February 2018 Pastor's Letter

"You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf." - John 5:39 NRSV

In 1986 I was privileged to participate in a mission partnership between the Kentucky Baptist Convention and the Baptist convention of Kenya, East Africa. The mission involved several opportunities to share the gospel - street preaching, individual witnessing and worship in the native churches.

One special experience occurred during a special assembly of Kenyan students at a mission high school in Mombasa. After I gave my testimony the headmaster opened the floor for questions. A question that I remember vividly was from a student who wanted to know how he could know the real Jesus when he returned from heaven. The student explained that, in their country, they had experienced so called "messiahs" in the villages who did seemingly miraculous things that led people down the wrong path. My response was to recall that Jesus warned about imposters in Luke 17:20-37. He cautioned the disciples not to be led astray by people who claimed to know when and where the Lord would appear. Then, to press his point Jesus said, "For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day." (Luke 17:24) indicating that when He returned there would be no doubt it was him. Basically I urged the students to read and study their Bibles to find the presence of Christ in their lives.

I thought of that experience as a read a recent interview with Tim Chester about his new book, Bible Matters: Making Sense of Scripture (InterVarsity Press, 2017) on www.biblegatewayblog.com.  Dr. Chester is the pastor of Grace Church Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire, UK. His book encourages Christians to read the Bible believing they will encounter God in its pages. During the interview he said 

"God spoke through the Bible 2,000-plus years ago. But God continues to speak through the Bible . . . It’s a relational Bible through which God speaks—present tense—to us. And it’s the Holy Spirit who makes it living and personal to us today . . .

 The Bible is not just a repository of information. It’s one of the means God uses to relate to us. He speaks and we listen... It becomes a place of intimacy. . .

One of the reasons people are so obsessed with prophecies and words of knowledge is that we have not rightly emphasized the intimate, relational nature of the Bible. People long to hear a personal message from God that’s specific to them, when in fact that’s what they’re hearing every day as they read their Bibles and every week as they hear it preached.

I believe Dr. Chester has his finger on what is missing in our faith today. We have possessed and enjoyed the Bible for so long that our familiarity has led us to be complacent about its authority and its wonder. We need to recover the truth that God reveals His heart and hopes for us and feeds our relationship with Him in the Bible and every day is an opportunity to experience a little bit of heaven on earth.

Dr. Phil