Daily Dose of the Word of God - 2 Corinthians 4: 6

Gregg DeMey, Lead Pastor

Transcript

Gregg DeMey  0:09 

Good morning friends and welcome to Elmhurst CRC's daily dose of the Word of God. This is Gregg DeMey, Lead Pastor at the church and it's Thursday, October 17. We are in Hearts Ablaze campaign season, a time in which (by God's grace) new sparks are ignited in us for the things of God. Today's reading is from 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6, from The Voice translation .

Gregg DeMey  0:32 

The God who spoke light into existence, saying, "Let light shine from the darkness," is the very one who sets our hearts ablaze to shed light on the knowledge of God's glory revealed in the face of Jesus, the anointed one.

Gregg DeMey  0:50 

This is one of my favorite Bible verses. It demonstrates how the message and power of the gospel is able to transform all peoples and cultures, to set our hearts ablaze with the love of Jesus, starting with the Hebrews, the Greeks and the Romans, and spreading out from there. You may remember the third verse of the Bible: "And God said, Let there be light."

Gregg DeMey  1:12 

In the Hebrew worldview, God's light shines from the moment of the creation of the heavens and the earth and God's light shines again in the giving of the law. God lights the way of wisdom to follow his will and ways and darkness is equivalent to the path of foolishness, disobedience and willful ignorance of the law. In the Hebrew worldview, it is light and darkness. The Greek worldview on the other hand, was built on intellectual rigor, deep thinking, knowledge and philosophy. Alexander the Great was tutored by the philosopher Aristotle himself and Socrates put it quite succinctly, "the unexamined life is not even worth living." The Greek worldview was knowledge-based. And then there's Rome. Not as moral as the Hebrews, not as intellectual as the Greeks, but intensely practical in the building of roads, aqueducts, coliseums and the organization of armies obsessed with elevating the glory of Rome - the Empire in the Eternal City.

Gregg DeMey  2:16 

So, the apostle Paul - born a Hebrew, a Greek speaker and a citizen of Rome could uniquely write: "The God who spoke into existence saying, let light shine from the darkness (the Hebrew worldview) is the very one who sets our hearts ablaze to shed light on the knowledge (the Greek worldview of God's glory) revealed in the face of Jesus, the Anointed One (the Roman worldview). Jesus is universally for everybody: Greeks, Romans, Hebrews, Americans - all of us.

Gregg DeMey  2:49  

Let's pray. God, thank you that your good news transcends time and culture - that it's for everybody in the ancient world, in the modern world and everywhere in between. Today, I open my heart and won't you please share the gift of the fire of your Holy Spirit, purifying, energizing and burning bright. Amen.