July 7th, 2026
by Pastor Josh Hayward
by Pastor Josh Hayward
"You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me..."
-John 5:39
From the January 8, 2024 Word From the Pastor:
Beloved Kinney,
I want to provide a quote from a book I recommended this past Sunday called Evangelical Pharisees by Michael Reeves. (And, as I mentioned Sunday, I’d encourage you to pick up almost anything by Reeves! He’s a wonderful author who writes in such a way that your heart is stirred with joy in Christ!).
The fault of the Pharisees was not that they had a high view of the Bible as the very word of God. Jesus had that. It was that the Pharisees had a wrong view of Scripture as the very object of saving faith. They thought that in the Scriptures—and in the bare knowledge of the Scriptures—they had life.
And yet evangelicals can and do fall into this sin of the Pharisees. We too can treat Scripture as an end in itself. It is a temptation for us in just the same way as it was a temptation for the Pharisees. We can do away with the discomfort of having our hearts searched and our sins exposed if we treat our basic problem as ignorance and the solution as mere Bible knowledge. That way we can ignore the deep darkness and dirtiness within and focus on self-improvement through reading and study…
Instead of being treasured as a revealing mirror (James 1:22-25), the Bible is used as a weapon for beating others or as a platform on which to parade our own brilliance…And there lies the tell: Does our reading of Scripture drive us to Christ? (pgs. 24-27)
Whatever you do, make it a point to immerse yourself in the reading of God’s Word.
BUT BEWARE! Do not read Scripture merely for the sake of reading Scripture. Do not treat the Bible as an end in itself. God gave us his Word as a window to show us who he is in Christ. If our Bible reading and study is not pushing us to love Christ more, then we might be missing the whole point!
Plead with God in prayer as you read your Bible to awaken your heart to the beauty of his Son in the words you read from his inspired, inerrant, authoritative Word. And as we behold the glory of Christ in his Word, may we be “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18).
Love,
Pastor Josh
-John 5:39
From the January 8, 2024 Word From the Pastor:
Beloved Kinney,
I want to provide a quote from a book I recommended this past Sunday called Evangelical Pharisees by Michael Reeves. (And, as I mentioned Sunday, I’d encourage you to pick up almost anything by Reeves! He’s a wonderful author who writes in such a way that your heart is stirred with joy in Christ!).
The fault of the Pharisees was not that they had a high view of the Bible as the very word of God. Jesus had that. It was that the Pharisees had a wrong view of Scripture as the very object of saving faith. They thought that in the Scriptures—and in the bare knowledge of the Scriptures—they had life.
And yet evangelicals can and do fall into this sin of the Pharisees. We too can treat Scripture as an end in itself. It is a temptation for us in just the same way as it was a temptation for the Pharisees. We can do away with the discomfort of having our hearts searched and our sins exposed if we treat our basic problem as ignorance and the solution as mere Bible knowledge. That way we can ignore the deep darkness and dirtiness within and focus on self-improvement through reading and study…
Instead of being treasured as a revealing mirror (James 1:22-25), the Bible is used as a weapon for beating others or as a platform on which to parade our own brilliance…And there lies the tell: Does our reading of Scripture drive us to Christ? (pgs. 24-27)
Whatever you do, make it a point to immerse yourself in the reading of God’s Word.
BUT BEWARE! Do not read Scripture merely for the sake of reading Scripture. Do not treat the Bible as an end in itself. God gave us his Word as a window to show us who he is in Christ. If our Bible reading and study is not pushing us to love Christ more, then we might be missing the whole point!
Plead with God in prayer as you read your Bible to awaken your heart to the beauty of his Son in the words you read from his inspired, inerrant, authoritative Word. And as we behold the glory of Christ in his Word, may we be “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18).
Love,
Pastor Josh
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