This was part of my reading this morning…sobering!
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.
Amos 8:11-12
So many Bibles, so many Bibles — and so little thoughtful reading of them. The next stage is the Bible as source of prooftexts; the stage after that is the Bible as quaint relic; the next, the Bible as antiquarian magic; the next, implacable ignorance — and all the while, a growing hunger for something wise, something stable, something intelligent, something prophetic, something true. And the hunger is not satisfied.
The only answer is the fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:17.
D.A. Carson, For the Love of God, Vol. II
“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”
John 17:17
John 17:17
The next stage is the Bible as source of prooftextsUmmm, been there. When I am not faithfully pursuing Jesus in the scriptures, that’s exactly what the Bible becomes for me. A place where I refer when I’m trying to make a point or explain something or, worse, justify myself before men. Sobering words from Carson as those ‘next’ level uses are terrifying.
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