Meditations

Personal Reflections on Psalm 1, Psalm 19, and 1 Timothy 3:1 - 4:8:

The passages that I reflected on this week have caused me to realize that I do not hold God’s word in high enough esteem. Or that I do not esteem it as much as I profess and that it is not as dear to me as I would like to believe. I could have never written the words of Psalm 1 and Psalm 19, for when have I ever seen the law of the Lord as perfect, reviving my soul? Or desired his precepts and decrees more than the sweet things in life? I am struck by the Psalmists’ delight in God’s Word and his earnest desire to meditate on it day and night.

In 2 Timothy 3, Paul picks up where the Psalmists have left off by reminding Timothy that he must continue in what he has learned from childhood, that he must hold fast to the Holy Scriptures which give wisdom and lead to faith in Christ. Significantly, he points out that God’s word prepares the man of God for every good work. Paul then charges Timothy to preach the word, and tells him to be ready in and out of season. He reminds him, as well, that turning aside from scripture leads to turning away from the truth. This turning away reminds me of the blowing away of the chaff in Psalm 1. Such men will not stand in the judgment.

  These verses are a sharp but loving reproof and reminder to me that if I desire to experience greater joy in my Lord, that I must be more committed to reading his word faithfully and meditating on the great truths contained within. Furthermore, in order to be faithful to the spirit of Paul’s command to Timothy (that he be prepared both in and out of season), I must also hold fast to what I have been taught and what I have firmly believed. For me to do the work of an evangelist, I need to drink deep of scripture.

   Our 2 Timothy reading begins and ends with the warning that in these last days there will be times of difficulties. Paul tells Timothy of evil men who live for themselves and pervert the word of God. This challenges me to love God’s word and to make a greater commitment to reading my Bible so that I may be prepared in my own times of difficulties. It also reminds me that I can hope to reprove, rebuke, and exhort those people who have distorted God’s word only if I have seen the beauty in God’s law for myself, and have meditated upon so that its deep truths take hold in my heart.

The Infallibility of the Church

Rome believes that the church is infallible as well as Scripture. The infallibility of the church extends not only to the question of canon formation but also to the question of biblical interpretation. To summarize, we can say that according to Rome we have an infallible Bible whose extent is decreed infallibly by the church and whose content is interpreted infallibly by the church. However, the individual Christian is still left in his own fallibility as he seeks to understand the infallible Bible as interpreted by the infallible church. No one is extending infallibility to the individual believer.

~The Establishment of Scripture by R.C. Sproul in Sola Scriptura, 1995

Hi Rabbit!

 

Mighty to Save

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

~Zephaniah 3:17

Theopneustos

[B.B.] Warfield summarized:

From all points of approach alike we appear to be conducted to the conclusion that θεόπνευστος is primarily expressive of the origination of Scripture, not of its nature and much less of its effects. What is theopneustos is "God-breathed," produced by the creative breath of the Almighty. And Scripture is called theopneustos in order to designate it as "God-breathed," the product of Divine spiration, the creation of that Spirit who is in all spheres of the Divine activity the executive of the Godhead. The traditional translation of the word by the Latin inspiratus a Deo is no doubt also discredited, if we are to take it at the foot of the letter. It does not express a breathing into the Scriptures of God.... What it affirms is that the Scriptures owe their origin to an activity of God the Holy Ghost and are in the highest and truest sense His creation. It is on this foundation of Divine origin that all the high attributes of Scripture are built. [The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, 1948, p 296]

   It's  hard to overemphasize the importance of understanding this: What Scripture is here teaching about itself, the term Paul uses, its consistency with the rest of biblical revelation, and comprehension of Warfield's explanation (above) may well be the most important exercise in developing a strong foundation in biblical sufficiency that gives rise to sound theology and apologetics. Warfield rightly concluded that the term translated "God-breathed" is speaking of the origin of Scriptures; they are not, first and foremost, in a primary sense, human in their origination, and we will see this truth repeated in different ways in other passages... 

~James R. White, Scripture Alone (2004)

Letter Writing

"Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company."

~Lord Byron

So That I Believe

"The Word comes first, and with the Word the Spirit breathes upon my heart so that I believe."

~Martin Luther, Luther's Works, Vol. 54: Table Talk

From the Depths of my Heart

"Grant that I may not pray alone with the mouth; help me that I may pray from the depths of my heart."

~Martin Luther