“What If God Is Thinking, "That's What I Said!"?”

Sunday, July 12, 2015

If you grew up in the south, chances are that you could finish the line written above. “That’s what I said, Bunny Bread!” Grammatically, the jingle doesn’t make much sense, but I admit that I still sing it (often aloud) every time I see one of their trucks or notice their logo on the wall at Cracker Barrel. My wife laughs at me for singing something so silly, but she laughs at me for a lot of things too... I'm getting used to it.

I bring it up because I imagine there must be times when God looks down upon our lives and our hearts and thinks, “That’s what I said!” Sometimes, we talk or read so much about God’s word that we forget to look at God’s word. One popular evangelical preacher taught in a sermon that baptism saves us, and he was bombarded with questions from his church about why he would teach something so seemingly un-spiritual. His answer: “Did you read your Bible? That’s what God said!”

It is crucial for Christians to be deeply aware of what God says in his word. And it is crucial for Christians to simple take God at his word. In Jesus’ mountain message, he said, “When you give to the poor…” Our tendency is often to ask questions like, “When should I give? How much? When should I stop? How do I know when giving becomes enabling?” But then we see someone being a cheerful giver and giving to the poor, and we think, “I should do that more.” And all the while, God has been looking from heaven and thinking, “That’s what I said!”

Let’s be especially mindful of what God says on a topic and not just what we think it means. What does God say about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11? What does God say about giving in 1 Corinthians 16? What does God say about the death of his saints in 1 Thessalonians 4? What does God say about how to become saved? What does God say about loving our brethren?

We cannot accurately talk about the meaning of Scripture until we know the actual content of Scripture. “…give attention to reading…” (1 Tim. 4:13).

- Dan Lankford

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