Back In Production
Eternity Online: John Edmiston (Editor)
Back In Production
Hi,
The computer has been down for around six weeks with HDD and software
problems and so I have been out of service. During this time the
support base for the magazine also collapsed with the main supporter
"stung" by an embezzler who took his trust account and ran. There are
still many problems and your prayers would be appreciated. I am down
to my last $20 and do not know what will happen next though I am
confident that the Lord will provide. Anyway "Eternity-Inspiration"
has returned and will keep on going for as long as the Lord permits.
The Centrality Of God's Word
(Deu 4:1,2 NKJV) "Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the
judgements which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in
and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving
you.You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from
it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I
command you.
The word of the Lord is the absolute guide to life to which nothing
else can be compared and which we have no right to judge. If we "add
to the word" that means that we think that our thoughts or
revelations are equal to that of Scripture. Or we think that someone
else's are. Certainly there is much wisdom outside of Scripture in
the philosophers and in science but this is not "the word of the
Lord", it will be revised in time, it will not abide, it is not the
eternal word of the Living God. While, to our minds, in our time, it
may seem some human wisdom is as profound as Scripture time will
prove us wrong. When Aquinas merged Christianity with Aristotle he
though he was doing Christianity a favour but when Aristotle was
later disproved at many points by people like Gallileo, Lister and
Newton it nearly took the Church down with it. Time has disproved
Aristotle but it has never disproved Scripture. Whenever we marry
Christianity with human theories then the Church suffers. We may see
parallels between Genesis 1 and the "Big Bang Theory" but woe to us if
we put that theory alongside of Scripture as cardinal truth. It is
provisional truth at best.
The other extreme is to "take from" the word of the Lord by saying
"this bit is not for today" or "we know better than that now". If we
judge Scripture we judge the Holy Spirit who wrote it and that is a
very dangerous thing to do. We are the ones being judged. The
prisoner can not try to tell the Judge that His law-book is wrong!
Yet in many areas that is precisely what we are trying to do. We tell
the Judge of all the earth that His rules are outdated, that sex
before marriage is OK, that rules about homosexuality should be
revised and His demands for holiness made more reasonable. It won't
wash. We cannot alter the law book and throw away those laws we don't
like (or no-one would pay tax) and neither can we alter the Bible.
Alongside this there is our own feelings and spiritual experiences
that can cause us to neglect great chunks of Scripture. Feelings and
spiritual experiences are good but they are not central. We are never
commanded to obey our feelings or to have such and such an
experience. We are way too varied a lot for that! We are commanded
to conform to God's written word. I cannot conform to your personal
emotional style or have the exact experiences you have but I can
conform to Scripture. Across all cultures and all time and all
individual personalities we can all obey Scripture. Scripture is
central. It is to be at the the core of our Christianity and we are
to treat it with awe for it is God's Eternal Word.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, cause us to love Your Holy Word and order our lives by it
that we may grow in holiness and love. Amen.
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John Edmiston ([email protected])
Editor - Eternity Online Magazine http://www.eternitymag.com/
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