Scripture alone is sufficient for our salvation, but we also know and practice that the written Scriptures alone are sufficient for our daily lives and practices as well…Advice given by worldly-wisemen may sound convincing, but if they are not found in the written word “expressly set down or necessarily contained” (explicitly or deduced from Scripture), it is to be rejected. 

In the perennial classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian comes across a man named, “Mr. Worldly-Wiseman.” Mr. Worldly-Wiseman lived in a town called “Carnal Policy,” otherwise known as Ways of the World, and it was a close neighbor of the City of Destruction (where Christian was originally from). Mr. Worldly-Wiseman was a perceptive man and recognized that Christian was in need of some help on his difficult journey. So Mr. Worldly-Wiseman asked Christian, “If I give you counsel will you take my advice?” Christian responded, “If it is good counsel, I will.” This was a great attitude for Christian to display, as he should be discerning of any advice given to him.
However, Mr. Worldly-Wiseman did not have good advice. He told Christian that his way was burdensome because of the book he read. Mr. Worldly-Wiseman reviled Christian’s book and told him another to be rid of the burden on his back. Mr. Worldly-Wiseman’s suggestion was to go to a man named Legality who lived in a village called Morality. If you’ve read the story, you know that Christian never arrives because this hill was too vast. It was also not the way that the book in his hand instructed him to go. Christian learned the hard way by not trusting what was not written in the book.
Why the Hair-Splitting?
What does the question, “Is God’s Word only found in the written Bible?” even mean?  Is the Bible truly authoritative for life? Why ask these kinds of questions to people in the pews? I do find it necessary to bring this truth to the pew, for there are many problems within Christianity. Specifically, certain denominations and Christian universities openly deny that the written word of Scripture is God’s final word of authority.
This is important for it has tremendous pastoral implications. Outside of Christianity, we see many religions that reject a written document and prefer passing down faith through other means. Some of these methods involve narratives, legends, rituals, etc. Christianity, on the other hand, is different as it is a word-based religion. Christianity also has a God who covenants with His people through His written word. We see this in Exodus 24:4, 7, “And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel… Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” We also see this in Exodus 34:27, where God commands Moses to write so that He can covenant with His people, “And the LORD said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” Thus is also true in Isaiah when he says, “To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn” Isaiah 8:20. So while many people take away from God’s word (some take it away entirely), do people actually add to God’s word?
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In contrast to natural man, converted people, said Augustine, are able not to sin. Why? God repairs our will. He doesn’t violate our desires. Rather, he “infuses new qualities into the will, making the dead will alive, the evil will good…; he activates and strengthens the will” so that we can desire and live well.[i] In due time God frees the elect from their “natural bondage under sin.” “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). Still, a war rages in the believer’s inner life. Sometimes we don’t even understand what we do (Rom. 7:15). We don’t will wholeheartedly.

It’s a common objection to the doctrine of particular redeeming grace: What about free will? With a free will can’t we desire God, and decide to follow him on our own initiative? But that argument begs the question; what needs to be proven is merely assumed. We need to know what Scripture teaches about the human will.
Our will is what we desire or determine to do, our inclinations. If in some way our wills are impaired—or as Luther put it, if our wills are in bondage—we are dependent on God “both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Following Saint Augustine we can speak of human nature in its four-fold state. Nuancing humanity’s condition as created, fallen, redeemed, and glorified will help us more accurately understand free will and its implications.
Man’s Will in a State of Innocence (9.1–2)
God created our wills upright and free (Eccl. 7:29). Before sin entered the world the human will was neither “forced, nor … determined to do good or evil.” And this is always true—the freedom to will is fundamental to humanity. But our ability to express that freedom can change. Free will means that no outside force wills for us. We always have the freedom to want what we want even if we lack the freedom to do what we want.
As Augustine put it, in the state of innocence man was both truly able to sin and able not to sin. God genuinely warned our first parents not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17). And they could have obeyed. They could have chosen life. But because they were free people God didn’t force them to serve him. Nor did he force them to sin.
The assertion that humans have a free will today is true to a point. The first sin was a free choice. So is every subsequent sin. But after the first sin the human will—through our own choice—has become inclined to sin. Our wills are still free in the sense that no one is pulling the strings of our desires. Even when circumstances affect our choices, our wills—our authentic wants—are still our own. But no longer are we who will in the state of innocence. Our state of being has changed. So we now freely will differently.
Man’s Will in a State of Sin (9.3)
The fall radically tainted every part of us including our desires. Apart from God’s restoring grace we are dead in sin (Eph. 2:1); we have lost the vitality of true desires. “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7–8; cf. Heb. 11:6). Ordinary sinners constantly twist God’s blessed design for our lives (Gen. 6:5).
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Whenever the nature of male and female are attacked or redefined, as pride month and gender ideology do, every Christian must fully appreciate that it is the very image and likeness of God Himself that is being attacked. Pride month and gender ideology attack the image of God. This is no small thing and something no Christian can pretend does not matter, much less support

We are now constantly reminded that June is so-called “pride month” and everyone is expected to take note, happily get on the bandwagon and celebrate accordingly. But how can pride month be starting when last year’s pride month never really ended? LGBT pride has now gone yearlong, literally 365. The ideology is constantly being forced upon us and our children at regular turns. Who doesn’t feel just like this anymore?
Regardless, it must be declared that there is no pride whatsoever in redefining and denying reality. This is precisely what the gender ideology behind pride month and every presentation of its flag does.
Here is the unavoidable truth: Humanity, across the great diversity of human culture and time, exists as male and female. Those are the only two options. Whenever or wherever you met a person, that person is either male or female, and they were born as such. This is certainly not just a traditional, conservative or Christian ideal. It is a universal truth, an objective biological fact.
It was not long ago that leading progressive French feminist philosopher Sylvaine Agacinski wrote assertively and unapologetically in her book The Parity of the Sexes,
One is born a girl or boy, one becomes woman or man.
The human species is divided in two, and, like most other species, in two only. This division, which includes all human beings without exception, is thus a dichotomy. In other words, every individual who is not man is woman. There is no third possibility. … Humankind does not exist outside this double form, masculine and feminine.
This is so obvious it hardly needs saying. And it certainly was not controversial when she wrote these words to her very progressive audience not that long ago.
But pride month and allyship with LGBT ideology demands we all reject this fundamental human truth, something no reasonable person can do.
In fact, they declare this common-sense, basic biological fact not only wrong, but one of the greatest evils of our times: It is transphobic and threatens the very lives of young people. Of course, neither accusation is true. Both accusations are meant to bully us into submission, and they have been quite effective.
“Non-binary” is not a thing. There is no third, fifth, twelfth, or seventieth gender. A woman cannot become a man or vice versa. No one is born in the wrong body. God does not make mistakes. The family and the future of humanity are founded upon male and female. Pride month and the ideology behind it categorically reject all of this.
Everyone who virtue signals their support for pride and the never-ending evolution into oblivion of the pride flag is indicating their opposition to basic human reality.
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