R.C. Sproul | – RC Sproul – '5 Things …' Part 2 – Prayer
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R.C. Sproul | – RC Sproul – '5 Things …' Part 2 – Prayer
Part 2 – Prayer – People need to maintain a diet of nutritious foods if their bodies are to grow and thrive. But what do the people of God need in order to grow and thrive in the Christian faith? In this book, noted theologian and pastor R.C. Sproul identifies five of the crucial nutrients […]
Prayer is far more important than the Bible….
Paul said PRAY without ceasing.
Those in the upper room were PRAYING together, not READING together.
Christians throughout the majority of its history were ILLITERATE and could not even afford an entire text of scripture.
The Word was in the beginning, the Bible was not in the beginning. Christ himself is the Word, not the Bible. The Bible is ABOUT Christ, it is NOT Christ. It did not die for you.
@Icannottolerateit
I agree with you on most of the part because if we look at the old Testament before the book was even written, prophets consulted God's will through prayer.
However, the last point you made I think a bit too far reach out of your own opinion. You said "The Bible is ABOUT Christ, it is NOT Christ. It did not die for you."
We see that the God and His word are together as we read in John 1. Christ is the Word in flesh to reveal to us. I would separate them.
@Icannottolerateit
I meant "I would not separate them" in my last statement. 🙂
how did you know that Paul said to pray without ceasing except by knowledge of the Bible? how did the Bereans know if what Paul said was true? by prayig about it, or by searchig the Scriptures to see if it were so? how will you learn about what it is to pray without the Bible? God has said in Psalm 138:2 that he has magnified his word above all his name? Ps 1 also teaches us of he who is blessed who meditates day and night (without ceasing) on the word of God.
just as Christ, who was not incarnate but some 4000 years after creation, was still from the beginning. the Bible, though it took centuries to be completed, is still a work of God the Holy Spirit, who is also from everlasting. to downplay the power and purpose of the Scriptures is to undermine the precious gift and comfort provided to us by the Holy Spirit who is the one who inspired its every letter, and to border on doing despite to the spirit of grace found in it.
How did Abraham know what to pray about? How did all of those who lived before the Law know how to pray? How did Moses become a righteous man before any Bible even existed? God's Word is Jesus. What about the people that lived in Europe during the dark ages and middle ages that did not know how to read? Were they hopeless?
Paul said in Romans 2 that the Law is ingrained in all living men, even those "without the Law".
the Lord Jesus actually proclaimed the power and value of his word, as did the apostles Peter and Paul. So did David and Solomon. but at the end of it, your issue, your argument about the power and use of the word of God, the Bible, is ultimately between you and the Holy Spirit. why don't you take up this argument with the Holy Spirit who is the true author of every jot and tittle of it.
one thing that general revelation can never do is reveal Christ. no one will know who Christ is apart of the Holy Spirit's work of revelation, which starts first and foremost in the word of God. even the apostles and men who witnessed the Lord do all that he did, and teach all that he taught, weren't able to grasp any of it until the word of Scripture was revealed to their hearts by the work of God upon their souls.
one significant difference between Moses and Abraham and you or i is the difference of dispensations. we live in what Hebrews calls the fullness of times, where the means by which God has determined to make himself known is in his Scriptures. to ignore and turn away from the Scriptures in search of some metaphysical experience of God is a sure sign of delusion and rebellion and denial the testimony of Christ who is the spirit of prophecy-i.e., the Bible.
those who lived in the middle ages and the dark ages heard the word of God preached to them by men called of God to preach it to them. being academically literate is in itself no guarantee of coming to salvation. the eunuch was reading nothing but a riddle until the evangelist Phillip came along to give the understanding, and lead this man to salvation in Christ. in the case of the centurion, God didn't use an angel, but sent them to seek for Peter who would reveal the gospel to them.
even Peter when testifying in his letter of the great experience at the Transfiguration, testified that even a greater witness is made available to us in the word of God which has been given to us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. To then turn and deny the use and power of the Bible is to borderline on the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, since the Bible, is after all his work, to those chosen of the Father, and purchased by the blood of the Son.
the man who stumbles at the work of the Holy Spirit can never come to the hope of salvation, seeing it is after all the work of the Holy Spirit, also by which men are brought to Christ in the first place, to call upon the name of the Lord.
To your question about Moses' becoming a righteous man. Moses became a righteous man the same way that all of God's people become righteous-by the blood of Christ who was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Jesus is indeed the Word made flesh. He is the one of whom the angel said to John of him: "..for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." Rev 19:10ff
in whatever way God worked faith in the hearts of those who lived before the Scriptures existed is beside the point for those living today. today God has given us his Scriptures, and by them, according to God's purpose, has determined that all who will be saved today, will be saved by the hearing of his word, which by the work of the
by the work of the Spirit will reveal Christ to their souls by the revelation of Christ found in Scripture. and those who, in obedience to Peter's exhortation to grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, will only do so in accordance to the revelation of Christ found in the Bible. those who would seek to know Christ, and to grow in his grace apart from the Bible, do reject the command of the Holy Spirit, to the peril of their own delusion and destruction.
"He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God."
The Word is Jesus. The Bible will not exist in the new heaven and earth, but the Word will remain forever. Every jot and tittle, Jesus said, would be in place until "all is fulfilled". When Jesus said, "It is finished", on the cross all was accomplished! That's the beauty of it all. Jesus fulfilled the law because we could not. The Bible is useful for teaching righteousness, Paul said, not the Word itself.
The Holy Spirit himself can teach us all things. What did Jesus say? He said the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth, not the Bible. I am not saying the Bible is worthless or anything like that. Reading the Bible is important for those who can read it, but for the great majority of history most people could not read. If the Bible is just as essential as the Holy Spirit for understanding God and what we should be doing most people living throughout time are doomed from illiteracy.