Author: Brian
Follower of Jesus, Husband, Dad, Grandpa, and Pastor
Q&A#8: The Word of God
Q/A#8
Q: What does the Word of God teach us?
A: The Word of God teaches us about God, our purpose, our failure, and our only hope of salvation.
From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
– II Timothy 3:15-16 (ESV)
For Further Reflection
Read Isaiah 40, Matt. 22:37-40, Romans 3:10-25
Our Response
Receive Jesus as your Savior
Read God’s Word and follow it
Passion Points
Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:
The Spiritual Dangers of Disconnecting from Creation – Scott Martin (TGC)
Creation is not an end in itself, something to be worshiped in place of the Creator. It is rather something that points us—if we are willing to pay attention—to a good, gracious, powerful, extravagant, and loving God. A world that disregards or distances itself from creation is a world that will naturally disregard and distance itself from God.
Quiet and Deep Christianity – Andrew Roycroft (Thinking Pastorally)
Ours is an age of fragmentation, of intellectual hopscotch, of results-oriented activity on the one hand and mindless entertainment on the other. We have demolished the stonewalls and uprooted the hedgerows of our intellectual past in favour of speed, convenience, and leisure; the mass production of information on which to gorge ourselves, without a thought for the mental and emotional habitats which have been destroyed in the process. Sooner or later we will have accommodated these changes to such a degree that we won’t even know to feel regret, and by the time my young children reach adulthood the concepts of silence, stillness, meditation, deep reading, and unbroken thought will be so far back in our history that they may scarcely seem real…. A huge, and largely unaddressed, issue is what kind of effect will this tempo and tone have on the life and work of the local church?
An Open Letter to the Timid Evangelist – Brian Hedges (Crossway)
In diagnosing our evangelistic disorders, it helps to remember that effective personal evangelism depends on the convergence of multiple factors including opportunity, character, and skill. Here are a few thoughts about each.
We Don’t Sing for Fun – Tim Challies
One of the trends that has swept our society through the past decades is the “funification” of pretty much everything….Yet singing is not prescribed for Christian worship for the purpose of fun. It actually serves a far higher purpose…
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day!
Confession
We all need to confess, and we need to do it every day…. No one is so bad that he or she is beyond forgiveness…. No one is so good that only one or two confessions a year will do.
– Edward Welch in Side by Side
Preaching Point
Gladness and gravity should be woven together in the life and preaching of a pastor in such a way as to sober the careless soul and sweeten the burdens of the saints.
– John Piper in The Supremacy of God in Preaching
Book Collection
This is a bit late, but here are the top five books I read in 2018, followed by links to other best books of 2018 posts. You are bound to find some good suggestions.
My Top Five Books
1. Faithfulness and Holiness – J. I. Packer & J. C. Ryle
2. How Should We Develop Biblical Friendship – Michael Haykin & Joel Beeke
3. Reset – David Murray
4. The Rest of God – Mark Buchanan
5. The Art of Rest – Adam Mabry
Other Lists
Tim Challies (includes lists from several bloggers)
Happy reading!
Preaching Point
The goal of preaching is the glory of God in the glad submission of his people.
– John Piper in The Supremacy of God in Preaching
Heaviest of Weights
Sin is the heaviest of weights; forgiveness is the greatest deliverance.
– Edward Welch in Side by Side
Preaching Point
Our people need to hear God entranced preaching. They need someone, at least once a week, to lift up his voice and magnify the supremacy of God.
– John Piper in The Supremacy of God in Preaching
A New Start
As anyone who follows this blog knows, I have not been posting much for the last several months. Life has been busy. And I’ve wondered how important it is to do this blogging thing. At the same time, I have been thinking about what this blog could look like, what I’d like to do with it, and what would be feasible to do. I had planned to re-boot it, as it were, with the new year, but didn’t get there. I think I am ready to re-start this week.
Once again, I plan to have collections from other blogs on Wednesdays and Saturdays – recommended readings for our growth in loving God and people in response to his love for us. Thursdays will continue good quotes from books I have been reading.
Fridays will start a new feature I am calling Rest Reflections. I have been reading a lot about rest, why we need it, what keeps us from it, and what it looks like. I definitely swing towards the workaholic side of the pendulum, but I’m finding I need to slow down and rest. So I’m trying to learn what that looks like, and each week I’ll be sharing helpful quotes I find about what I am discovering about rest. Frenzied, hurried, weary saints don’t love well, so this is a topic that fits well with the theme of this blog.
Tuesdays begins another regular feature called Preaching Point. As a pastor, I spend a lot of time preparing and delivering sermons, and I want to refine my preaching. So again, I have plans to read a lot about preaching this year – this is my second reading focus for 2019 – and I plan to share helpful quotes each Tuesday.
Mondays, finally, will be a variety of posts. Once a month will be a “Scripture Speaks to Our Suffering” post – a monthly passage of Scripture to ponder, even memorize, to help us in our suffering. Also, we will return to the Passion Catechism with Q&A’s and related verses to help us learn and know the basic Christian Faith. And then finally, I hope to share some personal reflections on rest and preaching from what I have been reading.
So that’s the plan. We’ll see how it goes. If any of this looks helpful to you, I invite you to join me, or continue to join me, on this journey.
Brian J. Mikul 