Subject: Can anyone recommend a good study book? |
Bible Note: Dear Tim, :-) I quite understand. I will help you though. I will answer an emphatic "No." So you'll get all excited and say, "I got him pinned down... I disagree!" Then let me suggest that without at least life, some minimal amount of intelligence, a common language with your congregation, salvation, the illumination of the Holy Spirit, study and preparation... without each of these things, your hypothetical "someone" will need "something else in addition to Scripture in order to be able to properly preach Scripture." These are only a few of the things that Scripture itself states are required. Even some of them can be broken down into further components. Of course, if you just have a couple of these things, I suppose you could preach someone else's sermon who has done all the real work for you. But that puts you into a logical dilemma, since that is the very thing that you've been trying to argue as superfluous. The need to reduce everything to simple answers is a strong psychological one. It gives us the illusion we have things under our thumbs. Of course, as a pastor of the Word of God you ought to know that you need precisely what He has given you. Nothing more and nothing less. In Him, Doc |