Reads

The Word of God

moremarsh1 Comment

Take a deep breath in, and now out. One more time. Slowly. As you do this, you feel breath leaving your body. You can feel this as you speak too by holding you hand in front of your mouth, and feeling the breath of each word as you speak.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (ESV)

This verse has a key phrase in it that you may have already picked up on. It says that “ALL scripture is breathed out by God.” This means that the Bible is the very word of God. The Bible is not like any other book in the world and it will never compare to any other book. That’s not because it’s the most widely known book across generations and centuries, or the book translated into the most languages. The Bible is and always will be different than any other book because it is the very word of God.

The opening pages of the Bible begin with God speaking everything into existence. God says, “Let there be light…let there be land…let there be mountains…let there be frogs…etc.” Everything that exists has been spoken into creation by God Himself. His words hold power, the power to create and give life. The words spoken by God are different than the words we speak because of the power they hold.

So when we read 2 Timothy 3:16-17, we see that the Bible (all of Scripture) is breathed out by God. In other words, it is spoken by God, it is His very breath. Therefore, the Bible holds power. And thankfully, these words have been translated into a language we can understand so as we read the Bible, we find out that these words hold the power of life.

That life is found only in Jesus.

So today, I encourage you to pick up your Bible and read. Spend time in the very words of God. Recognize that He loved us so much that He gave us His very words to know and live by. He is a good God!

A Few Reads From 2019

moremarshLeave a comment

To start out my “Reads” page, I want to note a few of my favorite books from 2019.

In 2019 I read a lot. Let me clarify. In the last 6 months of 2019 I read A LOT! I took two church history classes and began a class at my church. Each of these classes required a few hundred pages of reading a week. So when I say a lot, I mean, a lot.

Through these reads I learned that I love church history and I can read more in general. It’s worth spending time immersed in a book and I hope to continue to read more in 2020…and increase the variety of reading types too.

One of my favorite reads from 2019 was “The Care of Souls” by Harold Senkbeil. This book is all about pastoral ministry and what it means to be a pastor who cares for the souls of others. My favorite concept of this book was the idea of being a sheepdog. This analogy worked for me because we had a sheltie growing up. Sheepdogs are herders. They circle sheep (or people in the case of my pet) and direct them in the way they want them to go. If they have a good owner who trains them, they direct them in the way their owner wants them to go. In the same way, as ministers of the gospel, we are sheepdogs in relation to the Good Shepherd. We cannot truly save anyone or give them life, but we can direct them towards the one who can!

Sheepdogs also have a unique personality in that they do things that please their owner or shepherd. Dogs in general are extremely joyful creatures which is why people love dogs so much! The thing they always seem to be after is bringing joy and delight to their owner. So as a sheepdog in relation to the Good Shepherd, I do not need to try to earn my approval or acceptance, I am already His. And I do not need to try to do things on my own because that is not what He has called me to. As a sheepdog, I simply get to do what the Shepherd commands with joy and delight! Pick up this book and read it friends, it’s a really good one.

Another one of my favorite books was “Eight Women of Faith” by Haykin. This is a short read, but really good. In it, Haykin tells the story of eight different women in the Christian tradition who have made impacts on the faith. Some of them are women you would expect, and others you may have not expected or never knew they existed. He does a faithful job in telling the stories of these women. This is a book I hope to reread again this year, so likely I will have another more depth post latter on.

The most influential book of 2019 was the last book of the year I read, which was “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” by John Mark Comer. This is part of the reason why I wanted to get off of social media, though there were other reasons too. I will also have another post on this book since it was highly influential. I don’t think I could recommend a better book to talk about our current issues in culture with technology and our need to be everywhere at all times than this book.

Anyways, I hope that this page will be more like a journal of the books I read this year and give others a place to identify some new reads or at least learn about some books they may not have considered reading before. There may be some movies, podcasts, and songs that are scattered throughout this page as well. Enjoy!