I have been reading a book entitled "God Wrote a Book" by James MacDonald. The book is essentially a defense of the Bible as God's inspired Word to mankind. One of the points made in one of the chapters is that Scripture is captivating... that it stirs the soul like no other piece of literature. When I read that, I paused and asked myself if I really believed that statement. I mean there are many people who read/hear Scripture but are not moved by it like they are moved by some songs... or some other written words. But then my thought changed as I considered how millions of lives have been transformed by the Word of God... because of His Spirit guiding the reading of It and so on. So I agreed that it was captivating... but it had been a while since I was personally captivated by Scripture, so I was still "unsure." (I read this chapter a couple weeks ago)
Last night, a friend of mine was telling me about his experience at another church here in Houston - Grace Presbyterian. He attends the evening service at HFBC, so he decided to take the opportunity to visit another church on Sunday morning; and that is where he found himself. He said that as they were administering the Lord's Supper, they had someone reading Scripture verses one after the other. No commentary... just Scripture. He said that is was a very worshipful experience as he considered the beauty of (as he put it) the "pure Word of God read aloud."
Then this morning, I read 2 Timothy. There were a number of things in the book that popped out to me, but one thing in particular stayed with me long after my eyes passed over the words:
"Remember Jesus Christ..." - 2 Tm 2:8a
Now the verse goes on to say more (hence the reference being 2:8a). But those three words were absolutely Captivating and Pure.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Do you remember a few years ago when Louie Giglio was preaching on Sunday nights at First...and there was one night where he got up to preach, recited Ephesians from memory, and returned to his seat?
That was captivating.
That is awesome... I was not there, but we were talking last night about how cool it would be for Greg to end his series on Colossians by doing that.
Dovie -- that night is etched in my mind. I asked Louie later how he went about memorizing the book (I seem to have trouble with just a verse). He said he carried his Bible with him everywhere and at any spare moment, in the car at a light, in line at the dry cleaners, etc. he memorized. I thought later how whether memorizing scripture or not that would be an excellent idea and how I could be changed because of it.
All for now,
Lisa
P.S. Do you remember the night he started teaching in Romans and all he got to was the first word, "Paul" -- a whole sermon on one word?
I do remember that. I wonder if I could get that tape...
dovie,
my friend Ashley has that same message on tape (Louie quoting Eph.). It's from when he did it at Baylor. But I was at HFBC when he did that and it was amazing just at how reading/reciting the Word is penetrating!!
Dovie,
Looking back at my journals, I think the date of Louie's talk at HFBC (Sunday Nights Alive) was June 14, 1998. I don't know if the church keeps archives from 7 years ago, but it's worth a check, right?
All for now,
Lisa
I recently read Romans in one sitting, and I found myself on the edge of my seat. As many times as I've read it before, for some reason this time it felt like I had literally received a letter in the mail, from Paul, and I was reading it for the first time. It was really exhilarating. But it doesn't always happen that way, unfortunately.
Todd, looks like you have a new look on the blogsite. I like your style. You are a very slippery fellow. No one can put you in box.
Post a Comment