UNAPOLOGETICALLY DIVINE
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Opening Prayer
Sovereign Lord, please show me new ways to apply what you say in your Word today. Continue to transform me and make me more like my Savior.
Read 2 PETER 1:19–21
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
19 We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Reflect
‘Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.’1
Many years ago, I realized something that went completely against the grain of my thinking. It challenged my upbringing and the liberal education I had been fortunate to have. It was this: in the Bible, God indicates that life is lived in terms of right and wrong. Being a believer has ethical implications. Realizing this shocked me, and it took me some time to digest and accept it. Yet there it is: the Bible has a stark, black-and-white, take-it-or-leave-it quality about it. Today’s reading reminds us of this.
Peter states that the message of the Scriptures is timeless. It can enlighten men and women, constituting the only reliable moral and personal compass by which we can navigate life. Peter is referring to prophetic oracles within Scripture, but all Scripture is prophetic and authoritative. God’s prophets were sent to invite his people to turn continually toward him. It therefore follows that a key aspect of prophecy is sound teaching and sound doctrine, which must translate into right thinking and living.
Above all, the moral quality of Scripture is grounded in the God who inspired it. The Holy Spirit uses men and women to communicate his thoughts and will. If this is hard to accept, I invite you to do something as we approach a new year. Allow yourself about two or three years for this exercise. Read the Bible from start to finish. Read only the Bible and nothing but the Bible. You may realize, over time, that it is not you who are reading the Bible but that the Holy Spirit is reading you!
Apply
Do I turn to the Scriptures to be disturbed, challenged, and comforted regularly? Or do I have a predetermined view of what God can and cannot say to me?
Closing prayer
Father, thank you for your Word that is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path. Help me to not only read it but to continue understanding and applying what it teaches me.
1 Psalm 119:105.
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