Willy Wonka or the Word of God?

What is the difference between Willy Wonka and the Word of God?  Not much, says Jonathan Akin, if all the Scriptures do is expound moral platitudes and present examples of bravery, kindness, and obedience.  Lamenting the way that too many Christians moralize the message of the Bible, Pastor Akin asserts that Jesus Christ is the point of every passage and that every week the gospel should be preached from every corner of the Scriptures.  He writes:

If we view the Gospel as a hoop and believe the Bible is mostly about giving us tips for living life, then our teaching will rarely rise above the level of having the Oompa Loompas come in for special music on a Sunday morning. But if we believe the story of Jesus of Nazareth living the life we could never live, drowning under God's wrath in our place and being vindicated as the firstfruits of a new creation on the third day is the essence of the Christian life — both how you enter and how you then live — then our preaching and teaching will have transforming power. For then it will be about knocking down the idols in the lives of our hearers, both believers and unbelievers, and conforming them to the image of our King.

Good word! May we labor to read, teach, pray, and preach Christ from the whole counsel of Scripture. You can read the whole article here.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss