(This post was originally a private letter to a friend. It has been modified for this post.)

Especially in times like ours, with all the serious concern over life and quality of life, I want to thank you for taking the time to visit our live online IABC session on Sunday night.  I don’t know this, but I can imagine (or hallucinate!) that this class might have raised some questions for you here or there. (Maybe not.) If you have any questions or comments about it (any uneasiness of any kind), I’d like to think you would approach me personally about that.  I want to hear what you have to say.

Because you are not only a church servant-leader [by this I mean any kind of leader in a church!], but a personal friend, one comment that I would like to raise out of the blue is this:  As I have been attending church worship gatherings all of my life, I have often heard  statements similar to the one you made last Sunday:  "I have been led by the Spirit today to say what I'm saying."  Or something along this line.

I rejoice in such declarations.  I accept them as arising from faith and trust. I am personally gratified and encouraged to know of the interest in and reliance upon the Spirit of God in our servant-leaders when they are willing to say so.

During my short lifetime, I have heard many people on many occasions make a distinction between (1) being led by the Spirit and (2) the deep study of the Bible. It is certainly and unfortunately the case that with some, any kind of deep study is suspect. To anyone reading this, you must not think that I am making any kind of blanket accusation.  Rather, I’m speaking openly with you as friend to friend.  In my own life, I have been led by the Spirit of God to see that the Spirit of God will never lead anyone away from the Word of God--his message, his proclamation, his call to daily walk. 

. . . the Spirit of God will never lead anyone away from the Word of God!

Deep study of the Bible is a ministry of the Spirit to be enthusiastically embraced, especially by church servant-leaders. Certainly, devotional approaches to the Bible are needed. They are important acts of faith. We must encourage that in ourselves and among all our people.

But we must go beyond that—not because I say so, but because our scriptures say so. As servant-leaders of God’s people, we must also bring front and center the words found in our marvelous NT treatise:  Hebrews.  We must not fall into the trap of getting stuck in a loop of elementary things---like repentance, and faith, and good works, and teachings about baptism, resurrection, eternal judgment, and other such important things.  It is essential that especially leaders of God’s people go deeper:  they must allow themselves to be impressed by the extreme depth of writers like Paul, and James, and John, and all. These men were schooled in the details of texts that were very old  texts even to them---texts which they were reading and bringing to bear on the everyday lives of the people they knew.

Early church leaders became scribes trained for the rule of God in the world!

In the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, early church leaders became scribes trained for the rule of God in the world (yes, that is the Kingdom of Heaven! For as Jesus also says in that same Gospel:  "May your Name be hallowed; May your Rule arrive;  May your Will be done--as in heaven, so on earth."  The rule of God in the world).

Unfortunately, words like I have just written can be misread (misunderstood, misapplied--twisted) as clandestine attacks or accusations or slaps against others. 

But what if  the words I have just written are words of the Spirit of God crying out for a hearing?

A friend in Christ as LORD,

Gary