This past Sunday, the 4th, we began our series on 10 Healthy Missional Markers. Appropriately we began with the Centrality of the Word of God. We looked at familiar words from 2 Timothy 3:10-17. To help us understand and and gather a fuller picture of these words, and the foundational importance of Scripture in our lives, we also looked quite a bit at N.T. Wright’s book Simply Christian. I wanted to share those quotes from his book, for those of you who would like to read them.
“Picking it up, you need to remind yourself that you hold in your hands not only the most famous book in the world, but one which has extraordinary power to change lives, to change communities, to change the world. It’s done it before. It can do it again.” (p. 173)
“The computer I’m writing on right now will do a thousand things, but I use it only for writing and for access to the Internet and email. In the same way, many Christians – whole generations of them, sometimes entire denominations – have in their possession a book which will do a thousand things not only in and for them but through them in the world. And they use it only to sustain three or four things they already do.” (p. 174)
“The Bible isn’t like an accurate description of how a car is made. It’s more like the mechanic who helps you fix it, the garage attendant who refuels it, and the guide who tells you how to get where you’re going. And where you’re going is to make God’s new creation happen in his world, not simply to find your own way unscathed through the old creation.” (p. 183)
“The Bible is there to enable God’s people to be equipped to God’s work in God’s world, not to give them an excuse to sit back smugly, knowing they possess all God’s truth.” (p. 184)
and finally…
“Scripture is there to enable us to glimpse the task before us and to become the sort of people through whom that task can be attempted and accomplished.” (p. 190)
Blessings and Peace,
Pastor Eric