Stott on the Church and the Word

I'm reading John Stott's Between Two Worlds and I thought I would share his take on the Church. In one section of his book he addresses "Theological Foundations for Preaching" and Stott states,

"Doubtless we have numerous convictions about the Church. But for my purpose I have only this one in mind, that the Church is the creation of God by his Word. Moreover, God's new creation (the Church) is as dependent upon his Word as his old creation (the universe). Not only has he brought it into being by his Word, but he maintains and sustains it, directs and sanctifies it, reforms and renews it through the same Word. The Word of God is the sceptre by which Christ rules the Church and the food with which he nourishes it" (109).

When I read this paragraph, I immediately felt the need to renew my daily commitment to Bible reading and meditation. Not only does God bring about new life in Christ by the power of his Word, but he also leads, sustains, and sanctifies us through his Word. If we ever struggle with sin (that would include you, too!), we need to be regularly applying God's Word in our lives in order that he may continually renew us.

Make us like you by the power of your Word, Lord Jesus!

Todd

"If You Could Only Say One Thing To Us"

Tonight, in our last regular preaching class, one of the students asked Dr. Vogel, "If you could only say one thing to us, what would it be?" Dr. Vogel replied, "Guard your walk with the Lord. It doesn't matter how much you invest in your preaching skills if you shipwreck your faith because you failed to guard your heart" (rough paraphrase). He gave us a couple of examples of men who had excelled at preaching but failed miserably in ministry because they let down their guard and Satan landed a crushing right hook on their glass jaw.

"Be killing sin or it will be killing you."

Thanks Dr. Vogel and John Owen.

Todd

Dogs are Smarter than You Think

In recent study, dogs were show to make erratic, "dumb" choices because of the influences of their owners. If the dog's master expressed obvious interest in an object, even if another, normally more appealing choice was offered, the dog would often investigate first the object of his master's interest. Dogs are so tuned into the social cues that others exhibit that they may completely disregard their own interests.

The study showed that the same dogs would pick the object of their own interest regularly when outside influences were not exhibited.

Interesting. So maybe we need to be more like dogs.

As followers of Christ, we should be so tuned into the interests of our Lord that everything else would pale in comparison. Unfortunately, the opposite is the general rule. Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 4:4 when he says, "the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." So "brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things" (Philippians 4:8).

Let us focus on Christ!

Todd