Miscellany

The other Sunday in a sermon I mentioned that studying the attributes of God is a very worthwhile endeavor.

As we examine God's characteristics, qualities, and perfections we get to know Him better and sense a stronger pull to be like Him. We also feel more secure and at peace in our spirits. Just thinking about God's goodness and wisdom and holiness and sovereignty and providence and love is enough to get us rejoicing. Then throw in His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. Don't forget His unchangeableness, either, or His eternalness and His invisibility and His independance. Wow. What a great God we worship and serve.

Our worship will be constricted if we have only a weak, inadequate understanding of God's nature. Our obedience to, and service for, Him will be anemic and lackluster unless we really hunger to know Him intellectually and experientially.

Courses in systematic theology in seminaries and Bible colleges devote a lot of attention to the doctrine of God and His qualities. Bible teachers and theologians through the centuries have preached, taught, and written extensively about what God is like. I referred to the great Puritan preacher Stephen Charnock(1628-1680) who penned the massive Existence And Attributes Of God. Arthur Pink(1886-1952) wrote a much smaller but nevertheless valuable work, The Attributes Of God. In our own day, Wayne Grudem has discussed this topic thoroughly among other chapters in his textbook, Systematic Theology(Zondervan, 1994). As you might expect, all of this is heavy reading but rich and rewarding. Potentially faith-building and life-transforming, too.


We are now concluding our Midweek Fellowship(Wednesday evening) series of studies on the "one another" statements of the New Testament. The Holy Spirit inspired Paul, John, Peter, and James to include these sayings in their writings. You've seen them, scattered about the epistles. Serve one another. Pray for one another. Confess your sins to each other. Encourage and admonish one another. Greet and show hospitality to each other. Undergirding all of these is the challenge to love one another. And there are several others of those practical instructions.

These are not suggestions. They are commands. Taken seriously and consistently practiced, they will revolutionize our relationships in the body of Christ. We are given a track to run on in our interactions with fellow believers. Here is clear counsel not just on how to get along in church but on how to build deep, intimate, faith-stretching connections and ties in the family of God that will produce joy and spiritual growth.

We'd all do well to go through our New Testaments and discover and then underline each of these short but highly significant sayings, praying all the while that we'll have the grace and energy of the Holy Spirit in living them out in our age when the world around us presses its nose against the windows of our churches, looking in with the hope that it will find in our fellowships a better way to live and relate than what is out there in the self-seeking, hurried, dog-eat-dog culture.


The Southern Baptist Convention meets this week in Louisville, KY for its annual session. I'll not be attending this year since I used up most of my conference expense money to attend the very valuable John Piper Pastors' Conference in Minneapolis, MN back in the winter. This upcoming SBC gathering does promise to be interesting, though, as the messengers will discuss and vote on a document called The Great Commission Resurgence that has already been much debated. It is almost certain that Georgia pastor Johnny Hunt will be reelected to a second term as convention president. There is a lot of concern in our denomination these days about the growing exodus, or at least decreased involvement, of many younger pastors and laypeople who, while strongly committed to Christ and scripture, are upset with the narrowing theological and cooperation tents as well as a bureauracy that seems too big and outmoded in these fast-paced days. Anyway...watch your Religious Herald and maybe even our local newspaper for coverage of the major stuff coming out of the Louisville meeting.