The Text

Our next message series focuses in on the book of 2 Samuel and is entitled, "The Heart of a King". The mailer for this series will be coming to egm folks next week (if the US postal service is good to us). In order for us to get services ready, however, we have to plan a bit further ahead than the next series--so next week the worship planning team will begin planning for the series after "the Heart of a King". As I was working on this series yesterday (it will be from 1 Peter) I was struck by a verse in chapter 1 of 1 Peter, "...you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God..." I love that picture of God's word as something that is living and therefore it gives life.

In my reading this week (I've been reading through Daniel, Hosea, Hebrews, and James) I've notice the importance of this word to life. Hosea has some especially strong statements about the connection between word and life. Here's a couple of them,

4. 6My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.

6.1"Come, let us return to the LORD;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
2After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
3Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth."

It's worth remembering how essential it is for us to "press on to know the LORD" and that knowing him comes first and foremost from the text. If you will indulge me for a moment and let me remind all of us of what one of the Creeds (The Belgic Confession) that egm uses as a summary of our faith says on this,

Article 2

The Means by Which We Know God
We know him by two means:

First, by the creation, preservation, and government
of the universe,
since that universe is before our eyes
like a beautiful book
in which all creatures,
great and small,
are as letters
to make us ponder
the invisible things of God:
his eternal power
and his divinity,
as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.

All these things are enough to convict men
and to leave them without excuse.

Second, he makes himself known to us more openly
by his holy and divine Word,
as much as we need in this life,
for his glory
and for the salvation of his own.

Article 3

The Written Word of God
We confess that this Word of God
was not sent nor delivered by the will of men,
but that holy men of God spoke,
being moved by the Holy Spirit,
as Peter says.^1

Afterwards our God—
because of the special care he has
for us and our salvation—
commanded his servants,
the prophets and apostles,
to commit this revealed Word to writing.
He himself wrote
with his own finger
the two tables of the law.

Therefore we call such writings
holy and divine Scriptures.