You Will Submit to Something, Why Not Scripture?
00:00:00.000 | When we read the Bible, what are we doing? Or what is it doing to us? To explain, we
00:00:11.760 | are once again joined by author and pastor Ray Ortlund, who serves as the
00:00:16.080 | senior pastor of Emanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Ray, explain this to
00:00:21.280 | us. What are we doing when we read the Bible? Mm-hmm. Yeah, what's striking to me
00:00:27.720 | about the Bible is just that it exists at all as a book, as this--I'm holding
00:00:33.680 | mine in my hand right now--it's this thing external to me, external to my
00:00:39.680 | own thoughts and feelings. That is significant. By being external, by being a
00:00:43.840 | book outside my head, the Bible provides a unifying rallying point for all
00:00:49.800 | Christians, so that we can gather around the Lord Himself in worship, in community,
00:00:55.240 | in mission. If all we had to go by was our own thoughts and feelings, our own
00:00:59.640 | intuitions and leadings, we would fragment. If we think we have a lot of
00:01:04.040 | disagreements now with the Bible, imagine what would happen, how we would explode
00:01:09.440 | apart if all we had was our own personal subjectivity to define the gospel. So the
00:01:14.680 | exteriority of the book pulls us out of ourselves and into something we can all
00:01:21.440 | share together. So I think of the Bible as the scepter of the King among His
00:01:27.040 | subjects. It's the practical mechanism by which the will of the King exerts
00:01:33.240 | influence among us, pulling us together. It makes the Lordship of Christ a
00:01:38.280 | practical reality among us. I mean, think of all the times the prophets
00:01:43.160 | cried out, "Hear the word of the Lord." Now that is basically what the Christian
00:01:48.360 | life boils down to, listening together. If we're at home alone, we're just
00:01:53.000 | sitting there reading and receiving. Or if we're at church, we're sitting there
00:01:57.360 | hearing the Bible preached. And what happens? God Himself enters into that
00:02:03.120 | experience. He blesses us, speaks to us, comforts us, corrects us, motivates us
00:02:09.120 | through His Word. The Word of God and the power of God always go together.
00:02:14.520 | 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 says, "Our gospel came to you not only in word, but also
00:02:19.080 | in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction." What else can do that
00:02:23.320 | for us? What we're doing when we read the Bible is we're opening up,
00:02:27.740 | getting out of ourselves, opening up to the power of God, and getting into God's
00:02:33.960 | thoughts about God and about everything. And that's when we can come together.
00:02:40.920 | Yeah, so the posture of humbling ourselves under Scripture is really
00:02:46.240 | essential. Oh my, yes. We're going to humble ourselves under something. If not
00:02:51.500 | the Bible, why something else? How is that alternative qualified? Did that
00:02:56.880 | alternative reveal to us the dying love of Jesus for the undeserving? Let's be
00:03:01.760 | careful what we listen to. Yeah, excellent. Well said. Thank you, Ray. And tomorrow I
00:03:06.560 | want to ask you, in the midst of all the perplexing anxieties and uncertainties
00:03:11.320 | of life, what are the keys to regaining and maintaining our joy in Christ? This
00:03:18.240 | has been our friend, pastor and author Ray Ortlunds. I'm your host Tony Rehnke.
00:03:21.840 | We'll see you tomorrow.
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