Holy Bible copy

I want to share some thoughts with you that truly concern me. More and more Christians know less and less about God’s Word. Have you noticed that fewer people bring their Bibles to church meetings now than years ago?  Why is that? Is it because less copies of the Bible are available for Christians to read? Fewer Christians know how to use the Bible when talking with unsaved family and friends. They don’t know where to find truth in the Word of Truth. When Christians get together, what is the first thing they talk about? Is it about a great truth God just showed them when they were studying their Bible? or something someone said on a favorite television program? or how great their favorite sports team played on the weekend? What are Christians thinking about most of the time? Is it about God or this world?

One of the most disturbing things I’ve seen in recent years is how liberal theology has leaked into conservative theology to the point where people on both sides are having substantial conversations to find those things that are common between them and not let what isn’t common bother them. I know that the goal of unity in the Church is a good thing, but unity at the expense of obeying the Word of Truth is not what God had in mind.

Jesus prayed to His Father that those who would follow Him would be “one as We are.” (John 17:11) In that same prayer, Jesus said, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” (John 17:17) The Apostle Paul wrote the Christians in Ephesus that his desire for them was to endeavor “to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:3) Paul also told them that Jesus had given them apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip them for their service to God and to edify the Body of Christ “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13) In that same context, Paul also told the Ephesians – “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ.” (Ephesians 4:14-15) The message of the Bible is clear – we must never cling to unity at the expense of Truth. Truth, if we follow it precisely as presented in the Bible, will always lead to unity among those who obey the Truth. For those who do not obey the Truth, unity is an ideal they will never be able to attain.

I’ve been a journalist since college and have spent most of my life observing people and reporting about what they think, say and do. It is my observation that Christians have less interest in God’s Word now than when God saved me from atheism 40 years ago. In just one generation, we have seen the commitment to Truth among Christians in our country collapse around us. Those of us who care can bemoan the fact that God’s people have little interest in what He says in His Word – we can point our fingers and lay blame at many doorsteps – but that doesn’t accomplish the one thing God wants His people to do and that is to hear what He has to say to them.

During the coming weeks, I’m going to share some truths about the Word of Truth that will hopefully help in rebuilding the confidence Christians should have in the Bible, the desire they should have in knowing it intimately, and the work of sharing its Truths to the world.  To do that, we will look at the Word of Truth from two aspects. In this GraceLife Blog, we’ll look at how to handle the Word of God correctly. In the Faith Defense Blog, we’ll look at the confidence we can have in the Bible that it is the Word of God and how to defend it powerfully. We need to develop two skills as a Church: (1) Defend the Word of Truth, (2) Rightly Divide the Word of Truth. That is the purpose and goal of our new studies.

“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15

In Christ’s Love and Grace,

Mark McGee

GraceLife Ministries

“Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”