Sufficiency of Scripture

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The Sufficiency of Scripture as the Church’s Biggest Problem

People don't have a high enough view of God, and they have too high of a view of man. And I think those who really have a right view of God will honor God as well as his word, recognizing that that's how we grow, that's how we live.

Jesus said to Satan himself, right, man shall not live on bread alone, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Jesus Christ, when he said that to Satan, that was the ultimate example for us.

Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church,.

Go to strivingforeternity .org. Well, welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, joined by, well, this isn't just The Rap Report. So I'm normally joined by Bud, and Bud is here also representing this time his own podcast.

So, Bud, before we introduce all the other voices, why don't you introduce yourself and your podcast, because there's some people who are on neither of our podcasts that may not know you. Thank you, Andrew, for this.

Opportunity. I am Bud. I am the host of The Bud's Own podcast, and I'm also co-host of Truth For You.

With my pastor, Dr. Andrew Smith. And we're kind of crashing from The Rap Report podcast. I should actually introduce myself then, too, right? I'm Andrew Rappaport, the executive director of Striving for Eternity and the Christian podcast community, and all the podcasts represented here are on the Christian podcast community, but we're crashing Truth Be Known.

So, for my audience and Bud, your audience, Nathaniel and Eki, could you introduce yourselves, your podcast, to our audience?

Yeah. So, thanks, Andrew, for having us on. Eki and I do the Truth Be Known podcast. It's a podcast where we deal with theological topics every week, and or sometimes we'll deal with hot topics as well.

We're not too shy about those things. And I'm Eki Tepspornshai. I work with Nathaniel. Nathaniel does all the planning of topics. He does all the recording and editing, all the work. I just show up and run my mouth.

Eki, how much time do you have to prepare for these episodes? I mean, when do you know about the topic? Sometimes when I dial into the Zoom call, he'll tell me ahead of time, hey, I thought we talked about this.

Okay. And we'll hit record and just go. I feel your pain. I feel your pain. When I'm organized, we have the topic sometimes week in advance, weeks in advance. But I think that's only happened a few times in like a year or.

So. What has the show notes a year in advance right now? I mean, we're going through a series of what we believe the doctrinal statement is striving for eternity. We're basically doing a systematic theology.

It's going to take us a year to get through. He shouldn't complain. He's.

Got the show notes. Yeah, I do have to say right now, it's pretty easy. It's not Saturday night or a Friday night. Hey, we're going to record at eight in the morning. And here's what I want to talk about.

And I've got a scramble. I'm somewhat lucid about it, but nevertheless.

So we decided we'd get together, each of us having podcasts and just kind of get to know each other's audience and record together and be able to share the brilliance of Eckie and Nathaniel. Bud, would you agree that's what this is going to be?

Absolutely, yes. Just figured I'd check. So we talked about different topics. And so I said, let's deal with what I think, and you guys didn't disagree with the topic. So I'm assuming you agree with me of the two most problematic things in the church.

And I've listened to your podcast enough that I kind of thought you'd agree. So we want to cover today is two issues that are problematic in the church, the sufficiency of scripture and hermeneutics. And so they kind of go closely together.

We have no show notes here. So Eckie could feel like this is a regular show for him.

Oh, yeah, we never have show notes.

So, yeah, so I guess you're better warned this time, Eckie, because you at least knew the topics like weeks in advance. So let me throw this out for each of us. You know, I'm saying, I'm being kind of bold, I guess, in saying that I think that the sufficiency of scripture is the biggest problem we have in the church.

I actually am doing a Twitter poll just to see, you know, I gave four things that I think are the biggest problem in the church today. And the number one that I put for the poll was scripture not sufficient.

The second, social justice. Third, word of faith. Fourth, new apostolic reformation. And I've been interested, I mean, granted, as of right now, I just took a look, it's like 80 are agreeing with me that the sufficiency of scripture is the number one problem.

And what I think interesting with that is people who, in my opinion, who look at social justice, word of faith, new apostolic reformation, the problem with all of those three that I have is that the lack of sufficiency of scripture.

And the problem with all three of those is they want to add to scripture because scripture is not enough. Do you guys agree? I'll just toss it out. I guess I'll start with, Eckie nodded his head, so I'm going to start with Eckie.

What do you think? I mean, is this the major problem in church? You think there's something greater than this? And if this is a problem, why do you think.

It's such a problem? Well, yeah, I saw that poll as well. And I voted for sufficiency of scripture for the exact reason that you just said. I looked at the other issues, all of them significant issues, but all of them at their root is a lack of sufficiency of scripture.

The social justice movement adds their own theology. They do twist and distort what's there as well. The new apostolic reformation claims that there are apostles for today who have their own revelation from God.

What was the third one that you had mentioned? The word of faith and new apostolic reformation.

Yeah, very, very similar. Yeah. So all of it, all of it very similar. And it's invading the church. And this is how Satan gets into the church and starts to convince people who call themselves Christians that the Bible itself is not enough.

And you need to have some additional knowledge. And really it gets to the point where it's not just that the Bible is not enough, but that these outside ideas that are being brought in, get brought to the level of scripture and sometimes even beyond to the point where you listen to people from each of these other movements, and you'll hear a lot more of their own ideas, which by the way, often coincides with the world's ideas.

You'll hear a lot more of that than you will hear actual citations of scripture. And when you do hear citations of scripture, it's often taken out of context. And that's going to lead to the topic that we'll talk about later, hermeneutics.

Yeah. I mean, I think they are tied.

Together. I think they're closely knit together, but I know that, Nathaniel, your favorite thing to hear, right, is when someone comes to you and says, God has said to me, or God has spoken,.

Right? You love hearing that, don't you? Yeah, absolutely. And then right after they open their Bible and read a passage. That would be the biblical way for God to speak.

Yeah. Why do you think that this is such a danger in the church? I mean, that's a really simple.

Question, right? Why would it be a danger in a Christian church when you do things that aren't Christian? And opening up your Bible and highlighting passages with a black magic marker is not the Christian thing to do.

So if you're adding to the text, you're taking away from the mean, you know, basically, it's a self-judgment against God. I mean, you're effectively saying, God, I don't like what you wrote, and so I'm going to add my own spin against it.

You know, I want to be a million miles away from that kind of thing. Bud, your thoughts? I agree with both comments here, and I think the issue of sufficiency is born out of a lot of the trajectory that we've seen over the last number of decades with regards to church growth.

We've accommodated culture. We have sought to appease the masses to bring them in. Well, that necessitates the need to compromise the gospel. My big thing is we've jettisoned any notion of the law of God.

So you've kind of got a twisted gospel there that's really aberrant. This speaks to a lack of faith in the Word of God. Sufficiency means we have faith that it is sufficient. I mean, Peter's told us that.

Now, we're warned by, you know, Paul and Colossians about philosophy and empty deceit. This is where the church is now. It is consumed with a sort of worldly thinking, and it doesn't know that we have a book that actually provides everything we need.

So I agree with what these gentlemen have said. Yeah, and let me add to that when we talk about sufficiency, because every time there's always one or two people that get the definition of sufficiency wrong, or at least it's inconsistent with what I'm saying.

When we say sufficiency, we're not saying that every aspect of our lives, the answer is in Scripture. But what I do say is that it is sufficient for everything that it addresses. It is sufficient for the means to salvation.

It is sufficient for our sanctification. It doesn't mean that when you're sick, you don't go see a doctor. If you're sick, go see a doctor. If you need medication, take some medication. You have a bad back, go see a chiropractor.

Those are things that Scripture does not claim authority over. We have access to people who can do that. We can use our own judgment on that. But when it comes to things that are actually addressed by Scripture,.

Scripture is the gold standard. I always say, I have it in my book, What Do We Believe?, I say that Scripture is the standard for faith and practice. It is the objective and absolute standard. There is nothing else we have to rely on.

And what boggles my mind is when people sit there and say, well, I need more. Wait, wait, stop. You have the Word of God, the creator of the universe, who just with his voice, with a word, could create out of nothing this entire universe.

And you go, it's not enough for me. I need more. Have you fully understood everything that the Word of God has to say? No? Then there's no need for anything else. Why do we think that we need the words, the ideas, the thoughts of men compared to the Word of God?

I mean, just put that comparison, right? We have this comparison. You have God's Word and man's Word. And I somehow think I need man's Word to compliment God's Word because God's Word is not enough. This is where I.

Feel like R .C. Sproul saying, what's wrong with you people? People don't have a high enough view of God and they have too high of a view of man, right? So some of this is the depravity of man and understanding the holiness of God.

And I think those who really have a right view of God, or at a more right view of God, will honor God as well as His Word, recognizing that that's how we grow, that's how we live. Jesus said to Satan himself, right?

Man shall not live on bread alone, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And he was quoting Deuteronomy 8, verse 3, I want to say. But Jesus Christ, when he said that to Satan, that was the ultimate example for us.

See, we're not God in human flesh, but we do have access to the Word of God. And we can use the Word not only to be able to stand against temptations of the evil one, but also to just grow and to live and to spiritually become more like Christ.

Anyone else want to jump in? Yeah, you know, I'm thinking about this, and I'm thinking of recent surveys, and there's a lot of statistics out there. I mean, one of the primary issues, or the reasons, rather, we're having this issue is that people just don't know their Bible, right?

You can look at the stats of how much time Christians spend in their Bible, and some of them are less than 10 of believers spend any time regularly in their Bible. So it really should be no surprise that we're fighting the battle of the sufficiency of Scripture, because people just don't know what's in Scripture, right?

And I would give a little pushback when we talk about people who we say sufficiency, and they say, well, what about cancer? We get those. I think almost all of those are disingenuous, because no one believes that we're talking about—the church has never talked about the fact that you should—oh, let me take that back, because you mentioned the NAR, and they do go to those kind of places, but in the healthy parts of the church, we know that you aren't talking about if you need to change your tire, go to the Word of God, right?

And so I think those are disingenuous things, but a lot of that, I think, stems from the fact that they just don't know what's in the Bible. So if you have cancer, yeah, you need to go to a doctor if you want to get cancer treatment, but here's the reality.

Scripture still actually speaks to that issue, because there's more that a person deals with than just the physical ailment. For instance, how do you respond to people around you in the midst of dealing with the physical ailment?

How are you viewing your life because you have this cancer, right? Are you angry at God? Are you angry at your relatives? Are you depressed? How do you view your situation in light of God's truth? And so even with those things, though the Bible doesn't speak to the medical treatment, it certainly does speak to how we deal with those issues, but people just don't know their Bible.

And so I think when I talk about the sufficiency, when people fight that, my mind instantly goes to, well, I wonder how much time you actually spend in the Word at all, right? Does your Bible have so much dust you can write a message on the front cover, and then you're going to tell me that it's not sufficient?

Well, of course you are, because you don't know what's on there. And so I think we want to encourage people to get in the Word and get in the Bible. And then, of course, another thing is we have people that aren't really interested in Christianity.

We have tares mixed in with the wheat, and we've got those folks too, right? I guess, do we still call those worldly Christians, secular Christians? I don't. I just call them secular, worldly. And so we've got to filter through all that too.

But I think our generation and in the foreseeable future, the sufficiency is the battle, because everything you mentioned at the beginning ultimately stems from that. It's the reason a big part of the church believes in this chasing after signs, wonders, and miracles, because they don't believe the Bible's enough.

And so they need some emotional, hyped up experience. The church is pushing for racial reconciliation, because they don't believe that we're truly reconciled at the cross with one another, first to God, and then with one another.

I mean, all these feminism, right? Feminism is a problem in the church, because we don't believe in God's good design, which we're told in Scripture. So everything comes back to that.

Yeah, you know, something you said, Nathaniel, that I always ask when I'm evangelizing, because especially down South, where everybody's a Christian, right? You go and share the gospel. Oh, I'm a Christian.

Yeah. You know, you're drunk. You got two beers in your hand. You can't stand straight, but you're okay. But I always ask this question. I say, okay, let me just ask you a question. How many times a month have you cracked open your Bible?

I mean, not counting when you're at church, if you're at church. The most common answer I get is three or four times out of a month. And so I'll ask them, I'll be like, okay, let me ask you a question.

You get married, you go on your honeymoon, and you get back from your honeymoon, and your spouse says to you, hey, you know, had a great time. It was beautiful. Really felt emotional about all that, but I'm going to go back to my place.

I'll give you a call three or four times a month. And one lady's like, I would kill the guy. I was like, why? Because I have no relationship with him. And then like with this one woman, soon as those words came out of her mouth, she realized exactly why I was asking the question.

And she stopped and stared at me. And I went, so what's that relationship you say you have with Christ? Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you're not praying to him, talking to him, if you're not hearing from him, reading the Bible, what kind of relationship would you have?

I mean, all of us are married. We've spent time getting to know our wives. Some people, as soon as they put that ring on, they stop that study. Don't do that. Continue. But I still am trying to learn everything I can about my wife.

Why? Because I love her. How much more do I want to learn everything about my savior who did far more for me than my wife could ever do? And then I'm going to go, oh no, I have to actually hear, I have to get a feeling from God or have a voice or a dream or something like that, because then it's going to count.

Yeah. The issue truly is, Nathaniel has nailed it, if you are inactive in the word, the word will be more than insufficient for you. You have to know what the Lord has said. That's an indictment on the modern church.

It's also an indictment on the typical evangelical pulpit, because we're going to flash a verse up on the screen behind us, and then we're just going to launch off into whatever we want to talk about.

And that's more the norm than the exception. If the scripture in the pulpit is not a priority, why should we expect that it's going to be a priority in the pews? And I mean, that's my experience. That's my observation.

But yeah, if you're not engaged with the word, it's completely insufficient for you because you're not using it. Yeah. And I think there are a lot of cultural influences here. I mean, when we think about, well, first of all, I just think about the evangelical movement, which I think has made the big mistake of just emphasizing the personal relationship we have with Christ at the expense of being a part of a healthy church, right?

And then on top of that, we have like the seeker-sensitive movement, where we have people more and more trying to appeal to the world. And I didn't get a chance to watch that documentary on Hillsong Church, but I remember seeing a little snippet of that or some sort of interview.

And it was with Brian Houston talking to Stephen Furtick, and he was explaining the kind of the philosophy of ministry that went into Hillsong. And he said that he was a businessman, and he imagined to himself, what would make me want to go to church as a businessman?

And so he had this vision of what kind of church service he would want to be at, and that's what he made Hillsong into being. So in other words, he turned the church into something that would appeal to the world.

And even the worship music, they make worship music that sounds contemporary, that brings people into kind of a certain state of mind. So it's very worldly, it's trying to draw people in, and it's really allowed people to be satisfied with shallow platitudes of what we see in Scripture, rather than diving deep into what the Word really says.

And it really goes back to what Paul had warned Timothy, that there's going to come a time where people are going to seek after teachers to tickle their own ears. And that's what we're dealing with. I think the vast majority of the evangelical churches in America, those pulpits and the preachers behind the pulpits are more interested in trying to make the people feel good about themselves than they are about opening up the Word of God and saying, this is what the Word says.

And so it's a conviction that has to come from the Word. It's also a trust that the Word has something to say. And it's also just a devotion to holiness, that we are not the world. It's like what Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, that when someone walks into your church, they should be able to see that there's a difference between your church and the rest of the world.

If your church looks like the world, they're going to walk in and they're going to ask, well, this looks no different than the world. This must not have anything different to offer. So we have to be holy and different, even if the world doesn't like it, but they will respect it,.

Even if they don't say so. That is so right on. And people may not know, I remember John Ankerberg explained that the way they, the Willow Creek, which is the model that everyone wanted to copy for the church growth movement, because look at how they grew.

And he was actually praising the fact that what they did was go to the neighborhoods and they did a survey. What do you not like about church? What do you like about church? And they created a church for unbelievers.

They created a model that would be appeasing to the unbeliever. And then they were like, see, look how many people we have here. We have so many people, this must be a good thing. But the numbers don't show that.

I mean, how many people do we see in the Old Testament? You know, Elisha, okay. Hey, there's, you know, it wasn't the majority. It wasn't all these numbers. People, I think, make the mistake of thinking that the numbers prove God's blessing.

And that's not true. It's actually kind of the opposite of what God says. We end up seeing those that they went out and tried to create church to appease unbelievers, the goats, and they wanted the goats to come in.

And it's interesting because if you look at the history of that church, the scripture wasn't enough. So they're going to do drama. They're going to make it entertaining. And on Wednesday night, they'll have the deep session where people learn the Bible.

And they realized no one's coming to Wednesday and no one on Sunday is growing because they're goats. And they're too busy trying to feed goats instead of tending to sheep. And I think that's really what we end up seeing.

And all of the American church was like, oh, we got to mimic this, mimic this. And when that failed, they're like, okay, what else can we do to get people in the pews? Because that's what it becomes all about.

And I think when you bring up the pulpit, that's the big issue is pastors and several of us here are pastors. But when we're preaching every week, what's the goal? Is it so that we can get a big audience, that we can get new people in the church?

Or is it that the people that are in the church are understanding the word of God and growing? Paul Shirley has a book that he has out on sanctifying preaching, basically saying how expositional preaching done properly brings a sanctifying work to the person in the pew.

And that's the goal. The goal is not having a big church. The goal is the people in the pew are understanding the word of God so that they can live their life. And I think that the big problem is many churches have missed that.

Expository Preaching, Apostles and Prophets, and Feeding the Sheep

Yeah, absolutely. I think of Ephesians 4 .11, when Paul talks about how Jesus Christ gave to the church, apostles and prophets. And we were actually just talking about this a little bit before we hit the record button.

But I don't think any of us here believe that there are active apostles and prophets for today. Even if you want to argue that God could bring back prophets, I don't believe any of the prophets I've seen fit the biblical model.

But I remember when I went through that passage, I stopped on those two words to try to explain to my church, what was an apostle, what was a prophet, and why I don't believe any of what we see today fits that same model.

Well, at the same time, we've had a number of people, at least some people within the church that maybe were not as used to expositional preaching. And they thought, well, my preaching style feels more like a Bible study rather than an actual sermon.

And when I hit on that message, teaching about prophets and apostles, I even said to the church, I said, look, I know some of you think that my preaching is more like a Bible study, and you prefer more preaching.

But the question is, are you learning this in your Bible study? And if you're not learning this in your Bible study, where are you going to learn it? And I remember the moment I said that, I could see a number of people in the congregation actually wince, like I got them, right?

But they appreciated it. And I think at that point, a number of them understood why I'm doing what I'm doing. And you're absolutely right. I mean, people don't want to learn the word of God. And you see that reflected in the that they only come on Sunday mornings, if they come at all.

And they're not in Sunday school, they're not in the evening service, they're not in any kind of midweek service, they're not plugged into a Bible study. Or if they do any of those things, they do those things so sporadically that it's of limited benefit.

So we as pastors, when we're behind the pulpit, we have to recognize that for whatever the reason, we're going to have the biggest audience at that time on Sunday service. And so the time to make sure that you get the most important truths to them is right there on Sunday morning service.

We still have an evening service, we still have Sunday school, all those things are important to help solidify the faith. But I need to make sure that the entire church, if they're at no other place aside from the Sunday morning service, that they're hearing the truth of God.

Amen. You are preaching for the outcome, not the income. That's right. Great way of putting it. I like that. Yeah. You know, I think that, you know, the fact that we're having this conversation about what churches do and don't do takes us back to kind of anecdotal evidence that sufficiency is the problem.

And I say that because clearly there are a lot of men behind pulpits who actually have no clue what the Bible says about church. We don't even know ecclesiology, and we saw that in a big way, right, during all the COVID stuff.

But even that in itself is proof that sufficiency is an issue. Now, I'm thinking of 1 Peter 5, where it says, "...shepherd the flock of God among you, exercise oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily according to the will of God.".

Shepherd the flock of God among you, not shepherd the unbelievers that you can attract to you. And I think we see a lot of that in, just as you say, guys who, you know, they started church by thinking, well, you know, if I was going to go to a secular concert, what would I like?

Oh, let's do that in the church. Well, that's not the purpose and function of the church. You know, the church isn't for unbelievers. And if you say that publicly, I mean, you will get people who will fight you tooth and nail.

Well, what about evangelism? Yes, we're supposed to do evangelism. I mean, Andrew, you're an evangelist. We're supposed to do evangelism, but that is not what the church is for. The pastor's role is to equip the saints for the work of their ministry.

So then they go out and do the evangelistic stuff. And so the fact that we don't know this, right, just demonstrates that sufficiency is such a huge problem. And, you know, of course, when you break down, I don't think we're losing that battle, right?

The church is not going to lose any of these battles in the crisis already won, but we certainly do have to fight them. And I think in every generation has their own battles. You know, you go back to the Chicago statement and the battle for inerrancy and all of that.

And I think for the most part, that's still one, although I would argue that we're seeing that degraded too, because it just kind of goes with sufficiency. You have to come up with reasons why the Bible is not sufficient.

And one of the things that I'm seeing more of is, well, it's not sufficient because it's not wholly accurate. Well, what do you mean it's not wholly accurate? Well, Paul, that Paul guy, he wrote a lot of stuff that was just his own opinion.

He didn't really mean women can't be pastors. That was just Paul's own opinion, right? And so, well, if you're going to eliminate Paul, you're eliminating half minus one book of.

The New Testament. Yeah. What kind of Christianity do you have left? Don Green said it well at the Truth Matters conference, the real issue. He was encouraging the pastors. He said, pastors,.

We must feed the sheep, not pet the goats. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where we got to get away from the seeker sensitive because we, you know, and here's the thing. Yeah. Do the work of the evangelist and there's preachers and there are evangelists.

And at the same time, I know that every message that I give, they're going to hear the gospel, but that's going to be towards the end just to support the idea that the entire book points to points to Christ.

So everyone's going to hear the gospel, but that's not the primary purpose of the sermon. It's to feed the sheep, which is the people who have already been saved through that gospel message. And, you know, let me just throw in some practical results of that, right?

When I saw my pragmatism, but if a pastor focuses on equipping the saints, equipping the believers on Sunday morning, then guess what? You're naturally going to see the effects of that, right? As your people mature, as they grow, you're going to see people who want to go out and evangelize.

You're going to see people's gifts come to light and begin to flourish. I mean, just look at, you know, I always think of John MacArthur's church. Look how many ministries they have. I mean,.

They have ministries. It'd be easier to count how many ministries they don't have.

Right. And, and, and, you know, here's the thing. What, why do they have so many ministries? Well, it's not because John MacArthur is some, you know, super, I was almost said super apostle. He's clearly not that, but, but it's not that he's some super pastor.

Pope. Was that what you were going to say? Yeah. He's, you know, what, why do they have so many? Because John MacArthur has taken the sufficiency of scripture seriously, and he's focused on equipping the saints and they regularly have people that come to the elders and Eckie, you know, you went to church or you can validate this who regularly come and say, you know what I feel called really just God's put on my heart to do this feeding ministry.

God's put on my heart to do this evangelistic ministry in this particular community. And they say, great, you've been equipped. We're here. If you need anything, go and do it. And they have all these ministries that bloom from that.

Yeah. It's, it's kind of that trellis in the vine approach. The body of Christ going to have, you're going to have all kinds of different gifts, all kinds of different impulses and desires that the Holy Spirit is putting into their heart.

And as long as it's consistent with the scripture, that's really how healthy church ministries start. They don't even need fog machines. No, no fog machines.

Yeah. I mean, you just, because the fog machines just bring up a whole nother issue of church music and which, which reveals again, why we don't think scripture is sufficient, right? I mean, it's, we need to have something to heighten an emotional experience.

Why? So that the word of God, the word of God is not enough to give us an emotional high. When we think about, we were wretched sinners, enemies of God. He came to earth to die on a cross that we could have eternal life.

That is not enough to get our emotional high. If it's not, then either you're not saved or there's something wrong. Like if you could think about the verse second Corinthians 5 21, he who knew no sin became sin that you may become the righteousness of God.

If that does not get you excited again, either you're not a Christian or there's something wrong with you. I don't need a smoke machine. I don't need music. I don't need some emotionalism. The word of God should be sufficient to get me to be like in awe of who God is.

I think another possibility to that is that a Christian has only received shallow teaching. So they don't realize that there are depths to scripture that really should get your heart aflame over what the marvelous truth that we have in the word of God.

I mean, this is as pastors and people who study the word of God, you guys know this, we can look at a passage a hundred times. And then on a hundred first time, we see something that we didn't see before, or we make a connection that we hadn't made before.

And it's all right there in scripture. It's nothing that's outside of scripture. I say this often about the charismatic and Pentecostal movement. They spend a lot of time seeking all these emotions and experiences because they have never tasted the power of the word of God itself.

They have never tasted just how deep and how just marvelous. I mean, it is amazing how you can go through passages. And sometimes I just have to step back and take a breath because I cannot even believe that this level of wisdom can be found in a written piece of work.