Subject: I NEED A TRUE FRIEND THAT IS A CHRISTIAN |
Bible Note: FANATICAL ECSTASY Can't Replace the Word of God 'The "external Word" is the Book (the Bible). And the saving, sanctifying, illuminating Spirit of God, he (Martin Luther) says, comes to us through this "external Word." 'Luther calls it the "external Word" to emphasize that it is objective, fixed, outside ourselves, and therefore unchanging. It is a Book. Neither ecclesiastical hierarchy NOR FANATICAL ECSTASY can replace it or shape it. It is "external," like God. You can take or leave it. But you can't make it other than what it is. It is a book with fixed letters and words and sentences. 'And Luther said with resounding forcefulness in 1545, the year before he died, "Let the man who would hear God speak, read Holy Scripture"...Earlier he had said in his lectures on Genesis, "The Holy Spirit himself and God, the Creator of all things, is the Author of this book" (see note 6). One of the implications of the fact that the Word of God comes to us in a book is that the theme of this conference is "The Pastor and His Study," not "The Pastor and His Seance," or "The Pastor and His Intuition," or "The Pastor and His Religious Multi-perspectivalism." The Word of God that saves and sanctifies, from generation to generation, is preserved in a Book.' (Emphasis added.) ____________________ By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod. (http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ Biographies/1470_Martin_Luther_Lessons_ from_His_Life_and_Labor/) When you enter the above address, everything between the parentheses must be included. All of it belongs on one line. * * * * * * * * * * * * * The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. Deuteronomy 29:29 (KJV) |