From
Keep It Simple ,Stupid: Martin Luther On The Christian Life by Carl Trueman at
Crossway
Christianity for Everyone
One of the striking things about Martin Luther’s vision of the Christian life is its utter simplicity. Against the background of medieval piety, with its myriad holy orders, its penances, and its pilgrimages, Luther presented a Christianity for everyone. And against the backdrop of his own complicated and scrupulous psychology, he discovered the straightforward peace that comes from the sufficiency of God’s saving action in the crucified Christ. If Augustine freed the church from the back-breaking self-martyring piety of Pelagius, Luther freed her from centuries of obfuscating complication.
Take his understanding of the sources of salvation, for example: Christ offered in the Word preached, and Christ offered in baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Hearing, washing, and eating: three of the most basic, everyday human activities which require no special talent. They also transcend any human categories we might care to create in order to make things more complicated, whether based on age, class, ethnicity, etc.
One Simple Question
A Christian life rooted in the simple tools set forth in Scripture may well strike against the aesthetic of a world in thrall to the spectacular and the innovative but it nonetheless arises out of one of the most powerfully gracious aspects of the biblical teaching on salvation: God is no respecter of persons. Luther saw this clearly: God regards human beings as either outside of Christ and subject to the penalties of the Law or in Christ and therefore the beneficiaries of his person and work. The key question for Christians—and thus the key question for those in pastoral ministry—was simply that of how one is united to Christ.
For Luther, the answer was simple: by grasping through faith the promise of Christ as offered in his Word and sacraments. Thus, the calling of the ministry was shaped in a most profound way by the fact that it was these tools that need to be used; and individual Christians lives were shaped in a similarly significant way by the fact that it is these things to which we must pay attention. To use Occam’s razor at this point, everything else is revealed as mere clutter—a clutter that obscures or distracts from the real thing...
Read the rest
at the link.
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4 Reasons We Must Not Disregard God's Word - Excerpt from
Hebrews: An Anchor for the Soul by R. Kent Hughes (HT
Crossway)
The Piercing Word of God
I was twelve years old when I came under the knife of God's Word. The cuts went deep, deeper than blood, as they cut my soul in gracious surgery. I was cut with the clear understanding that though I was an outward son of the church, I was not a son of God. The other cut that the knife brought was the conviction that Jesus Christ was God and that he had died on the cross for my sins.
My pastor directed me to read John 1:12 and Romans 10:9-10. And as I read, the lights came on. It was as if the marrow of those verses were sucked off the page and into my soul. I did believe! Thus began my experience with the penetrating power of God's Word. It has cut me untold numbers of times since. But each pain, responded to, has brought a fresh, satisfying healing.
All Scripture is, as Paul has said, theopneustos, "breathed out by God" (2 Timothy 3:16). It is the very breath of divine reality. There is nothing like it. Hebrews 4:12-13 give us four reasons we must not disregard God's Word:
1. The Living Word
The writer of Hebrews directly warns that God's Word is alive, saying, "The word of God is living and active" (v. 12a). It lives because it endures forever (Psalm 119:89). Even more, it lives because it has life in itself. God is "living" (3:12), and the Word, as God's breath (2 Timothy 3:16), partakes of God's living character. It is alive!
The character of the Word's aliveness is that it is "active," or as that word is sometimes rendered, "effective." God's Word vibrates with active, effectual power as it rushes to fulfill the purpose for which it was spoken. As Isaiah 55:11 so beautifully says: "so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."
Indeed, the Word of God is alive and effectual! It does what it promises to do. It regards neither age nor education. It can change you if you are twelve or 102. If you will listen to God's Word, it will change your life. This truth is both a promise and a warning to all of us.
2. The Penetrating Word
God's Word is not only living, but penetrating, as the next line so clearly states: "sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and marrow" (v. 12b).
What we have here is a poetic statement of the power of God's Word to pierce the human personality to its very depths. God's Word can cut through anything and bring conviction.
God's Word cleaves through our hard-shelled souls like a hot knife through warm butter. Certainly we Christians find this to be true in our lives. There are sections of God's Word that cut through all the pretensions and religious facade, leaving us convicted.
When God wills it, his Word will pierce anyone. The soul safest from God's penetrating Word is never the unhappy hearer, but those who, though hearing, never hear and never resist. Tragically, many of these are regular church attenders. The true hearer wittingly or unwittingly invites the divine surgeon to do his gracious cutting.
3. The Discerning Word
Having established that God's Word is living and penetrating, the writer adds, "discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (v. 12c). The root word for "discerning" is the word kritikos, from which we derive critic. So the emphasis here is on the discerning judgment of "the thoughts and intentions of the heart". The heart is the seat of human personality. It is hidden from all. Yet God's Word sifts through its thoughts and attitudes with unerring discrimination.
"The sword of the Spirit" (Ephesians 6:17) will tell us what is in our hearts. Fellow-believers, if we really want to understand ourselves, we must fill our souls with God's Word. God's Word–read, meditated upon, and prayerfully applied–will give you brilliant discernment and profound self-knowledge. James indicates that God's Word functions as a mirror revealing who and what we really are (cf. James 1:23 24). This gift of self-knowledge is no small grace because when we grasp something of the serpentine ways of our hearts, we are disposed to cast ourselves even more on God's grace. And that is no small grace! The wise Christian invites the penetrating, discerning work of God's Word in his life.
4. A Reckoning God
Verse 13 gives us one of Scripture's great descriptions of God's knowing: "No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account."
God sees everything. This can be discomforting if we have something to hide. "The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good" (Proverbs 15:3). The psalmist likewise witnesses, "You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence" (Psalm 90:8).
This is sobering truth indeed. But the metaphorical language that follows makes God's knowing absolutely terrifying for those who imagine they can avoid his gaze: "All are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account." "All"–everything–everyone–is stark naked before him. There is nothing to hide in or behind. All creatures are in the grip of God, totally vulnerable, and helpless.
Blessed be the double-edged sword of judgment and sanctification. God cuts us deeply that we might die. God cuts us again with his Word that we might live.
Are there benefits to hearing the Word of God read out loud, over and above silent reading of the text? Check this out - "How to Hear a Word from God" by Adam Gabriel Cavalier, guest posting at Trevin Wax's Blog:
The Letter to the Hebrews begins off reminding us of a stunning and remarkable fact - God spoke. And not only has God spoken, but he has done so "at many times, and in many ways." And in these last days, he has spoken by a new and infinitely greater way of speaking. He has spoken by His Son.
Have you heard this Word from God? Now, you might have read this Word, but how often - if at all - have you heard it?
Ever since I was a new believer, the printed Bible has rightly been emphasized as God's Word. The immeasurable value of reading a physical, paper copy will always be there - as it rightly should. There are obvious benefits to a physical copy (such as, the fact that you can read as fast or as slow as you want), but have we devalued the intake of Scripture via auditory means?
I think it goes without saying, the majority of believers interact with their Bibles through the reading of a physical, paper copy. However, my question is this - how many Christians even own an audio Bible? Imagine if the equation was flipped. What if the church primarily listened to the reading of Scripture? Would the church's spiritual vitality be any less diminished?
I believe we should value the reading of God's Word, but we should also value the listening of Scripture being read aloud. I think this is a highly neglected and yet an equally valid means of valuing God's Word in your life.
