Wednesday 9 November 2011

SPURGEONS "ALL OF FAITH"

I venture to say that a sinner justified by God stands on even a surer footing than a righteous man justified by his works,.......when God himself justifies, and the Holy Spirit bears witness thereto by giving us peace with God, why then we feel that the matter is sure and settled, and we enter into rest. No tongue can tell the depth of that calm which comes over the soul which has received the peace of God which passeth all understanding.

READING SCRIPTURE

Fight a common disjunction (the 'critical' vs the the devotional reading of Scripture)
"My response, forcefully put, is to resist this disjunction, to eschew it, to do everything in your power to destroy it ... when you read 'devotionally', keep your mind engaged; when you read 'critically' (ie with more diligent and focused study, deploying a panoply of 'tools'), never, ever forget whose Word it is. The aim is never to become a master of the Word, but to be mastered by it." (91)
That is SO true. One of the biggest problems with theological education in the last fifty years is that too often we have failed to help our students to "get" this. We've allowed them to develop schizophrenic lives where intellectual understanding and lived faith fail to meet. And that has been killing churches

http://bigbible.org/sansblogue/