In Matthew 4, when Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit. He had fasted for forty days and at that point Satan came to the Lord. He said, "if you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
The Word is like food in that it nourishes our soul allowing us to grow in the Truth. It is how God communicates with us. God has given us everything we need in His Word. Unlike in the apostolic era, where the ministry needed to be authenticated by signs and wonders, prophets, personal revelation, and so on, we need to study, rightly divide, and meditate on the Word daily. The word is Inerrant, Infallible, Inspired, and completely Sufficient!
So then, if the word is like food, than the preaching and teaching we recieve on Sundays is somewhat like eating out!
When I eat out I look for a restaurant where I know the food is of good quality and the establishment is operated rightly! If just about every meal is just empty calories, it's time to find a new place to eat before you become to weak and fall over! If the food is poison, once I've recovered, you won't catch me there again, at least while the kitchen staff is the same!
If the Word is like food, What is your pastor feeding you?
Is your Spirital Food Processed? Are the sermons always Topical? Are you learning from the Word of God or only from the Bible teacher? Topical sermons are good, just not all the time. From time to time a Pastor will sense that his flock is dealing with some particular situations or circumstance and needs to bring a topical teaching to his congregation. However, if the sermons are always topical you are learning from the Bible Teacher instead of the Bible.
Is it Whole, Organic Spiritual Food? Does your pastor teach expositionally? Expositional preaching and teaching takes a given section of scripture, interprets it using historical and grammitical hermeneutics, examines the original intent and audience and bridges the principles into present day application.
Like physical food, you need to balance your diet spiritually as well. To be healthy you must eat whole, fresh food alot, but it's okay and even healthy to have some of the processed stuff once and a while! Comparably, to be spiritually healthy you need good expositional teaching and studying, but it's good to have some topical teachings thrown in there once and a while.
The Bible: It's not about what it means to you, it's about what God meant when He wrote it!!
Eat up! In the grips of Grace! Brian
No comments:
Post a Comment