Bible Based

“It’s a big book, full of big stories with big characters. They have big ideas (not least about themselves) and make big mistakes. It’s about God, and greed, and grace; about life, lust, laughter and loneliness. It’s about birth, beginnings and betrayal; about siblings, squabbles and sex; about power and prayer and prison and passion. And that’s only Genesis. The Bible itself, with Genesis as its majestic overture, is a huge, sprawling book.” So writes Tom Wright, making a comment on the Bible as 'the book God breathed' ("Simply Christian", SPCK, 2006, p. 148). The Bible is certainly crucial to Church, demonstrated for Reformed Christians in the centrality of the Word, and its preaching. Wright wants to stress the Bible as a source of energy for doing the work and the will of God. I think that is spot on - and how helpful to know where to go looking for some of the energy we need to do whatever it is that God is calling us to do for the moment. Armed with that energy, how can we help but be effective churches?