“Why are we so precise as to our food, our clothes, our money-matters, and why does this accuracy displease us in divine literature alone? He crawls along the ground, they say, he wearies himself out with words and syllables! Why do we slight any word of Him whom we venerate and worship under the name of ‘the Word’?”
Erasmus, quoted in David Daiches, The King James Version of the English Bible (Chicago, 1941), page 141.
The Bible deserves our most careful attention. Why? Because it is the scepter of the King, the practical mechanism by which he makes his rule a felt reality among us. If we love our Lord, we will pore over his Word with reverent care, especially when everything is on the line.
Do our churches always demonstrate that practical submission to him? If the Bible is not what makes the difference in the tone, the decisions, the direction of a church, that church is functionally liberal. Its official position might be evangelical. But its practical functionality is liberal.
Many liberal churches like the Bible. They study the Bible. They preach from the Bible. They derive comfort from the Bible. But something other than the Bible exercises the primary influence. It’s what liberal churches do.
In his “Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God,” Jonathan Edwards lists as an unmistakable indicator that the Holy Spirit is at work “. . . a greater regard to the Holy Scriptures.” “The devil never would attempt to beget in persons a regard to that divine word which God has given to be the great and standing rule for the direction of his church in all religious matters and all concerns of their souls in all ages. . . . He is engaged against the Bible and hates every word in it.”
When we put the Bible back into the functional, determinative center of our churches, so that we humble ourselves and follow the Word of the Lord carefully, we can be sure the Holy Spirit is wonderfully at work. It’s what evangelical churches do.