Firm Foundation
Dear Friends and Members of IBC,
In our weekly ‘Word for the Week’, we are going through a special series where different guest writers from our church share with us what is on their hearts. This week, David Baker invites us to consider where our foundations are. Special note: On Thursdays 7th, 14th and 21st November the IBC Central Bible Study will be looking at evidence that means we can be confident that the Bible is indeed God's "God-breathed" words for us. I encourage you to join!
God bless you
James
From David:
On Sunday we had the privilege of witnessing six of our brothers and sisters taking a step of obedience and proclaiming their faith and salvation in Jesus Christ through their baptisms. As we rejoice with them and are encouraged by their testimony, we can look forward with anticipation, to how Christ will continue to build them, along with all of us, into His holy temple in the Lord. One passage that uses this image of us being built into His holy temple is in Paul's letter to the Ephesians 2:19-22 (NIV) where he writes that:
"you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."
Whilst quite rightly we probably picture the beauty of the temple and the amazing light from the Holy Spirit living within it, it is the foundations that has been on my mind in recent weeks. In Luke 6:46-49 Jesus points out the importance of our foundations in Him, especially in times of trial. Although you are almost certainly familiar with the parable that Jesus uses, why not read again it now? Do you, like me, read words that were not part of your memory of this passage? Was your memory of this passage, like mine, a milder version of Jesus actually said? Hold on to your thoughts as we continue.
Returning to Ephesians 2, Paul describes the foundations as being "apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone", that is, using today's words, the New Testament (the words and teaching of the apostles), the Old Testament (the words and teaching of the prophets) and Christ, the fundamental part through whom the other parts are brought together. What a firm foundation that is!
Yet, the society and culture in which we live would paint a very different picture, a picture that sceptically paints, for instance, the Bible as fallible, unreliable and a human creation, conveniently removing the need to take it as God's Word. It was material from my sons' religious education lessons that painted exactly this sceptical picture of the Bible without stating it directly, that prompted my thoughts about the foundations of our faith.
I expect that many of us trust the Bible to be God's word because, over and over again, He shows us the truth of its words as we walk with Him. This is both wonderful and good. It is also good, however, to know that there is a wealth of evidence, contrary to what the culture in which we live would have us believe, that the Bible is, as our experience tells us, the words that God breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). It is indeed good to be able "give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Pet. 3:15) based on good, often remarkable evidence as well as testimony. It is also helpful in protecting the foundations of our faith from attack.
To give just two snippets of evidence from the Bible itself:
Do you realise that Jesus confirms that the books of the Old Testament (Genesis to Malachi) are the correct ones through his statement in Luke 11:50-51?
Have you picked up that Peter says that Paul's letters should be part of the New Testament in 2 Peter 3:15-16?
Praise our Heavenly Father that we can sing the following words from 1787 with confidence and joy!
How firm a foundation, O saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in his excellent Word!
What more can he say than to you he has said
Who unto the Saviour for refuge have fled?