“Does that passage just mean what you think it means?”

Sunday, December 06, 2015

Here at Eastland, we take the Bible very seriously. We study both the Old and the New Testaments in our kids’ and adult classes. All our sermons are based on Bible teaching. Our elders model their leadership on the model found in the Bible even though it is often different than the leadership models in the business world.

We do this because the Bible is the only standard measurement we have for spiritual truths. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). No other truth can be as powerful as the truth that comes from him the words of the Bible.

Because of this, when we study the Bible, we ask an important set of questions in a very important order. First, “What does the Bible mean?” Second, “What does the Bible mean to me?”

Both of these are crucial. We must know what God meant when he spoke his word or we may end up drawing the wrong conclusions about our lives. And then, we must determine how his spoken word is supposed to work in our lives or we have gained nothing more than facts. “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). If we are going to live like God wants us to, we find out what the truth really means.

- Dan Lankford, minister

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