Once your faith is focused on what happens inside you instead of what happened outside you in history, it is easy to say that what you really need are good resources for private experience and moral improvement rather than any external Word. However weak and foolish in the eyes of the world, God's methods and structures, clearly prescribed in Scripture, are consistent with the message.
Preaching is not a bully pulpit for either our personal threats or helpful suggestions; it is a saving advent of Christ by his Spirit through his Word.
Baptism is not our act of commitment, based on our decision; it is God's act of commitment to us, based on his decision. God's claim always provokes rather than presupposes our commitment.
The Lord's Supper is not our remembering and rededicating but focuses on God's promise to give us his Son as our food and drink - certifying and ratifying our inclusion in the covenant of grace.
- Michael Horton, Christless Christianity
link: more on the covenant of grace (22 aug 09)
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