would feel compelled to disobey God. We each will stand before God and answer for why we voted how we voted this year—from president to bond issues—and we ought to allow God to shape our conscience as we enter the voting booth this week.

What you must remember is that your vote is not your statement of faith, or a test of your orthodoxy (at least not yet). And that should give you some comfort. But do remember that your faith, rightly placed in Christ, ought to control your conscience and that you are obligated to do all things to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31).

Just One King

So here, I end with where I began. Many presidents will come and go. Senators and legislators are a dime a dozen. Nations will rise and fall. In all this the Lord, our God, is sovereign. Even our republic, so long as we can keep it, cannot hold a candle to the glory of the kingdom of God and of his Christ. Neither can any president, governor, mayor, or judge contend for power against the Lord. Remember Psalm 2.

Psalm 2:1-6:
¹Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
² The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
³ “Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
⁴ He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
⁵ Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
⁶ “As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”

The Lord laughs at the schemes of men to set up rival kingdoms to his own, and promises to topple them all in the end and establish his Son as King Forever over all things (Rev. 11:15). We who are in Christ are citizens of greater kingdom, and subjects of a good and just king. In his providence he has placed us in this nation at this juncture in history to make much of his name and to be as salt and light in a world decaying and darkened by sin (Matt. 5:13-16). But this world, stained by sin as it is, with all its earthly kingdoms (and republics) will come to an end one day, and these systems of worldly governance will all be replaced by the perfect kingdom of God. Your vote at the polling place will not change this reality. And whether your preferred candidate wins or loses, all will bend the knee and proclaim that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father on the last day (Phil. 2:10-11).

If the Lord tarries, we will see many presidents. We have but one king. His name is Jesus. Let your heart rejoice in him as you vote with confidence in his kingdom. Let your soul rest in him as you cast a ballot in concert with your Christian convictions. Let your life be in total submission to him as you pray for those who will be elected to lead this republic. Let your life, witnessed by the unbelieving, be honorable, so that even if we are spoken against and reviled our good deeds and holy conduct would result in God’s praise on the last day (1 Pet. 2:12).

Some Resources to Read/Listen to ahead of election day:

• Crossway Podcast: "A Few Things to Remember Before You Vote (Jonathan Leeman)"

• Article: Kevin DeYoung, "What Am I Doing When I Vote?"

• Christ Over All Podcast: "Trent Hunter: 'Make Civics Great Again: A Pastoral Guide to Casting Ballots Wisely'"

• Article: Jonathan Leeman, "What Makes a Vote Moral or Immoral?"

This cry for God's help echoes through the Psalms and the prophets. It is a cry of longing for justice and of pain from the consequences of sins and from the sins of others. Throbbing hearts press these words through the gritted teeth of the grieving to the only one in the entire universe who can actually answer.

On May 14 of this year, an 18-year-old entered a grocery store in a predominantly African-American part of Buffalo, New York and opened fire on customers inside. The assailant live-streamed several minutes of the attack until the platform he was using stopped the feed. A manifesto he published attributed the motive of his own attack to his conviction of white supremacy. His deadly rampage ended the lives of ten beautiful bearers of God’s image—all African-American. Though we have seen horridly too many events like these in our nation in the last quarter century, I was slow to respond until facts could be gathered and I had time to process my thoughts.

Then, on Sunday, May 22, the Sex Abuse Task Force of the Southern Baptist Convention (with whom First West cooperates in the funding of global missions efforts) announced the release of a report from an independent investigative firm regarding allegations of mishandling claims of sexual abuse made to members of the Southern Baptist Executive Committee. The nearly 300-page report details credible allegations of sexual abuse by a prominent SBC leader, and a decades-long pattern of mishandling, minimizing, and ignoring claims of sexual abuse by Southern Baptist church members and other leaders. I took about seven hours this weekend reading the report in disgust and frustration. The overarching motivation for dismissing so many claims, as the report documents, was limiting exposure to “ascending and descending liability.” I am not a lawyer, but avoiding legal liability and maintaining plausible deniability is never an acceptable reason for inaction regarding abuse of any kind. By Monday evening, May 23, my heart was sick with grief and heavy with the weight of responsibility for ensuring our church is ready to respond with compassion, real help, and ongoing care for the abused.

Even as I was considering the ramifications of this report, on Tuesday, May 24, another eighteen-year-old took two rifles he purchased the week before, shot his own grandmother, then drove to and entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and began indiscriminately firing bullets at children and staff there. At the end of it all, the shooter was killed by law enforcement, but not before he had killed nineteen children and two teachers. Twenty-two more beautiful bearers of God’s image, the shooter included, brought down in horrific violence. Twenty-two families, irreversibly changed and traumatized, and a community rocked with grief can add their names to the already too long list of survivors of atrocities just like this in our nation’s recent history.

These reports of violent racism, intentional blindness to abuse of the worst imaginable kind, and irrational murderous anger have so many crying out, “How long, O Lord?” How long must we see such disgusting displays of racism? How long must we go on adding names to lists of offenders as we weep with the abused? How long must we go on holding the trembling bodies of grieving parents who have lost their precious children to unconscionable evil? How long, O Lord?

I have never been accused of not having opinions about matters like these. Most of the time, I try to express them appropriately and with submission to what God’s Word has to say about matters like these. And with regard to this recent onslaught of grievous events and revelations I have a good many full-throated words I could say, but I will aim for precision and brevity here.

First, made in the image of God, every human being is worthy of the full dignity, respect, honor, and compassion that this fundamental reality of our creation entails (Gen. 1:26). God hates racism and every form of ethnic superiority in the hearts of mankind and as followers of Jesus Christ who calls us each to love our neighbor as we do ourselves, we should hate it too (Matt. 22:37-40). There is no biblical justification for any kind of racial or ethnic superiority.

Second, sexual abuse is a grievous sin of the most heinous order. Perpetrated against a child or an adult, sexual assault is a hellish perversion of the blessed gift that God has given to a man and a woman to exercise in covenant marriage. It dehumanizes others for the sake of self-gratification. It should sicken us all. The danger of this sin is severe. Jesus warned, “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin” (Luke 17:2).

Last, while I cannot speak to the motives of these school shooters, and while there are certainly issues of mental illness at play, I can say that these events are nothing short of demonic in their inspiration. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” Jesus said (John 10:10). Such crimes perpetrated against the most vulnerable in the places they should be the most safe are totally and utterly satanic in origin. And this is not even to mention the absolute scourge of the abortion industrial complex in our society that destroys defenseless children in the sanctity of their mother’s wombs, which itself has been fueled by damnable lies from hell about the nature of humanity and the pursuit of so-called “bodily autonomy” as an ultimate right.

How long, O Lord?

The truth is none of us knows how long, and in his sovereign wisdom, God has not said. Two things we do know, however. One is the promise that we who know Christ may rest our hearts in the blessed hope of Jesus’s return. On that day he will make all things new, and those who have turned from the cosmos shattering sin of their hearts to embrace Christ as king will be welcomed into this earth made new. He will dwell with us, and we will be his people, and God himself will be with us as our God. He will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. These former griefs will pass away and we will no longer ask, “How long?”

The other is a knowledge of the only cure for such sickness. It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Politicians, law enforcement, legislators, slick tongued preachers, and abuse prevention protocols cannot cure the disease of sin. But Jesus can!

Friend, do you feel the unbearable weight of this dark brokenness? Do you mourn the sinful thoughts of your own heart and the actions it produces? Are you tired from striving for a solution to these and many more ills with no end in sight? I am. May I remind us of Jesus, today? He, the perfect Son of God, took on flesh to live among his own fallen creation. He suffered as we do in a world broken by rebellion against God, though himself never sinning. In his teaching, he pointed people to the reality that we are the problem in the world. He also provided a lasting solution to the problem that is us. That solution is not the eradication of the human race, but the redemption and rescue of human heart from our treason against God. By dying on a cross, unjustly accused and sinfully murdered, Jesus provided the perfect sacrifice for the evil that lurks just below the surface of all our hearts. His sinless life was given as ransom for sinners—and not just the “worst kind” who make headlines, but for all of us, because we are all the “worst kind” of sinners. His death covers the debt of sin we owe to the holy and righteous God. After three days, Jesus rose from the dead in power and glory. By rising, he secured the promise that we too might have new life, abundant life, life in real and redemptive relationship with the God of the universe who long has heard our cries for help. In Christ, he has lavishly answered.

This Jesus beckons us come to him. “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). We who know Jesus know the divine rest he offers in a torrent of cultural woes. And we who know Jesus have rest and peace to offer such a culture and those who create more waves within it. We have hope for the hopeless, salve for the wounded, grace for sinners, and life for the dying. Until he comes again, Christian, we have much work to do and much good news to offer. Let us get to work.

Knowing all this and working to see the redemption of every soul through faith in Christ, even so we pray, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Come quickly.

Dear Church Family,

As I trust you all have seen in the news already, in light of the continued prevalence and spread of COVID-19 in New Mexico, our governor has reinstated a temporary mask mandate for indoor public spaces. This means that beginning this Sunday, August 22, we are asking all who attend public worship at First Baptist West Albuquerque respectfully to wear an appropriate face covering while gathered in the building.

Over the last many months, I am pleased to recall, our church body has endured many changing conditions and restrictions with much grace and willing cooperation. I expect it will not be an issue for us to do so temporarily one more time.

At the same time, I am aware that many of us, myself included, have grown weary from being subject to public policy “whiplash.” Yet, our weariness must not become cause for divisions among our body on positions related to wearing masks, receiving vaccinations, or politely complying with governing authorities on matters related to public health. I do not anticipate this sort of response from any of our members, because you have all been exceptionally gracious and patient this last year.

Nevertheless, we do see such responses from so-called and professing Christians in the news and on social media. It is shameful that we have seen Christians hurling insults and condemnations against one another through these media of late. I am so glad the bride of Christ that gathers at First West has not done this publicly.

The apostle John closes his first epistle with an oddly placed but perennially pertinent statement: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). In the present verbal melee over masks and vaccinations and whether or not to listen to the government and follow public health orders, I observe at least two forms of idolatry that we must be aware of and keep ourselves from.

The first is the idolatry of physical health, vitality, and this physical life. Now, our bodies have been given to us to steward as a gift of God and to use for his service and glory in the world—so I am not saying that you should stop exercising and eating right and taking your vitamins and going to the doctor to stay on top of your health. But what we do observe among many right now is a deep seated and paralyzing fear of illness and death that has prevented many Christians from attending corporate worship and ministering in boldness to those most in need. Non-Christians, too, fearful over falling ill have cloistered themselves in their homes and demanded that everyone everywhere receive the maximum level of prophylactic treatment before ever returning to their lives. Christian history, however, is full of Christians doing the opposite. When plagues ravaged ancient Rome and then later all of Europe, it was Christians who stayed behind in cities to care for the sick and ailing, often at the expense of their own lives due to infection. They did not disregard their health, but they did not so worship it so as to stop living as Christ had transformed them to live. And in so doing they won the esteem of many and the message of the Gospel multiplied across the globe carried along by the message of Christian charity, service and self-sacrifice. We know that because we live in a world that has been bent away from God’s design by our own sin that we will live with illness, plague, and pestilence until Christ returns.

Not worshipping at the shrine of physical health, though, does not mean being reckless with our health nor unconscientious of the health of others around us. So we will wear masks for a period of time as we gather out of care for our children who cannot yet be vaccinated and the immune-compromised among us. We will do so to show to our neighbors that while we do not worship the god of wellness, that we still care about helping to keep them healthy during a still ravaging pandemic.

The second idol that I observe as a danger to the church in this season is quite different. It is the idol of personal autonomy and individual liberty. Now as Baptists we believe in soul competency and the responsibility of each individual to answer to God for their own lives, their own sins, and their own faith in Christ or lack thereof. But there is a strain of personal autonomy idolatry observed in both Christians and non-Christians of late whose battle hymn is, “No one tells me what to do!” This refrain sung by Christians, we must note, runs contrary to very heart of the gospel, which is submission to God. In fact, submission to God also means submission to human authorities whom God has ordained. And the ones he has ordained are not just our favorite ones, but even the ones who subject us to public policy “whiplash” (Rom 13:1-7). Submission to a public health order of the sort we have again before us, when evenly and neutrally applied across all sectors of society is not in and of itself an affront to the gospel or a threat to the church. To assume so is to think too little of the power of the gospel, and too much of what humans can do to stop it.

Submission to public authorities, though, does stop at their command for us not to proclaim Christ and him crucified or any other truth from God’s word. There is a profound difference, we should observe, between the governor telling us to wear masks in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, and the governor telling us we cannot proclaim that salvation from sins is available to all without cost, but only through trusting in the death of Christ for sins and resurrection from the dead. There is a great difference between governments using their authority to curb a dangerous viral outbreak, and flexing their authority to curb the message of the gospel. We do well to remind one another of these differences, and that submission to the former in each case is biblical, and submission to the latter in each case is disobedience to God and idolatry of the state.

Yes, dear brothers and sisters, keep yourselves from idols!

So then how shall we live as true worshippers of Jesus in these odd and often frustrating times without falling prey to either of these or a hundred other related idolatries? I have just a few suggestions.

1. Worship with your church family. First of all, we are commanded to do so in Hebrews 10:24-25. But second, it is good for your soul, dear Christian. Virtual church is hardly church. You need to hear the voices of other saints singing next to you. You need to be in the presence of other believers to encourage and convict you. You need your pastors to care for you in real ways, not virtual ones.
2. Spend more time in the Bible, and less on social media. You cannot grow in sanctification and be conformed to the image of Christ when you consume content filled with vitriol, anger, divisiveness, misinformation, conspiracies, and unbiblical declarations of judgment. Jesus prayed to the Father for his disciples, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). If we are to be shaped by Christ, we must consume much of the word of Christ.
3. Be considerate and kind toward those you disagree with on matters related to COVID. Some have family members undergoing chemotherapy and to be infected with COVID would be disastrous. Some have emigrated from nations ruled by overreaching autocrats and dictators and have reasonable suspicion of government overreach. Do everything in your capacity and by God’s grace to seek to understand others and in kindness serve them in meaningful ways. That may mean putting on a mask even when you have been vaccinated. It may mean praying with them for the comfort of God and for his wisdom to fill the hearts and minds of our elected officials.
4. Pray for your leaders. Here, I do not just mean your pastors (but pray especially for your pastors!). Whether bosses at work, school administrators, governors in state capitols, or pastors in local churches, people in leadership are having to make decisions that they know full well are going to leave a lot of people unsatisfied. Pray that God grants them wisdom and that God grants us patience and perseverance (1 Tim 2:1-4).
5. Serve someone sacrificially. I have often found that in the seasons of life where I am most selfish, frustrated, angry, upset, fearful, or worried that much can be changed by serving someone else. None of us becomes more like Christ by focusing on ourselves and our own preferences. All of us grow to look and live and love more like Christ by putting our attention on the needs of those we can serve. Christ himself said he came not to be served, but to serve (Mark 10:45). And scripture commands us, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil 2:3-4). Do you have a lonely elderly neighbor? Invite them to dinner with your family. Is a co-worker grieving the loss of a loved one? Write them a note of personal encouragement, letting them know you are praying for them. Does your heart break for people in crisis? Volunteer to care for women with unplanned pregnancies through CareNet or sign up to help feed the homeless in Albuquerque through the Rock at Noonday. Is there a young man or woman in our church who needs help walking with Christ (and there are)? Take them to coffee to read the Bible, talk about life, and pray for one another.
6. Talk with your doctor about your health and decisions related to vaccines. This should go without saying, but rarely are elected officials actual medical professionals, and almost never are they our primary care physicians. Your doctor knows your health history better than the governor. He or she has likely developed a conscientious and well-grounded medical opinion on the vaccines currently available and whether you should consider getting one. Get your medical advice from the medically trained and not from talking heads on TV or the internet.

I love you, dear church. We will persevere by the grace of God and with the grace he supplies to us day by day. See you in worship soon!

Your partner in the gospel,

Pastor Stephen

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An Invitation to Prayer

My Dear Church Family,

This year was intended to be one of great celebration for our church as we marked our 30^th anniversary in ministry together. That anniversary date, March 26, was overshadowed by the COVID-19 crisis and resulting stay-at-home orders. Our church moved online for several weeks, and even now, most of our normal ministry activities remain suspended.

As this year began, I waded into it with much uncertainty about what the 2020 would hold for our church—not even knowing what the next six months would hold in store. Looking back, I see God’s hand in that uncertainty. We set goals in January of this year: 30 baptisms to celebrate 30 years of ministry, every adult in a disciple-making relationship, 2020 hours of community engagement logged by the collective membership of our church. The COVID-19 pandemic has frustrated many of our plans toward these goals.

In recent days, God has burdened me to personally return to him in concerted prayer for the future and direction of First Baptist Church of West Albuquerque. I want to answer God’s invitation to seek him for wisdom, vision, and the power to fulfill the Great Commission in fresh and obedient ways as a church.

That on my heart, I am inviting you to join me in 40 days of prayer for our church and God’s future for us. These 40 days will begin on Wednesday, June 17, and conclude on Sunday, July 26 in our next regularly scheduled Quarterly Members’ Meeting that evening. I have included a very simple, daily and weekly rhythm of praying for this season of prayer. It is built upon the five functions of the church in Acts 2:42-47, with the additions of resting in God and seeking his glory.

My overall prayer is that through the next 40 days, God will speak to us, give us a clear vision for future ministry, ignite our hearts for evangelism and discipleship, and draw us nearer to Christ and to one another as partners in his gospel.

My desire is to conclude our 40 days of prayer together on the evening of July 26 as part of our scheduled Member’s Meeting, providing COVID-19 restrictions remain as they are or lessened. I hope to then hear how God has shaped you and share with you what God has revealed to me in these 40 days, and to ask your prayer for responding in obedience to God’s leading.

Will you pray with me?

Your partner in the Gospel,

Pastor Stephen

Engaging God's Word is a vital discipline for the follower of Jesus. In fact, at First West, we believe that we cannot rightly know God or follow Christ apart from His Word. It has long been my desire to develop the discipline of reading the Bible regularly with the goal of daily. 

There are lots of reasons people don't read the Bible more than they do. Lifeway Research has cataloged several of them. 

But in my own experience, even when reading the Bible was a priority in my heart and mind, I found I had more success when I had a plan in place. Maybe you're an excellent self-starter and you've always had an easy time keeping yourself in the Bible on a weekly basis. Not me, though--I need a plan and direction and the built in accountability of a Bible reading schedule. 

In 2018 I read through the Bible chronologically in the course of the year, and I really enjoyed it! As well as I know many of the stories and texts, I found myself delightfully surprised at the tight interconnection of so many passages and events in the Bible. God caught my attention as sins that needed confessing were brought out by the passage I was reading a certain day. I was edified in my spirit as I read through the Gospels and Paul's letters and the Psalms. I found things I had forgotten or never seen in the minor prophets and in books like Leviticus. It was a great practice, and one I hope you'll consider taking on in 2019. 

In order to facilitate your systematic engagement of the Bible in 2019, we've provided two plans for you to follow in the year ahead. The first is the 5-Day per week reading plan I just mentioned adapted for 2019. It will take you through the Bible in chronological order with two catch-up and reflection days per week. It's pretty intense, and takes about 15-20 minutes per day to complete, but you'll love it!

The second plan is called the 5x5x5 Bible Reading Plan developed by Navigators ministries. This reading plan will take you through the New Testament in five minutes a day, five days a week, with five practices to develop in helping you dig deeper into God's Word. This is a great plan for new believers and mature believers alike who are looking for a way to develop the discipline of regular personal Bible study.

These are only two ways (among countless others) to plan your Bible reading in 2019. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what plan you follow in the year ahead--so long as you have a plan for engaging God's Word. In addition to your reading, I would suggest the following three tips to help you keep your study deep and to keep yourself on track:

1. Read with others. Get a group of friends together to read the same passages on the same days and make a plan to meet weekly or monthly to discuss what you're reading in Scripture together. Sometimes we misunderstand Scripture and need the help of others to clarify our thinking and to keep us from reading too much through the lens of our own lives. Plus, reading with others will add another layer of accountability to keep on track.
   
   
2. Journal. I am not a journaler, I'll just admit it. But I do find that the Word of God finds its way deeper into my heart and mind, and works itself out in my life more frequently when I take time to write down my response to and explanation of Scripture. If you enjoy journaling or writing in a diary, consider changing your practice to revolve around what you are reading in Scripture each day. If you don't journal, at least get into the practice of reflecting on three questions as you read: (1) What does this Scripture tell me about God? (2) What does the Scripture tell me about myself/humanity? (3) What is this passage showing me about how God relates to mankind?
   
   
3. Memorize. As you read, start making a list of verses that you would like to remember forever--or at least for a long time. Study Bibles will often have in their book summaries several key verses for each book of the Bible. Choose one verse per Bible book to memorize in the year ahead, or choose one long passage to memorize throughout the year. My personal goal is to memorize the book of Ephesians in 2019--a big challenge for me. But I want to know more than what parts of the Bible are about; I want to know the Bible by heart. Whether a lot or a little, commit to memory some parts of God's Word this year. 

In whatever way you pursue Christ through his word in 2019, I trust and pray it will be fruitful in your own life of following Christ and serve to edify the body of Christ at First West in the years ahead. May God grow His church as we give ourselves to being shaped by him!

Last Sunday morning, July 15, as the members of First West were coming to the close of the first worship song of the morning service the lights went out—and stayed out. A transformer failure in the area robbed a large section of our neighborhood of power for several hours. But wonderfully, though the lights went out, the church kept singing. We propped open some exterior doors to let some sunlight in, sang with unamplified guitar and voices, and I preached without a microphone from Acts 14. Aside from the lights being out, it was a fairly normal Sunday. Except, if you were there, you probably noticed that our time of worship wasn’t quite like any other Sunday. It seemed sweeter. Deeper. Somehow more real. Those who were in attendance have described it to me in words like, “powerful,” “amazing,” “wonderful,” “awesome.” And it was.

Sunday, July 15, 2018 is a day in the life of our church to be celebrated and remembered. Though the lights went out, the church carried on. Christ was exalted, the Gospel was preached and as a family of believers we were edified by our worship of God around the Word of God. But as much as it might seem like something special happened that morning and as much as we may find ourselves in awe at the worship that was shared, I want all the more to say, “Don’t call it a comeback!” What we shared in worship when the lights went out was not a victorious moment for our church when God did something unexpected. It was a victorious moment for our church because God did among us what he stands ready to do each week—only this week he helped us by taking some things out of our line of sight and unstopped our ears to see and hear and engage with Him in a fresh way. 

When the lights went out the lyrics for our worship songs disappeared off the screens and immediately we all began to actively search our minds for the words to the songs that we knew we should already know so well. As the amplification and electric instruments were muted, we found our voices the best instruments in the room and used them to fill our worship center with songs of praise to God. Several have commended Pastor Danny for not skipping a beat when the power went out—he just carried on leading us in worship—and for his leadership I am incredibly grateful. His steadfastness, however, was not because of some special gifting of God that morning, however, but because he had spent the six days previous praying and practicing and preparing for worship on Sunday morning. By the help of the Holy Spirit, whether or not he knew it, Pastor Danny was preparing all week long for the power to go out, just like he does every week. And we sang with mindful attention and heartfelt enthusiasm just as we ought to every week. It was wonderful!

When the power went out, I lost the use of the microphone I use in preaching. It is a blessing to have amplification for preaching, both for my voice and those who are listening. Yet, without electricity I had to preach using only what volume and projection I had naturally available to me. You who were there had to tune your ears more keenly, listen a little more sharply, and pay closer attention to the Word as you read out of your Bibles and not off a screen and followed along in printed worship guides without the aid of visually projected sermon points. It is true, I preached louder than I do most weeks, and you who were there likely saw how the volume increase also aided the increase of my passion for God’s Word that morning. And while I am grateful to God for preserving my voice, and genuinely appreciative of the many encouragements I have received from church members this week—in truth, God had me ready to preach that sermon that passionately on Friday afternoon. Every week I strive to prayerfully prepare to faithfully preach the Word of God to the people of God in the power of the Spirit of God. And you prayed for me and listened to the Word of God with all the fervency that you ought each week. It was powerful! 

Throughout the history of Israel in the Old Testament there are countless moments and places where God’s faithfulness and preservation of Israel are memorialized with piles of stones or altars to the Lord. Those monuments were not meant to merely remember what God did “that one time,” but to remember what God can be trusted to do all the time. God was to be always trusted to deliver Israel from slavery and oppression just like he did in Exodus. God should always be trusted to dwell among his people when they obey him and trust him just as he did in the Tabernacle and Temple. Sunday, July 15, 2018 is a day for First Baptist West Albuquerque to memorialize in our hearts and minds. I pray that it will be a day that lingers in the memory of our congregation for many years. But I do not want it to be a day that we remember as something God did “that one time,” but as a reminder of what God stands ready to do all the time—of what he stands ready to do every time we prayerfully prepare and persevere in truly engaging our hearts and minds in worship.

My beloved church family, remember July 15, 2018: the day the lights went out. Remind one another of it often. Tell others who were not there all about it. Praise and glorify our mighty God who moved among us that day and continues to move among us even now. Let us learn from that day to engage our hearts and minds fully in singing whether or not the lights are on. May we weekly give our whole attention to the Spirit inspired Word of God as it is preached each week. But don’t call that day unique. Don’t call it unexpected. Don’t call it a comeback. Because God’s been at work the whole time!

My Love in Christ,

Pastor Stephen

A few weeks ago, I began a series of short (or not so short) articles to help us as a church read and study the Bible better. We began by reminding ourselves of what kind of book the Bible is: it is a book both from and about God. Those two very basic but indispensable facts about the Bible actually teach us much about what sort of mindset with which we should approach this wonderful book. Because the Bible is God’s special revelation that centers on his Son, Jesus, our motive for reading and studying the Bible, if we intend to rightly understand and receive it, must be to know God through his Son.

On its face, this statement may catch some unimpressed. I am certain that such a response is not because some do not want to know God—I believe every true Christian genuinely does want to know God. The present Western milieu, however, tempts us to want something more, something better, something tangible we can exchange for a better life today. But, dear friend, is there really anything better or greater or more valuable than knowing God? His unchanging nature is a lighthouse on the rocky shore of our sin-riddled lives. His never-failing salvation is breath to our lungs and blood in our veins. His centuries long patience with which he works his redemptive work for humanity is a firm foundation in the midst of a storm riddled landscape. To know God is to have a close relational bond with the eternal Creator of the universe. A bond in which he invites us to speak to him, learn from him, follow him and enter into his own plan of salvation for the nations.

This is what we are to look for when we read the Bible—Jesus on every page! This is why we read the Bible—to know God and his Son, Jesus Christ. There is, quite candidly, no greater motive for reading the Bible than this, and there is no greater need we have from God than to know this.

Knowing God through the Scriptures, though, does not imply an individualistic frolic through the Bible to collect impressions of God like so many pretty wildflowers. Rather, it is an intentional pursuit of personal knowledge of the eternal God of the universe who reveals himself perfectly in the Son who takes on flesh in the man, Jesus of Nazareth. All of Scripture points to Jesus (Luke 24:27). Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, fulfills all Scripture (Matthew 5:17-30; Luke 22:37; Acts 1:16; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; 2 Corinthians 1:20). The word “fulfill” in the biblical sense means to “fill up with meaning” or “to make perfect.” This is what Jesus does with the Old Testament Scriptures. He quite literally takes and fills every word, sentence, paragraph, and book of the Bible’s histories, writings and prophets and gives them perfect, clear, and overflowing meaning and significance. This certainly includes all that God’s Word says about salvation or redemption—it’s all found in and centered on Jesus. This is what we are to look for when we read the Bible—Jesus on every page! This is why we read the Bible—to know God and his Son, Jesus Christ. There is, quite candidly, no greater motive for reading the Bible than this, and there is no greater need we have from God than to know this.

If what you think you need most in life is to be a better parent, you can find hundreds of books to help you grow as a parent. If you need discipline in your financial dealings, there are bankers and financial advisers that can assist with that need. If you need guidance and direction about a career path or course of study, there are countless sources of wisdom to help you make that decision. But in all the wealth of knowledge our world has to offer no single work can reveal to you the inner thoughts of the God who rules and reigns the cosmos other than the Bible. No other work so clearly and plainly explains the world around us with such compelling congruity as the Holy Scriptures. And there is no book, nor guru, nor social movement that bears the words of God that reveal to us the very person of God other than the Bible.

I hope you won’t misread me here. I am not saying that the Bible has nothing to say about how we live our lives, or about God’s best plan for how we live our lives. It does speak to those matters. First Peter 1:3 says, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.” This means, in part, that God has given us all we need for salvation and godly living in His Word. The Bible does give us instruction for daily living. But, notice that Peter says all these things are given “through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.” This means that all we stand to gain for godly living in the Scriptures comes through the knowledge of Christ himself! So we do learn from the Bible to be good and faithful stewards of our finances and resources and time, but only because we know the God who is the owner of all things. We do learn from the Bible how to be better parents, because we learn from the one true God who is a perfect Father to all who call on him in faith for salvation. We encourage wives to follow the leadership of their husbands because we know Christ who willingly followed the good will and purposes of God the Father. And we press men to love their wives sacrificially because we know from Scripture the perfect Savior who loves his bride, the church, by laying down his own life for her sanctification. In this way, the Bible is continually relevant and applicable, but only insofar as we are coming to that relevance and application through the knowledge of God himself! And apart from saving faith in Jesus, who fulfills the Scriptures for us, we have no hope of ever truly pleasing God.

So when you open your Bible tomorrow, ask yourself the question, “Why am I reading this book? I hope and pray that your answer will be, “To know God through his Son, Jesus Christ.”

The Bible is a Book about God
Last week, as we began to ask how it is we ought to approach the Bible in study, we found it first helpful to note what kind of book the Bible is. There we saw that the Bible is most of all a book from God. Because it has God for its author, the Bible is entirely unlike any other book ever written. In history, there have been scores of books pertaining to god(s) written by men and women who claim to have heard from said god or had some private and specially revealed knowledge of that god to deliver. But the Bible is unique in its claim to be written by the supernatural inspiration and superintendence of the very person of the Holy Spirit of God through and over human authors. Because it is the very Word of God, and God is wholly perfect, good, and true, we conclude then that by its very nature, the Bible itself must be without error and always true (some scholars like the respective terms, inerrant and infallible to describe these realities). This is an important implication for the Word of God, for it tells us that this book that comes from God is trustworthy, true, reliable, unfailing, unchanging, and eternally applicable. I pray this reality finds you as grateful to and awestruck by God for his written word as it does me!

So the Bible is a book from God, but that is not all. The Bible is also—and just as importantly—a book about God. From the first page to the last, the only consistent and unchanging character of Scripture is God. He is the creator of the universe in Genesis, the redeemer of Israel in Exodus. God chooses David to rule as his rightful king in Jerusalem, and he is the one who brings the exiled Israelites back to live in Israel again after being held captive in Babylon. It is God who sends the angel Gabriel to inform Mary that she will be the bearer of the very Son of God, in his incarnation. John in his Gospel tells us that the eternal Word of God, who was with God in the beginning and who is God himself, took on flesh in the man named Jesus. And even in those places, like the book of Esther, where God’s name never appears and he is not mentioned explicitly as a character, it is nearly impossible not to see the many shadows of his quiet grace and provision.

That the Bible is about God primarily, however, is a point often missed by readers. Too often of late many preachers and teachers in churches have used the text of the Bible as supporting material for what amount to little more than self-help lectures. Sermons on responsible budgeting, marital happiness, better parenting, and job satisfaction among countless other topics are far too easily found in far too many pulpits. Using the Bible to ends such as these is to miss the point of the Bible altogether. This gets us to a discussion that has been had by the church for as long as she has existed, a discussion over what it is the Bible is really intending to say. Does the Bible exist to be a “guidebook” for life? A rulebook to follow? A manual for successful living? Or something greater? To answer this question, we need turn to an historic teaching of the church on the nature of the Bible: the doctrine of revelation.

Revelation (the present concept, not the apocalyptic book at the end of the Bible) has to do with how God has spoken about himself to humanity. Theologians have consistently separated God’s revelation into two categories: general and special. General revelation is how God reveals himself to all people in equally accessible ways, yet because it is general (and not specific) this manner of God’s revealing himself is limited in what it says about him. The chief manner in which God reveals himself to all mankind is in nature (thus why some also refer to general revelation as natural revelation). Our friend, the apostle Paul deals with this kind of revelation in his letter to the Roman church when he says:

• ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to [mankind], because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse (Rom. 1:19-20).

Here we find that God has revealed certain aspects of his nature and character through what has been created. The point is this: simply by looking at the world around us and the complexity of the cosmos we can surmise that there is a God and that he is both powerful and sovereign (in control of all things). These aspects of God, Paul says in verse 20 have been clearly observed even since the beginning of the world, and since this knowledge of God is accessible to all there is no one who has any excuse for not at least recognizing that there is a God. But there is much about God’s person and mind and character that nature does not and cannot reveal to us. For that, we need something more specific.

Special revelation, then, accounts for all the things of God we cannot know from nature, but must know in order to have a clear understanding of God. In contrast to general revelation, which is accessible by all people in all times, “God’s special revelation is available to specific people at specific times in specific places.”[1] This special revelation is available to us today only by accessing the only book that comes from God, the Bible. That God would seek to communicate himself to human beings by supernaturally inspiring human authors to write his words says much about God.

First, it says to us that God wants to be known. This is not to say that God needs to be known, for there is nothing that God needs because he is perfectly self-sufficient. God’s perfect self-sufficiency, though, sets in better contrast the wonder and the blessing of his wanting to be known by his creatures.

Second, God’s work in special revelation indicates that he desires fellowship with creatures who know him. Certainly this is a truly awesome implication of this doctrine. Fellowship implies not only knowledge of a person or being, but some sort of relational exercise associated with that knowledge. As we find in the pages of Scripture, God wants to be known that he might be loved; being loved that he might be worshipped; being worshipped that he might be glorified; being glorified that he might reveal himself to more of his creatures; and being perpetually and exponentially revealed that there would be among all nations and ethnicities of mankind a people who have entered into this glorious and eternal fellowship of knowing, loving, and worshipping God forever.

God’s special revelation that we have in the sixty-six books of the Bible, however, gets more specific still. While the Scriptures on every page tell us about God through what he says and does and the people he interacts with and works through, he goes further to reveal himself more clearly and more intimately in the person of his Son, Jesus. The writer of Hebrews makes this wonderfully clear for us when he writes:

• “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. ³ He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:1-3a).

This is to say that Jesus Christ—who is the eternal Son of God adding humanity to his nature at his incarnation—is the very physical manifestation and personal revelation of God to mankind. And as the perfect personal revelation of God, Jesus is the highpoint, climax, and summit of special revelation. Because of this, every other truth of God revealed in the pages of Scripture is then either leading up to and preparing the reader for Jesus or pointing the reader’s attention back to Jesus. The incarnate Son of God—whose sinless life given in sacrifice for spiritually bankrupt sinners and resurrection from the dead provides justification with God—is himself the very center of God’s special revelation to us. Jesus is how God is personally known, and all that is knowable about God can be known in Jesus.

Dear friend, the Bible is most certainly a book about God. It shows us precisely what he is like and what he requires of us. This it does in a most glorious way in the very person of God with us—Jesus Christ—who is in every way the clear, personal and specific revelation of God to man, and who wonderfully fulfills all that God requires of us in our stead. By his perfect life, the law of God is perfectly fulfilled, and in his death for sinners, our debt for sin is paid—the requisite penalty for our treason paid in full—and by his resurrection he proves himself victor over sin and death. There is truly nothing better to know about our God than this!

So we know what the Bible is. It is a book from God and a book about God—and that is helpful information. But knowing what the Bible is does not in itself help us with our motivation for studying the Bible. For that, we must ask the question that evokes our motive for exploring the Scriptures—we must ask, “Why should I study the Bible?” More on this next time.

Until then, God bless your reading of His Word, and your study of the same!

Greetings, friends. Over the next several weeks, I will be using this platform to help shape and challenge our approach to studying God’s Word. This is a little out of the vein of what I have endeavored to do through these articles in the recent past, but I sense that this will be a helpful effort for all of us. As we grow together as readers and teachers of the Bible, I look forward to having more conversations like these with several of you in the future. May God bless us as we work to know His Word!

As a pastor I am happy to find among Christians the conviction that the Bible ought to be read and studied as a part of our devotional lives and ongoing relationship with our Creator and Redeemer. Yet, the matter of studying the Bible can be regularly complicated by difficult passages that seem far from our current moment in books of the Bible like Leviticus and Numbers and 1 Corinthians and, let us not forget, Revelation! What is it we are to gain from these hard texts? Anything at all? Perhaps we ought to skip over them in favor of more readily applicable sections like the Proverbs or the Gospels. “But,” you protest, “I don’t want to skip over any part, I want to understand the whole thing! I just don’t know how.” Well, friend, I applaud and commend your heart to know and understand all of Scripture, and it is right to want to know how best to go about studying it. But, before we can even begin to ask the question, “How should I study the Bible?” we ought to ask the question, “What is the Bible?” For surely, we cannot know how we ought to seek to understand the Bible if we do not first know what sort of book the Bible is. Such is the aim of this first of a series of articles on studying the Bible. In answering the question at hand, “What is the Bible?” we find that it is primarily two things.

The Bible Is a Book from God

First, the Bible is a book from God. Hundreds of times in Scripture the words that are written and the discourse that is recorded are called the words of the Lord. This is especially clear in places like Exodus and Numbers where God speaks through his servant, Moses, as an intermediary to the people of Israel (i.e. Ex. 4:28, 24:3, 24:4; Num. 11:24, 36:5). God speaks not only through Moses, but also many of his other prophets in the Old Testament. The “word of the Lord” comes to Isaiah (Isa. 38:4), Jeremiah (Jer. 1:1-2), Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:3), Joel (Joel 1:1), Jonah (Jon. 1:1), and others. In fact, the majority of the content of the prophetic books is speech either directed or dictated by God himself to his prophets. But this is not the case of just the Old Testament, but all of Scripture.

In the biblical worldview there is no greater, nor truer being and thus no higher authority than God himself. So it follows that if this God has spoken, and that through the Bible, then his words carry weight.

In his second letter to young pastor Timothy, the apostle Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). Did you catch that? Paul says, all Scripture is breathed out by God. By this is meant that every word of the Scriptures is God’s word. We understand that by his Holy Spirit, God inspired and superintended every word that was written by his prophets, the psalmists, and the apostles. The apostle Peter indicates the same concept of the Holy Spirit’s work in those who wrote the Scriptures when he says that the “Holy Spirit was indicating” the coming of the Messiah to the prophets of old (1 Pet 1:12), and that all the prophets of the Old Testament “were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21).

Inspired by the Holy Spirit

So we have evidence that the Old Testament is from God, but what about the New? Gratefully, we have much to confirm the Holy Spirit inspiration of  the New Testament books also. First, Peter includes Paul’s writings among “the other Scriptures,” putting Paul’s writings on par with the Spirit-superintended work of the Law and the prophets (2 Pet. 3:16). Second, Paul cites Matthew 5:32 when giving instruction to the Corinthians, saying that the Lord Jesus gives authoritative instruction applicable for the Corinthian church—thus indicating that the Gospel of Matthew, and with it the other Gospels as well, are authoritative words from God, that are instructive for the church (1 Cor. 7:10). And yet again in 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul says that “the Scripture says. . . ‘The laborer deserves his wages.’” What is most interesting about this quote is that it comes from the Gospel of Luke (10:7), and Paul calls Luke’s Gospel Scripture! There is much more we could consider here, but for present purposes we find ample evidence that the Bible as we have it in its sixty-six books and two testaments are a book, from God—it is His Word.

God's Word Carries Authority

Because we can say with confidence that the Bible is a book from God, we can also infer that this book, God’s Word, carries authority. In the biblical worldview there is no greater, nor truer being and thus no higher authority than God himself. So it follows that if this God has spoken, and that through the Bible, then his words carry weight. The word that comes from God demands our attention and ultimately our obedience. This first characteristic of what the Bible is helps us immensely as we endeavor to study it, for we know that when we come to it we are coming face to face with the God who has spoken the world into existence and that also he has condescended to speak to us. We ought to listen to him, heed his words, and obey them.

We said before that there are two things we can know for certain about the Bible. In this installment, we have looked first at the fact that it is a book from God. Next time, we will see that it is a book about God. Until then, may the knowledge that God has spoken to us in his Word humble and excite you as you turn to it each day.