November 1, 2020 · Ephesians 2:19–20

The Foundation

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.

“It might be a few intellectual hurdles they need to overcome that you can help them with. But the reality is, I believe that the way that I've seen most people change their hearts about the Bible is they start reading it. It is self-authenticating. When you read the Scriptures, you start to sense God's presence in them. You start to be blessed by them, and you start to know the truth of them. And so this is a goal for me: is to help our friends start to pick up this. "Why don't you read John? Let's read it together. Let's talk about it." No pressures. And hopefully, as they start to open it, then the Holy Spirit can start to use it, and it says to them, "This is true. So let's make sure that we understand because why? Our job isn't to convert people to the Bible. Our hope is to convert them to Jesus — to know and love Jesus. And as they start to fall in love with Jesus, the Scriptures start to become very clearly the Word of God to the people, right? Just think about it. How do people come to know Jesus? They start reading the Scriptures, perhaps, or they're told about Jesus. But they come to know Jesus, and then slowly but surely the authenticity of the Scriptures is revealed to them. And that's really important for us to realize. And that's really important for us to realize, my job isn't to convince an atheist about the truth of the scriptures. I do have a job, hopefully, to help them answer any of the questions they're having, but the reality is pointing to Jesus, He is the word of God. But the reality is, pointed to Jesus.”