I recently
visited with a local elected official in municipal government who learned of my
work as a reporter and said, “Oh, I don’t read newspapers. I don’t like all the
negativity, so I just don’t read any of them.” It’s one thing for an average person
to avoid reading local news, but it’s quite another for an elected official to
not want to know what is going on in his community, whether it is good or bad,
positive or negative. Unfortunately, the church has leaders who do something similar
when they focus on love and avoid sin, Satan and hell. Paul makes it clear that
Scripture is not to be categorized as positive or negative, “All Scripture is
God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly
equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim 3:16-17 NIV).
1 comment:
Gail;
-----Our granddaughters had dinner with us a couple weeks ago. They get to say grace at our table. Rheannan was cleared to bless the meal first, but Sadie beat her to it and stole my heart with, “Dear God in Heaven, thank you for information. Amen” Now, what part of a five-year-old’s mind serves up that thanksgiving? From every angle I view it, I see substance reaching the very foundations of our lives. Without information we would be without concepts, words, or even feelings. Our streams of consciousness would be nothing more than a senseless, emotional stirring.
-----But God has not only given us enough information to form words, concepts, and grammatical rules for communication, He’s also given enough to measure things and make stuff we need to survive. And one of the things we need for survival is relationships. I didn’t make the shirt I’m wearing or the car I drove to work this morning because I can’t. Other people did. And I needed relationships with people to get funds to acquire my shirt and car as well as some other relationships to actually acquire them. Keeping these relationships working well takes information. But such good information only gets me to the end of my life.
-----And I thank God even more for the information which gets me alive beyond the end of my life. Everything I most need to know I’ve learned from the Bible. Information about salvation I certainly most need to know. Information within God’s Word assures me that I am eternally alive at this moment. Sadie’s thanksgiving extends even further to also information in His Word not critical to our salvation, but critical to appreciating His nature, world history, and the workings of the material world all interrelating the only way they can - through the truth which we can only know by His Bible. More information doesn’t give us any more salvation than He’s already given us. It just shouts His glory everywhere about everything as well as helping us do the things we need to do. Allowing His Word to constrain and conform information to the patterns truth makes weaves everything that can be known into that simple expression of the most basic truth: I AM THAT I AM made what is to be what it is for why it is by how it does that. What a simple bedrock to rest all knowledge upon - Christ upholds this very universe by the word of His power! Having come to know Jesus, we are free to move about in all the information of what He upholds. And that which shuttles us through information on to insight and relationships is His Bible driven within our hearts and minds by His Holy Spirit. It perplexes me why anyone would let that book accumulate even a speck of dust. God, thank you for information.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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