Let's turn to Deuteronomy chapter 18, and then to the New Testament Ephesians, rather, 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Let's stand together. Deuteronomy chapter 18, and then 1 Corinthians chapter 14. The promise of a great prophet who is our Lord Jesus Christ, but also joined with instruction on prophecy. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren, him you shall hear according to all that you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly saying, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore lest I die. And the Lord said to me, what they have spoken is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren and he will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, how shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him. Now 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Pursue love, desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God. For no one understands him. However, in the spirit he speaks mysteries. But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more, that you prophesied, for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless, indeed, he interprets, that the church may receive edification." This is the word of the living God. This morning we turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 14, which is a chapter which is concerned with two topics that bring us back to chapter 12, and those topics are the following. The broad heading is spiritual gifts, and the narrow gifts that we'll be looking at over the next weeks will be the gifts called the gifts of prophecy and tongues. The narrow focus today will be on the gift of prophecy and its supremacy over, priority over the gift of tongues in the apostolic era and in the church at Corinth. The narrow focus then will be the gift of prophecy and the preeminence of that gift and we'll see what we will learn from that about God's own ongoing prophetic voice as it reverberates in history to us today. And we're going to ask the question, how is that? And we'll see more of that in a moment. There is perhaps no more important question that you could ask than this one, how does God speak? And how does he speak today? If you're going to meet God one day in the great judgment, surely you You should hunger to know Him, who He is, His nature, His power, and His glory. You should long to know Him. How does He speak? Well, in a number of ways the Scriptures tell us the universe is pulsing with the evidence of His creative power, wise design, and present providence. He's upholding all things by the word of His power. The whole universe is speaking. Matter of fact, Psalm 19 says something very interesting about how God speaks in natural revelation, particularly as we think about a chapter that's dealing with both prophecy and tongues. There is a general way that God speaks in history. Day unto day utter speech and night to night knowledge, the psalmist says. The heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows his handiwork. The natural order is pulsing with divine revelation. And the psalmist goes on to say, there is no speech or language where this word is not heard, where it's not understood. And the way God speaks in general revelation is not, language is not a barrier. He's speaking with His works, which are reflecting and pulsing with His glory. Paul says in Romans chapter 1, from them you can learn of His invisible attributes, His eternal power, and His Godhead. You can learn a lot from the created realm, and you should have an eye for it. And I've said this before in preaching, you should teach your children to have an eye for the same. One of the simplest ways you can teach the next generation from a very early age, something of the glory of God, is take them out on a starry night and say, look up. Or on a sunset, say, who made this? Or when they hear a bird sing, ask them the question, whose handiwork is this? There is no speech or language where this word is not heard. But as I said earlier, this is God speaking in broad strokes, as it were. He speaks specifically in history as well in words. He does more than the broad strokes of general revelation, which leave us without excuse concerning his eternal power and Godhead, but he communicates and has always communicated to humanity in our own language by His Word. Specific divine truth. Chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians brings these themes together. We have three things that come together, three things that run through the chapter. Prophecy, God's divine self-revelation, in his word, tongues, his intention that his word would spread to all nations as he indicated on the day of Pentecost when everyone heard in their own language. And behind all of this, you remember the whole theme of this section, is the powerful work of the Holy Spirit of God. who is both the agent of inspiration of the Word and the illumination of the Word, and these gifts at Corinth are called spiritual gifts. They're the work of the Holy Spirit as God in special ways in the apostolic church was speaking in history to His people. Again, I said a moment ago, you think of Pentecost, all three in the span of an hour, powerful, Spirit-enabled, prophetic. proclamatory declaration of the gospel of Jesus Christ together with the gift of tongues, the gospel for the nations. Now, it's important to get this question of how God speaks right. How many times have you run into someone who said, God spoke to me today? Or, He speaks to me and I'm going to tell you what He said. I have a word, perhaps you haven't heard this directly, but a lot of people do this. I have a word from God for you." And what they're saying there is, I'm a prophet. What do you do with that? You got to be careful. There is a deep longing even in our fallen condition to hear from God. Apart from the softening of your heart by the Holy Spirit, what happens by nature when you hear from God? Apart from the work of the Spirit, preparing your heart and giving you faith, when people hear from God, they want to shut it down as soon as they hear it. They want to suppress the truth. It's too frightening to hear of sin and judgment. They put it away. It's because we're proud, we're blind, and we're deaf by nature. Paradoxically, You'll find often the same people who don't wanna hear the plain message of the gospel who will also say to you that God speaks to me. The following condition is that when we hear God's holiness, we suppress, but that hunger for communion causes us to twist this whole question of how God speaks. And again, you might sometimes have people who literally have lost their minds and hear voices, or sometimes people who say they're Christians and that they hear voices. And they want you to follow them. And this all becomes a very difficult question, and you need to be very, very careful here, because Satan also knows how God speaks in history, and he likes to be a counterfeiter. Matter of fact, at the very beginning, he was a twister of the Word of God. Has God indeed said? So God speaks, and then there's this great war, Parable of the Sower. Sower sows his seed. That's the Word of God entering human history. And then there's this spiritual battle where Satan seeks to snatch the Word away or twist it. And you're in the middle of all of that. And the gift of prophecy stands at the intersection of all these things. So the question here is, how can I know God's truth? And the answer is through the gift of prophecy. And we'll see how that's so important for the church at Corinth. First, the text opens up with, pursue love. And here we're reminded of Paul's previous chapter that when he talked about spiritual gifts, he recognized that the missing element of love required a new instruction and an urgent rebuke and instruction and in the lifting up of the excellence of love so that the church at Corinth would understand the priority of love in the Christian church and in the use of gifts. They liked the gifts, they argued over them, and they were using them for their own preeminence. This would be a big mistake. Paul's given a whole chapter in the last weeks. We looked at that. And He has given us a chapter where He has pressed the importance, the urgency, the characteristics, the never failing nature of the love of God that He pours in our hearts by His Spirit. And here as He opens chapter 14, He's reminding you again that even as we get back to gifts, the priority is love, that Holy Spirit enabled act of the will, which is joined with our affections of our heart, where we in response to the love with which God first loved us, bestow love on the objects of our love, that we act towards them. And this is all the reflection of the gospel. Paul, even when he gets back to gifts, he starts with love. Remember that. Now flowing from this, he says, desire spiritual gifts. And this goes back to chapter 12. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. Verse 31 of chapter 12, earnestly desire the best gifts. Here again, desire spiritual gifts. He's pressing on them that these are yet important for the life of the church. That love is preeminent, but the gifting of the spirit is also important for the life of the church. He does that now with a special focus. But especially, and here we get to the theme that you may prophesy. that especially that you may prophesy." He's saying, aim for prophecy. If you look at the end of this chapter, therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy and do not forbid to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in good order. It's very clear that the Apostle Paul is saying that there's a particular gift with preeminence and importance for the church at Corinth and that this is to be desired. Now, the grammar is important. The U here is a U plural. And let's unpack a few important distinctions. Go back to the end of chapter 12, and you will see that when Paul says, desire spiritual gifts, especially that you all may prophesy, I don't think, it's not right in light of the context to say that every individual believer should desire to be engaged in a prophetic ministry, because in chapter 12 he says, God has appointed these in the church. First apostles, second prophets, third teachers. Then later, are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, do all have gifts of healings? We've talked about a sovereign distribution of gifts. So the first thing you have to think about when we hear the apostles say, desire the gift of prophecy, he's speaking to the whole church. For some, that would be the exercise of that prophetic office, and for others, it would be desiring that God would bless the church with the exercise of that. See, that's very important. The text is very clear here in this chapter, God's sovereignty distributes, some are prophets, some are not. It's a gift that the whole church should pray for, but not every individual believer would exercise. Already even in the signed gift era of the new covenant apostolic church. Paul is pressing a sharp point to the whole church that they would desire prophecy, that they would desire that God would be pleased to speak to them. We'll get to that in a moment now. What exactly is prophecy? And if you go on YouTube or your average Christian TV channel, I don't know if anyone watches TV anymore, but some people probably do, but you can find a whole long list of people in the last 50 years in America who have made a lot of money peddling prophecy. And if you ask them what prophecy is, usually, what do people think it is? It's the narrow question of foretelling the future. So could I know now what's going to happen tomorrow? And if I can go through the pages of scripture and figure out the millennium and the rapture and how Russia and China fit in and the locusts and the beasts and the charts and the predictions, then I could figure out what will happen tomorrow. Now, the Bible does give predictive prophecy, and it does tell you what will happen tomorrow, but even that it does in broad strokes with symbolic language that we need to be very careful to interpret. If you think that prophecy is just this, then you haven't begun to understand what prophecy is in the Scriptures. Let's think more broadly. There's a hint of this in chapter 12. God has appointed these in the church, first apostles, second prophets. In the scriptures, this gift of prophecy is tied to individuals, which brings to mind the idea of office. What is an office? It's not a small room with a desk and a chair at this point when I'm talking about office. I'm talking about God. choosing or appointing individuals in history to specially represent him with a special task. Special representative, special task. What's a prophet's task? Well, God confers this office On a prophet, what is he to do? I'll give you an example, just as an aside, if you're wondering, again, the word office, we use it all the time. We have police officers, they represent the government. We have prime ministers and presidents and kings. These are all offices. An authority is granted, and it is exercised on behalf of another. Ultimately, all offices trace their authority to Christ. Now, in the church, in the Old Testament, we have three prominent offices, prophet, priest, and king. We're gonna focus on the prophetic office today. In the New Testament, we also have offices in the church. We have the apostles, foundation stones, but after them, we have elders and deacons. We have those also who especially labor in the word and doctrine, so we often say pastors, elders, and deacons, offices. Representatives of Jesus Christ. Now, in the Old Testament, we have prophet, priests, and kings, and I want to focus especially on prophets. And if you were thinking about your Old Testament, you can think of a lot of names. Moses, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and preaching through Malachi in the evenings, and Daniel. And we think of their task. As we opened the book of Malachi a few weeks ago in our study, he received a burden from the Lord, an oracle. And the task of the prophet then was to receive divine revelation and then as a messenger communicate the will of Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, to Israel, or in the case of Jonah, for example, even beyond the bounds of Israel to the nations. Individuals given an office in which they receive the Word of God and then communicate that Word to the people of God or beyond even to the nations. In the New Testament, there was a narrow office of prophet connected to the apostolic age, and there were, for example, you think of Agabus in the book of Acts, who was a prophet. We think of the prophets in Acts chapter 13 in Antioch. We think of the prophets mentioned here. We think of the gift of prophecy in Romans chapter 12, that there was a class of people who, you think of Agabus, who was able to predict, for example, famine, predict the future. And then there was others who were exercising prophetic gifts, and the apostles, in a sense, stand in this tradition as well. We'll get to that in a moment. But the idea in the Old Testament is someone set apart to receive the word of God and then speak the word of God authoritatively to the people of God and to the world. Simple. Second, we're getting ahead to this work. How do we know about prophets? This is important. This is going to get a little bit ahead of myself here, but that's the only reason you know that prophets existed, because God saw to it that the work of prophets was committed to writing Scripture. We'll get more into that in a moment. But we have the witness to an entire Old Testament prophetic ministry, the narrow office of prophet, which was tied to the apostolic era, and is seen also in the work of the apostles themselves. A continuing pattern where divine revelation by the Spirit of God was committed to individuals and communicated to the church and to the world. Again, who were the key New Testament prophets? The gift of prophecy especially belonged to the apostles. Now, they were different in one unique way from Old Testament prophets. And what was that? They were eyewitnesses of Christ's majesty. So, they were men filled with the Spirit, but Peter tells us that the Old Testament prophets were desiring to look into this coming of the Messiah. The apostles, filled with the same spirit, are those who bore testimony to the finished work of Jesus Christ, and so differ from old covenant prophets in that regard. They are speaking of that which already happened, and they are teaching us the importance of what happened, who Jesus is, His person, and His work. But in a broad sense, they are also engaged in a prophetic ministry. They are recipients of the direct ministry of the living word, Jesus, and they are the ones who bring that to us and teach us. Now, let me say one more thing about the apostles. They also foretold the future. You think of John in the spirit on the Lord's day in the book of Revelation. They had an ongoing task. by the power of the Holy Spirit, not only to proclaim Jesus Christ and teach us the significance of his person and work, but even to tell us of the future of his work. Now, again, this continuing pattern where divine revelation was worked by the Holy Spirit, where these messengers of divine revelation, with two elements of their work, and let me go for a moment here It'd be good for a moment to go to 2 Peter just to read and emphasize the nature of that work. They were to receive from God by the Holy Spirit. Prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Men filled with the Spirit set apart for an office to speak the Word of God, holy men of God. Recipients were then to communicate by the same Spirit the Word of God authoritatively to the church. God also saw fit that their ministries were recorded in the Holy Scriptures in writing. Now, what's the central message of the apostles and prophets? One more thing here. They were speaking of Christ and Him crucified. There's one message, the gospel. They were communicators of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They were either foretelling or bearing eyewitness to Jesus Christ's kingdom, power, and glory. So there's one message in all of the Bible, the whole of all of prophecy. Again, this is where this narrow view of prophecy is deeply unhelpful. All predictions, teachings, exhortations, revelations are the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, who is to be preached to the nations. At the heart of prophecy is nothing less than the gospel, that Jesus Christ has come, that He died on a cross outside Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, that He rose again from the dead. and that he calls all men to himself to be saved. And if you've never heard that message, right now, prophetically is ringing out the same message that every prophet has ever preached in history to repent and believe the gospel. Ultimately, it's about Jesus, but more than that, it flows from Jesus. He is the great prophet. He is the revealer of the father. He is the living word. And he stands at the center of all prophecy. So if we were to sum this up, prophecy occurs when a divinely appointed, spirit-filled man receives and delivers a message from God concerning the person, work, kingdom, and power of Jesus Christ, the gospel, and delivers that message to the church and even to the world. Now, back to the text. That was a lot from verse 1. How does Paul commend this gift so highly? Now he's gonna do a second thing. He's gonna put prophecy next to tongues. And he's gonna say why earnestly desiring prophecy was so important for the church. He does another contrast here. He contrasts prophecy and tongues. Look at verse two. If you speak in a tongue, this is important, you do not speak to men but to God, for no one understands them, however in the Spirit he speaks mysteries. What is he saying here? The gift of tongues, we'll get into this in verse 10 later on next week, is not mindless babbling or mass hysteria. It is the special gift of speaking in an unknown language as on Pentecost, a sign of God's intention for the gospel to go to the nations. Now, very carefully, think about this. If that were to happen and there was no one there to interpret, This would certainly be a sign of God's power. I can give you an example of how this might work. I mean, I probably can recognize a number of language. French, I had to learn some French in Canada growing up. I grew up in a household where we spoke some Dutch. I can understand the difference between Dutch and German. Because I have some friends from South Africa, I know there's something called Afrikaans, which I can recognize, but I can't quite understand. I can keep going. Spanish. My wife has an undergraduate degree in Spanish and Portuguese. I've been to Brazil. So you can develop an ear and you know there's another language being spoken. You might even know what it is. You might even know something of it, but if I heard a sermon in that language, I would be lost. Paul's saying the gift of tongues could be like that in the church. Sign of divine power, but is it edifying to the church? We'll get to that later. Calvin says on verse 2, he says, he speaks what no one understands. Literally, only God knows. If a man were to speak in a tongue... And he would only be able to speak to God because no one else could understand that language. Supernatural sign, but of limited usefulness for the worshiping body. Now, contrast, prophecy. The key word is that prophecy edifies. Look at verse 3, he who prophesies, but he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men. Verse 4, he who prophesies edifies the church. Even more, I long that you would prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless he indeed interprets that the church may receive edification." Why is prophecy so important? Because this is how Christ builds His church. How is it that you came to know Jesus? Ultimately, because God has spoken concerning His Son in history through the gift of prophecy. How is it that you grow in your love for Christ? Because God keeps building, edifying, and he, use the second word from the text, he exhorts, he warns you what you shouldn't do, he teaches you what you should do, and when you're sad and sorrowing and overcome, he comforts you with the gospel, because God is a God who speaks, and flowing from this gift of prophecy is Christ, building, equipping, and comforting his church. That's what Christ does through this gift. An authoritative declaration, First of edification, Christian doctrine, salvation's claim is placed on your will, calling you to action and exhortation, next word in verse 4, and then you are comforted, you are comforted, verse 3 rather, by the gospel as that prophecy keeps coming and Christ lifts the sorrowing, sick, and suffering, and this edification Exhortation and comfort comes by the gift of prophecy. And if someone is speaking in another language, though you may recognize the spiritual power of the moment, Paul says to the Corinthians, if you do not understand the words, it is not edifying. Therefore, desire that the gift of prophecy be manifest in the church. Now, it's even made clear in the last phrase, he who speaks in tongues unless he indeed interprets that the church may receive edification. This is actually the same point said another way. The gift of tongues could be edifying if someone told you what the words were. Now, some principles for the church today. I'm gonna repeat a definition. Prophecy occurs when a divinely appointed, spirit-filled man receives and authoritatively delivers a message from God concerning the person, work, kingdom, and glory of Jesus Christ. When he receives and delivers that message first to the church and then to the world. Big question that's certainly in your mind is now how does what was happening in Corinth correspond to today, what's happening here? What ceases after the apostolic era? I can give you one phrase, any new revelation. I want you to hear our doctrinal statement, the Westminster Confession of Faith. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in scripture or by good and necessary consequence deduced from Scripture, unto which nothing at any time is to be added, either by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men." The church has recognized that this book that you have in your hand, which ends with the phrase, the very simple phrase, that if anyone takes away or adds to or takes away the words of the prophecy of this book, That person's name will be taken away out of the book of life. This is a sober warning. Again, I said earlier, if someone says to you, God told me, what should you do? You should run. Very important. You should run. With the closing of the canon and the finishing of the Holy Scriptures, You do not have new revelation. What would be the accusation that could come right after I say that? You don't believe in the Holy Spirit, which would seem strange after the last weeks of sermons on the Holy Spirit. But let me put a challenge. Our age is obviously different. If I asked someone, guess what I dreamed last night, they probably would guess if I put you in Daniel's place and I said, and if you don't get it right, you'll lose your head, you probably wouldn't guess, would you? But Daniel didn't have to guess. Because as a specially gifted prophet who was enabled by God to reveal hidden mysteries and secrets and receive divine revelation, he was different than you and me. If I were to take someone who said I have the gift of prophecy to the ICU and say, okay, then heal somebody, because I remember a man named Elijah or Jesus or Paul or Peter. And he said, well, I can't do it. Someone else in my church has said, then bring him. Matter of fact, we could fix all our problems right now. If Benny Hinn, who can heal thousands, could just go down to Greenville Memorial Hospital, the ICU would be empty, right? can't do it. He does not have the power. It's a charade. It's a dangerous charade. There's no one who can predict whether or not China will invade Taiwan next week. Only the Lord knows. If someone says they know, it's dangerous. Compare our age to Abraham, and Joseph, and Moses, and Elijah, and Daniel, and Peter, and Paul, and supremely Jesus Christ, and it is evident that there is a difference, and the difference is testified to in Scripture. There's warnings about this. We just read Deuteronomy chapter 18. If you want to try and predict something that is going to happen in the future and it doesn't happen, the penalty in the old covenant was death. Don't be afraid of him. He doesn't speak for me, says the Lord. You have to understand that this particular gift of prophecy, particularly its ability to receive new revelation and communicate that. If someone claims this, you should never claim it. It's dangerous. Jesus also warned that many false prophets would come. And there'd be a lot of people who pretend to speak for God. We have 39 books of the Old Testament, 27 books of the New Testament, and in this book, God speaks authoritatively. What remains of prophecy in the present day? What Paul calls the Holy Scriptures when he writes to Timothy. They are God's. divinely appointed, continuing record of prophecy in history contained in a book that's finished. Paul calls them the writings and then the graphe in 1 Timothy 3, 15 and verse 16, the holy scriptures. And again, I quote it from Revelation 22, if anyone adds to them or takes away from them, his name is taken out of the book of life. It's a finished book. It's better than Old Testament prophecy. It's better even than the New Covenant prophets in the Apostolic Age. It is the full revelation of the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ communicated. You think about Abraham's day. Some people say, I'd like to be in Abraham's shoes and God would speak to me. If you go through his life, do you know, if you count in the Bible how many words God said to Abraham, the words he spoke to Abraham, your Bible would be this long. We have the fullness of the revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ spread across the pages of scripture, across thousands of years of God speaking to his people, and we receive that with joy. It is able to edify. It's probable for doctrine, Paul says, to exhort, to reprove, to convict, to correct, instruct, to comfort. We have the scriptures, the record of God's prophetic word in history. Second thing we have, and this is important, is we have preaching. Now, I know you've been here for a while, but what you need to know is that the Spirit, chapter two and verse four, is pleased, Paul said he preached, and the demonstration of the Spirit's power. What was that definition of prophecy? A message from God proclaimed authoritatively in human history with the instrumental power of the Holy Spirit. We don't have new revelation, but we have the scriptures, and we still have authoritative proclamation. The Spirit is active in preaching, Paul teaches chapter 2 and verse 4, and the Spirit also works within the same Holy Spirit powerfully in history, giving the inward illumination that is necessary for the saving understanding of the Word, again from our confession. Preaching in this sense is to be understood as the continuation of God's prophetic work in history, not new revelation. but Spirit-enabled, powerful declaration of a message from God concerning salvation through Jesus Christ for the church and for the world. Why? To edify you, to build you up. Four times in the text for edification. Edification, exhortation, and comfort come by the Word. God explains His own works to you. He lifts up His own Son. He proclaims the certainty of His death and the meaning of the same and the power of His resurrection in His Word and His Word preached. And He does it for you, that you would have edification, exhortation, and comfort. The Holy Scriptures, Paul said to Timothy, are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Jesus. And the Scriptures preached are the Spirit's work in human history. And you would do well to listen carefully as Christ, the great prophet, teaches the church. You need to know something else here, then, is that it's not individual, subjective experience or feelings that communicate divine truth, but it is the objective, infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God that informs our faith in Jesus. Third thing to learn. The question we asked at the beginning, how does God speak? Jesus is the great prophet. He is the living word of God. We read Deuteronomy 18 in our worship service earlier, and there God promised to Moses that, you remember, God said, you remember the day that I spoke from Sinai with thunder, glory, and power, and you asked this question. or do not speak, send us a messenger." At the end of his life, Moses said, ultimately, it's not me. I was a placeholder. But God said, I'll send someone better, Jesus, and He will speak in human history. The one who himself is the living Word of God, the revelation of the Father. You've seen me, you've seen the Father, one who sends the Spirit, the Spirit who shines his spotlight back on Christ, and God is active in history. We have a high doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the prophetic Word declared in history. But you need to understand this. If we get our doctrine of the Word of God, inspiration, prophecy, and preaching, and the connection of these things wrong, what are we in danger of doing? defacing the glory of God in Jesus Christ. The church needs to get this right. That's why the Reformers said, sola scriptura, the word alone, proclaiming Christ alone in perfection and glory and with the Spirit's power. That's why your Bible is at the center of your Christianity, because in it God speaks. That's why you should be reading it. Praying for the Spirit's help in understanding it. Searching the Scriptures, for they testify of me, said Jesus. Submitting your life to its commands as the Word exhorts you, and receiving its comforts. Paul commends this as the primary means that God is pleased to use to bless the church at Corinth, and so he does today. Let's pray. Lord our God, you are a God who speaks, and you speak to us. and Your Word, the Holy Scriptures. And You've given us those Scriptures by the ministry of those who have gone before us, the prophets and the apostles. And You have promised us help in understanding them even as You brought Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch, Lord, You bring preaching to the world today. And we pray that as we come to understand both the difference between the apostolic era and our own. and the continuing glory of your word reverberating and proclaimed through human history, that, Lord, we would always pray, speak, Lord, for your servants are listening. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.