“It shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes.” DEUTERONOMY 17:19
The king will have his own political philosophy. He will have his own vision and values. He may lean to the left, or to the right, but he must allow the Word of God to rebuke him and correct him. The Word of God will always be shaping his thinking and challenging his ideas.
This is why one of the great cries that describe the Reformation was Semper Reformanda—“Always Reforming!” The reformers did not say that since we have understood justification by faith, everything is nicely sorted out. Rather, Luther said, “My mind is captive to the Word of God.” That means Christian leaders are always being challenged by this Word, always humbled by it, always learning from it. We are not to pose as people who have it all figured out, but as people who are always seeking to follow the Word of God.
Spurgeon made this comment about John Bunyan: He had studied the Bible “till his whole being was saturated with Scripture.” Then Spurgeon says about Bunyan’s writing, “You [read it and you] want to say, ‘This man is a living Bible! Prick him anywhere and you will find that his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his soul is full of the Word of God.’”
When was the last time the Word of God challenged and reshaped your thinking?
Written by Colin Smith
Read by Sue McLeish
