This Didn’t Feel Right Either

The day that I attended the Celebration of Life service began with a men’s breakfast at another church, not the church I attended for the Celebration of Life. As with the latter church, the former church is a church that believes that the Bible is the Word of God. The food was good, the conversation was good; I was pleasantly surprised when a man sat down at my table and reintroduced himself to me as someone who had been in a small group with me at least 20 years ago.

When the food portion of our morning was concluded a speaker began a presentation – no Bible, no Biblical content, no focus on Jesus. Where is the public reading of Scripture? The presentation was “self-help” – when will we learn that only Christ and His Word is transformative?

Where is our passion for the Word of God? We desperately need to regain Biblical literacy; part of this recovery must be modeling the Bible in our leadership, our teaching, our preaching, our gatherings, and our conversation. Our generation, our society, needs the transcendent Word of God. The argument that, “I don’t use the Bible when I’m talking to unbelievers because it doesn’t mean anything to them”, is not a Biblical argument – how will others believe the Gospel if they don’t hear the Gospel, and how will they hear the Gospel if it isn’t the Biblical Gospel, and how will they hear the Biblical Gospel if it isn’t from the Bible?

Of course we can use contemporary words and images and concepts in our communication, but they must be clothed with Scripture, built on Scripture, and submitted to Scripture. Everything we do in terms of contemporary concepts and images and words must be so that we can share and proclaim and communicate the Bible, the Word of God.

If we aren’t communicating the Bible when we gather as believers, it isn’t likely we are going to communicate the Bible when we are scattered in the world at work, at play, or in our communities.

Have we forgotten that this is a matter of life and death? This isn’t about marketing, it isn’t about being “relevant” in an earthly sense – it is about eternity.