The Bible contains many writings, yet is it but one book. It has many writers, yet it is all from one Author, the Almighty Spirit of God. The pure, white, spotless fleece hath throughout its connecting fibers; the fabric is divine in its origin, its unity, and its imperishable power and glory.

There are two ways to read the Bible. The first way to read it is as a series of stories, books, statements, and teachings that are fragmented and disjointed, that, though they have little relationship to one another, have been compiled into an errant and fallible collection. The other way is to read it as a consistent, connected, and consecutive work that tells one cohesive story. When we read it this way, we see that Genesis is as connected to Revelation as it is to Exodus, that the ending perfectly complements and completes the beginning. When we accept it like this, we understand it as it truly is.
I’d love for you to read this lovely piece of writing by Theodore Cuyler who explains how we ought to read God’s Word—how we ought to read the story of how God is at work in this world to save his people and bring glory to his name. Read it and be blessed!
Some people regard the Word of God as a mere miscellaneous collection of disjointed fragments. They could not make a greater mistake. The Bible is as thoroughly connected and consecutive a work as Bunyan’s “Pilgrim,” or Bancroft’s History. The whole composition hangs together like a fleece of wool.
It begins with the creation of the world; it ends with the winding-up of all earthly things and the opening scenes of the endless hereafter. The Old Testament is the majestic vestibule through which we enter the matchless Parthenon of the New. It is mainly the history of God’s covenant people. Through all this history of nearly forty centuries are interspersed the sublime conversations of Job, the pithy proverbs of Solomon, and the predictions of the Prophets. We hear, at their proper intervals, the timbrel of Miriam, the harp of the Psalmist, the plaintive viol of Jeremiah, and the sonorous trumpets of Isaiah and Habakkuk.
Through all the Old Testament there flows one warm and mighty current—like the warm river of the Gulfstream through the Atlantic—setting towards Jesus Christ. In Genesis he appears as the seed of the woman that should bruise the serpent’s head; the smoke of Abel’s altar points towards him; the blood that stains the Jewish lintels on the night of the Exodus is but a type of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world; Moses and the prophets testify of Jesus. Just as the rich musical blast of an Alpine horn on the Wengern is echoed back from the peaks of the Jungfrau, so every verse of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is echoed in the New Testament of Immanuel.
Read More
Related Posts:

The month of June has been usurped by the “father of lies,” (John 8: 44) who “deceives the whole world,” (Revelation 12: 9), and who disguises himself as “an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11: 14).  In other words, many churches and our nation have readily turned over an entire month to serious evil—serious, yet so deceptive that it is embraced by so many, even believers in Jesus Christ.

June, which some have designated as “Gay Pride Month,” is not the time for church leaders to be silent.  It’s the most appropriate, opportune, pertinent, and relevant time to address the heavy spiritual darkness hanging over the Church and our nation.
Pastors and elders, follow the model of the Apostles who addressed serious issues as they arose.  Remember the Jerusalem Council in Acts.  Remember the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans—especially chapter one, his letter to the Corinthians dealing with incest in the church, and Jude’s short epistle dealing with the sin and doom of ungodly people.
The month of June has been usurped by the “father of lies” (John 8: 44); who “deceives the whole world” (Revelation 12: 9), and who disguises himself as “an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11: 14).  In other words, many churches and our nation have readily turned over an entire month to serious evil—serious, yet so deceptive that it is embraced by so many, even believers in Jesus Christ.
Pastors and elders, this is not the time to ignore such evil, to be cowardly in the face of such evil, or to be compromised by such evil.  Your flocks, your sheep desperately need your faithfulness to God’s Word in exposing evil for what it is. See Ephesians 5:11-12: 1:
“Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them; for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of” (ASV).
“Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.  For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret” (ESV).
“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.  It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret” (NIV).
The your sheep are inundated with deceptive messages deviously proclaiming sexual immorality and more as blessed, good, loving, righteous, wholesome and legal.  Your flocks contain some mature believers, but many new believers, many youth believers, many parents, and many children—all of whom are vulnerable to such strong messaging.  Sadly, many churches and Christians have not only accepted the message but have embraced and even practiced it.  The deception is so appealing, attractive, beguiling, captivating, enticing, seductive, and subtle.  These may be many words, but they powerfully define and describe Satan’s devices.
Growing up in a Presbyterian, Reformed Faith church, it wasn’t until later in life I realized that any Scripture relating to the sin of homosexuality was skipped over in sermons and Sunday school lessons.  We never learned there was such a sin being practiced. As a result, no young person was warned about the dangers or the temptations to these sexual sins and how to resist and renounce them.  In other words, we grew up naïve and ignorant—thus vulnerable.  Do you wish that for your young people and flock?
Pastors and elders, now is the time to address such a sinister sin.  Do it in love, but firmly.  Don’t soft-pedal it with jumping onto other sins such as greed, gossip, etc.  In the hierarchy of sins, this is a serious one because God commanded death to anyone guilty, and He used the harshest of adjectives and modifiers to describe how heinous and serious it is.  When preaching on the sins of greed, pride, adultery, concupiscence, one doesn’t veer off to other sins to soft-pedal those.  The Church is dealing today with what is termed the “Third Way.”  The emphasis is so much on love or ignoring some issues that truth is canceled out or dismissed.  When it comes to sin, whether immorality or other acts of unrighteousness, there is only “One Way,” and that is to proclaim what God said about them– to expose them, call for confession and repentance, and then forgive and restore the sinners.
It gives me no personal pleasure in focusing on or writing about this topic, but the force of the advocates for sin are so strong and taking prisoners—even deluding Christians—that it demands being addressed openly, cautiously, firmly, lovingly—but above all faithfully and truthfully.   Many lives are at stake, especially the lives of members of your flocks.  “Let God be true, and every man a liar” (Romans 3: 4) relative to this issue.  Don’t you wish to instruct and protect them?  If you genuinely love your sheep, you will sacrificially protect or rescue them as much as you would feed and nourish them.
Pastors and church leaders, now is the time to stand up and step up to the present challenge.  And while doing so, assure your flocks that believing God over Satan or the world does not make one “homophobic.” That has to be one of Satan’s shrewdest tricks.
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.
Related Posts:

James is writing about how true justifying faith leads to sanctification—to good works. He writes that a mere intellectual faith that does not lead to good works is dead (2:17). The question is then, what do good works do? Do they make us right with God? Or do they show that God has justified a person and is now sanctifying that person?

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. — James 2:24

It’s not uncommon to hear some people appeal to James 2:24 in order to argue that God saves people by faith plus works. In particular, some argue against the doctrine of justification by faith alone by appealing to this verse. They tend to pit Paul, who writes that we are justified by faith and not works, against James, who apparently writes that we are justified by faith plus works. This raises the question, who is right? What are we to believe? Are Paul and James actually at odds with each other? No, they are not.
What Are Paul and James Saying about Justification?
Simply put, although they are using the same verb, justification (in Greek it is also the same verb, dikaioō), they are using it differently. Paul is using it in its legal declarative sense, but James is using it in an evidential sense. They are complementing each other, not opposing each other.
Questions concerning Paul and James begin with Paul writing in Romans 3-5 about justification as a declarative act of God grounded in the work of Christ and received by faith. James, on the other hand, is writing about sanctification—the gracious work of God that necessarily follows from justification.
James’ primary concern is that a person who has been justified will have good works that demonstrate their faith. True saving faith—the instrument of justification (e.g., Rom. 5:1; Eph. 2:8)—necessarily leads to sanctification, and sanctification is evidence of saving faith versus merely a faith that believes in mere knowledge (see James 2:19).
Justification and Sanctification—Two Benefits of Salvation in Christ
In order to help understand how Paul and James complement one another, there are two important terms to define: justification and sanctification.The Westminster Shorter Catechism provides good and concise definitions of each one.
According to Question 33, “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.”
Question 35 defines sanctification as “the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.”
Notice that the actor in both is God, and both are of free grace (e.g., not our works, but grace—a gift of God). The difference, however, is that justification is God’s “act” and sanctification is God’s “work.” The word act means a single event at a distinct point in time. In the case of justification, it is a single declarative act by God.
Read More
Related Posts: