November 24, 2024

I am sometimes asked why I do what I do as a person and preacher, why as a church we strive to go back to the Bible. I sometimes struggle to answer because there’s just so much to say. I pray the following encourages someone to study and love the word. We love the Bible because:

It is the word of God: the same word that initiated the universe, separating light from dark, which implemented to functioning of the Laws of Physics. Which places the heavenly bodies in the paths and brought life from dust, the same voice of God is in His Book II Tim 3:16-17.

It is the word of Christ: the same word that commanded the storm on the Sea of Galilee, The words that comforted the apostles in the upper room “You believe in God, believe also in me” and which will comfort the faithful on the last day saying “Well done my good and faithful servant.” Those words were given by the Holy Spirit to the inspired writers and we can read them today (John 16:12-15; I Cor 2:6-16; Eph 3:4-5)

It is the word of truth: The words that created reality also describe it, despite any and all challenges, discoveries, doubts and fears of men the Bible is true. It’s true if we love it, it’s true if we hate it, it’s true if we do it, it’s true if we don’t. As the apostle Paul so aptly put it “Let God be true though everyone were a liar,” Wisdom embraces Jesus prayer: “sanctify them in the truth your word is truth” John 17:17

It is the word of Life: “Man cannot live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). Peter said of Jesus when many were leaving him “where else would we go? You have the words of life.” Will we have the same courage in a world, a family, a church, a workplace, a party, a neighbourhood that is turning away from God to “Hold fast to the word of life” and in so doing “shine as lights in the world” (Phil 2:15-16)? 

It is the word that endures: “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” At the end of all that we know when the heavens have been rolled up like a scroll and the earth and everything in it have burned to nothing all that will be left is the word of God. “My word will judge him on the last day” (John 12:48)

It is the living word: The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joins and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”(Heb 4:12) “You were born again not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (I Pet 1:22-23)

All we can do is: love it, trust it, depend on it, obey it, and abide in it. My prayer for all those who believe in God is that they would take the next logical step: listen to what he has revealed about life and eternity in the only source that can lead us to both. 

Having embraced the word of God for our life and salvation, our divine mandate is to take that living word to all men everywhere (Mat 28:19-20). To “preach the word” to “be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” May we ever strive to know, live, and share, God’s Holy word.

~ Kevin Cleary