He Has Spoken, Part 2

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This is part two of a multi-part series on “He Has Spoken,” a study published by The Colson Center.  This post discusses the first presentation and discussion in the five lesson DVD curriculum.

This lecture revolves around a simple set of sentences:

God is.  He exists.

God is Personal.

God has spoken, and therefore truth can be known.

And, God speaks in the Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible.

These are very weighty statements that cannot be completely elaborated on and defended in a short lecture and discussion, but the curriculum does a nice job of emphasizing the importance of these propositions and pointing you to resources that back up these statements. 

The main resource cited is Stand to Reason, an apologetics ministry led by Greg Koukl.  This ministry has been of great help to me in my faith walk, and I am glad to see Stand to Reason endorsed by this curriculum.  As Stonestreet puts it in the lecture, “The work has been done.  The research has been put together.”  And www.str.org addresses the issues.

The Bible must be “the ground on which we stand,” according to Stonestreet.  He issues a clear call to us to let the Bible be our authority in matters of faith and life. 

Stonestreet strongly challenges us to live out our faith with the observation that, “Our claims don’t always match our behavior.”  The series will spur us on to love and good deeds, and I look forward to the rest of it. 
Each lecture in the five part series is accompanied by a discussion between John Stonestreet and T. M. Moore.  This discussion is particularly interesting. 

Moore points out that the Bible “has divine power that goes with it.”  This power helps to convince us of the truth and to transform our lives.  But there are problems to be avoided.
Stonestreet says that “We tend to take the Bible on our terms,” “taking what we want and leaving the rest.”  Contemporary religious thought tends to approach the Bible’s teachings as items in a buffet line that we can pick and choose from as we please, and I am glad to see this curriculum face that problem in religious thought head on. 

While I would have preferred to see the Reformation slogan of Sola Scriptura openly named and claimed, I do find the main tenants of that slogan affirmed in an easy to understand manner in one place of the curriculum or another.  This lecture affirms the veracity and authority of the Scriptures, and that goes a long way toward the full truth of Sola Scriptura


We will continue this series soon.

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