Three Reminders

I want to read just a few verses from 2 Peter and chapter 1. In the interest of time, I won’t read from the first verse. You’ll be familiar with the way in which Peter introduces this material: To those who have received this wonderful faith in the Lord Jesus Christ he gives a word of exhortation that these pilgrims may “add to [their] faith,”[1] and in doing so, they may “make [their] calling and election sure”[2] and look forward to an abundant entry into the kingdom of heaven.[3]

And then he says in verse 12, “So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it[’s] right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.”

I want to give to you this morning three Charter Day reminders—or, if you like, a Charter Day reminder of three important elements of your Christian journey.

In introducing this, we should note that Peter is not alone in exercising a ministry of reminder. Indeed, the Bible is full of emphasis on the very importance of memorializing the passing of time. And in prospect of a responsibility that I have next week, I have been reading again in Joshua and how in the crossing of the Jordan, they set up these stones in order that when the children of another generation would say, “What do these stones mean?” then subsequent generations would be able to say, “Well, these were placed here in order that we might know that God did this in the keeping of his covenant promise.”[4] And so it’s right on a day like today that there would be a moment for reflection and that we would recognize that we are part of a great continuum whereby we will pass on to subsequent generations the important things we’ve been learning here.

Now, you may ask the question why it is that old men repeat themselves as much as they do. Frankly, you may feel that I can begin to answer that question for you this morning, given the distance that there is between yourselves and myself in terms of age. I’m sure there are many reasons why old men do this. Old women tend to do it as well, but we’ll just think of men for the moment. I think in part it has to do with the fact that there are moments and matters in the journey of their lives that they want to ensure, at least for themselves, that they do not forget. And as time passes and they recognize that they’re beginning to forget so much—they call their children by the wrong names, their grandchildren’s birthdays they have long since forgotten, they don’t know where their car keys are, and so on—recognizing the failing of their mental powers, I think one of the reasons that older men repeat themselves is because there are certain things they do not want to forget: “I always want to remember this moment, and I always want to make much of this matter.” So if you find yourself in the company of your grandfather this week and he’s doing it again, just remember what I told you.

Let me illustrate it from my own grammar school days in Yorkshire. We had as our history teacher a man by the name of Norman Salmon. He was a proud Yorkshireman and had been born in the city of Bradford, and he taught us world history. But on numerous occasions in the course of his teaching, he would step away from his desk, sit up on a radiator beside a window, hoist his trousers up—which were always falling down over his ever-increasing girth—and he would say to us, “Now, listen ’ere, lads and lasses”—’cause that’s the way they speak in Yorkshire. He’d say, “I want you to remember this, that no matter what you remember out of my class, you’ll never forget this: that Bradford City won the FA Cup in 1911”—the only time they ever did in the history of professional football in England. And here I am—if I was seventeen then and I’m forty-eight now, that’s thirty-one years have elapsed—and the only thing I remember from his class is that Bradford City won the FA Cup in 1911. Of course, I don’t feel bad about that, because he told me, “If you forget everything else, remember this.” So I did it!

A part of the challenge of being a student is that you have to remember, remember, remember everything. And I would be very conceited to think that even twenty minutes after I conclude this talk to you, that you would even remember what I want to remind you of, but I’m going to try. I want to say a word to you about the privilege that you have today of studying in a place where you have a view of the world that is biblical, and I want to say a word to you concerning the privilege that you enjoy of studying in a place where the Bible is absolutely central and affirmed, and then I want to say a word to you about the fact that God has chosen to give you this privilege—yes, you as an individual known to God—to be alive today in this moment in history. So the three reminders are essentially a reminder about the world, a reminder about the Bible, and a reminder about myself.

A Reminder About Your Worldview

First of all, then, what about this worldview? Well, let me give to you the Shorter Scottish Catechism, which I’m sure you all read this morning when you were having your Rice Krispies, as you asked yourself the question, having awakened to a new day, “What is the chief end of man?” And then you answered, “[The chief end of man] is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”[5] I want to remind you of that this morning. When you awaken to a new day and you ask the fundamental questions of life—“Who am I?” “Why am I here?” and “Why do I exist?”—one of the distinctives of being a Christian is that as a result of having Jesus turn us the right way up in life, we understand our reason to be.

And the Shorter Catechism simply unfolds for us the instruction of the Bible in this regard. Throughout history, God has had choice servants who have been able to reinforce this truth for us—Jonathan Edwards as a case in point. Let me quote Edwards just once this morning. This is what he says:

God in seeking his glory. seeks the good of his creatures; because the emanation of his glory … implies the … happiness of his creatures. … Their excellency and happiness is nothing, but the emanation and expression of God’s glory.[6]

So, here we are in January of 2001. We waken up to a new day, hoping that the clouds will part, trusting that the sun may shine, bringing to this new day all of the events of our lives that have gone heretofore—the concerns of a new morning, the issues of our studies, the prospects of our future, the intricacies of our relationships, our concerns for our wider family members—and in the midst of all of that sea of experience, remind yourself, “The reason that I exist today is not to get a degree, is not to write a paper, is not to complete a test, but the reason I exist today is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” I want to remind you of the immense privilege of being educated within the framework of such a worldview. It stands in direct contrast to a secular and man-centered view of the world.

One of my Christmas books has been the biography of Alistair Cooke. Some of you will have seen it in bookstores. Alistair Cooke has been, over the years, a celebrated journalist—born outside of Manchester in Salford, England; born as Alfred Cooke; didn’t particularly like the name Alfred and decided that Alistair would be a suitable name—which intrigues me. I thought Alfred was really quite a nice name, and I might have been prepared to change to it. Anyway, he became known as Alistair Cooke and endeared himself to millions as a result of writing and interpreting America for a British audience.

In the course of the biography, I came across this quote. He was writing concerning the introduction of these Letters from America at a time when the world was facing the prospect of further devastating war. And this is what he writes:

Even the prospect of … annihilation should not keep us from making the best of our days on this unhappy planet. And it would be a crime against Nature for [a] generation to take the world crisis so solemnly that it put off enjoying those things for which we were presumably designed in the first place, and which the gravest statesmen and the hoarsest politicians hope to make available to all men in the end: I mean the opportunity to do good work, to fall in love, to enjoy friends, to sit under trees, to read, to hit a ball and [to] bounce [a] baby.[7]

That’s his worldview. “I hope,” he says, “that the impending crisis around us—even the prospect of annihilation—should not prevent us from enjoying that for which we have been created.”

But what’s missing? It is not that the Christian worldview denigrates sitting under trees; God made the trees under which we sit! Every Christian ought to bounce a ball better than the non-Christian. Everyone that hits a golf ball as a Christian ought to do it with a joyful passion that a pagan doesn’t know. The bouncing of a baby on the knee is a wonderful thing, because we’re looking at it, and we’re saying, “Here is an immense and amazing creation of God, and this is another reminder to me today: O God, I want to glorify you today, and I want to enjoy you forever.” But you see, what is missing from Cooke’s life is the underpinning realization of the fact that he is not a product of time plus matter plus chance but that he is a product of the intricate work of a creator God. Therefore, he’s got nothing else to do except sit under trees and read books and bounce balls. It is a tragedy!

Remind yourself: ‘The reason that I exist today is not to get a degree, is not to write a paper, is not to complete a test, but the reason I exist today is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.’

The ’60s produced more banal lyrics under the disguise of intellectualism than any other decade in which I have lived. And, of course, this takes you way back into your mom and dad’s lives, and you don’t understand this, but we had songs, you know, in the ’60s that would come out with somebody singing, “What’s it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live?”[8] And of course, nobody knew. They sang it on the bus, and they would sing it to one another: “What’s it all about?” Nobody knew who Alfie was or really what in the world was going on. But they were asking the question, “Why do I exist?” And they don’t know the answer. It’s no different from Oasis this morning: “And every road that leads me there is winding; and every light that guides my way is blinding.”[9] “I don’t really know why I’m here.” But if you’re a Christian this morning, you do know why you’re here. And I want to remind you.

Perhaps the silliest lyric of all that I can remember from that era was done by the son of Rex Harrison, of My Fair Lady’s fame, etc. He had a son called Noel Harrison, and his most famous contribution to the pop world at that time was a song called “The Windmills of Your Mind.” I don’t expect you to remember it, but it went something like this:

[Run] like a circle in a spiral,
Like a wheel within a wheel,
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever-spinning reel.

Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon…
And it just went on like that ad nauseam. I can see you’re already bored with it. It had lines like
Keys that jingle in your pocket,
Words that jangle in your head.
Why did summer go so quickly?
Was it something that [we] said?

[And] lovers walk along [the] shore,
And [they] leave their footprints in the sand.
Is the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of [my] hand? …

When [I] knew that it was over,
[I was] suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair.

[Run like] a circle…[10]

What the dickens does that mean? What does that mean? Well, it was essentially a Greek view of the universe: that it is not linear, but it is cyclical. We’re simply going round and round and round. And the Christian young person stands up and says, “No, we’re not! In a moment in time, God breaks out of eternity and creates, and history moves to a point when the Son of God will rise with healing in his wings[11] and usher in the conclusion.”

So, I’ve taken too long on this. Be careful of setting enjoyment of God and obedience to God as [antagonists]: “Should I enjoy God, or should I obey God?” That’s like asking, “Should I choose fruit, or should I choose apples?” Obedience is doing what we’re told, and we’re told to delight ourselves in the Lord.[12] And therefore, pursuing joy in God is obedience. Just a simple reminder to you of the answer to the Shorter Scottish Catechism, question 1: The reason you exist is this.

Now, I want you all to go out in the next five or seven days and rent Chariots of Fire, and you’ll get it perfectly illustrated for you in Eric Liddell’s life. When his sister chides him for the fact, remember—those of you who’ve seen the movie; it’s over twenty years old now—when his sister chides him for the fact that he seems to be enjoying far too much his rugby for Scotland and for Edinburgh University and the anticipation of his athletic career taking him to the Olympics and that he’s been showing up late for these Bible studies, etc., and she tells him, “You know, God made you, Eric, for himself”—as if to say, “He made you for himself, and that means Bible study.” And then Eric’s great answer: “Aye, Jenny, I know. He made me for himself—for China. But he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.”[13]

There’s no ideal place to serve God except the place he sits you down. Don’t get up in the morning and look over your shoulder and say, “You know, if I were her, it would be fine. If I was him, it would be fine. If I was there, it would be fine. If I got through this, it will be fine.” Listen: It will never be fine.

A Reminder About the Bible

Reminder number one: your worldview. Reminder number two: the place of the Bible in your studies and in your life. Two Timothy 3, Paul writes to Timothy as a young man, and he says to him, “[Timothy,] as for you”—2 Timothy 3:14—“continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in [Jesus Christ].”

Can I say a word to those of you this morning who’ve begun to grow flippant with your Bibles? You’re so readily here; you’re just a first-year student. But you’ve started to get a little clever. Repent of it immediately, and go walk out for a long time, and ask God to burn into your heart the absolute privilege and immensity of having been reared in the Scriptures. Do not allow your familiarity with the text of the Bible—the fact that you carry it along with other books in your bag, the fact that you are introduced to it here in a routine fashion—to do anything other than to inculcate within you a genuine and increased longing to be a young man or a young woman of the Bible. Thomas à Kempis on one occasion said, “I have no greater joy than to be in a nook with the Book,”[14] and the book to which he referred was none other than the Bible itself.

Obedience is doing what we’re told, and we’re told to delight ourselves in the Lord. And therefore, pursuing joy in God is obedience.

Now, the reason that this is so important is because Christianity is not just a collection of men’s philosophical and ethical ideas. Hinduism is. Other religions are. Christianity is not. Christianity starts from the premise that God has revealed himself. Had he not revealed himself, we would know nothing of him at all. But he has spoken in his world, in the beauty of creation; in his Son, finally and savingly; and in his Word, the Bible. And the Bible has been given to us in order that we might hear it, in order that we might believe it, and in order that we might tell others about it.

I was helped as a youngster to think of the Bible in a number of ways. Sometimes when I found it hard reading in the Old Testament, somebody would tell me that the Bible was a book that had the answers in the back—that the further you went, the clearer it became. There’s truth in that. Someone said reading the Bible is a bit like reading a detective novel: There are all these different threads going all over the place, and you wonder where this one is going and that one is going. And then, finally, as in a novel, there is a great denouement towards the end, and it all comes together. I found that helpful. Somebody told me that it was like a two-act drama. If you go to a two-act play and you come only for the second half, you haven’t got a clue what was going on, so you annoy your wife, saying, “Who’s he? Who’s she? Why is she saying that?” To which your wife says, “Show up on time. Don’t annoy me!” I speak from experience. If you simply attend the first half and leave, then, of course, you’ve got no way of knowing how the thing comes out. For those of you who only read the New Testament—for whatever strange reason—you don’t know what the foundations are upon which you’re building and reading. For any of you who tend just to read the Old Testament and don’t read through and across the intertestamental divide, if you like, then you don’t understand.[15]

I want to remind you that whether you’re an engineer, a biologist, a nurse, a computer major, whatever else it is, one, the reason you exist is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever; and two, the most important book in your library is your Bible. Is your Bible! Do you read your Bible?

Towards the end of Francis Schaeffer’s life, as people were coming in and out of his room, looking to him as he was approaching the gates of death, he said to one of the visitors at one point—and he had his Bible beside him on the chair—his powers were diminishing dramatically, and he said, “You know, some days all that I can do is pick up my Bible and hold it in my hands and tap it.”[16] It’s a quite graphic picture, isn’t it?

Of course, some of us, that’s all we do with our Bibles. You think you’ve done your job if you hold it up and tap it. You’re allowed to say that when you’re facing death’s door after you’ve read the Bible through a hundred times. You’re not allowed to say it when you’re a second-year student at Cedarville, having hardly read the Bible in the twenty-odd days of January so far.

In the Old Testament, Jesus is predicted; in the Gospels, Jesus is revealed; in the Acts, Jesus is preached; in the Epistles, Jesus is explained; and in the book of Revelation, Jesus is expected.[17] And what is the purpose of the Bible? It is to make us “wise unto salvation.” [18] “Where is the wise man?” says Paul in 1 Corinthians. “Where is the wise man, and where is the scoffer of the age? Let them step forward.”[19]

Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher …? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.[20]

In other words, there is within the world—and always—a tremendous amount of educated foolishness. And when we come to our Bibles, the Bible doesn’t save us, but the Bible makes us “wise unto salvation.” The Bible points out that we’re living our lives upside down, in rebellion against God, and that the ministry of Christ is to come and to turn us the right way up. And when Christ turns us the right way up, then we’re at odds with everyone who is still upside down.

I think you have a wonderful illustration of it in the contemporary movie at the moment, Cast Away by Tom Hanks. If you’ve given any consideration to that at all and you are old enough or sensible enough to have read Robinson Crusoe, you would understand why it is that in an article by a Miss Ravitch—a research professor in education at New York University, formerly an assistant secretary of education—in the [Wall Street Journal] in the last ten days, you would understand why it is that she wrote an article entitled “Tom Hanks, You’re No Robinson Crusoe.” It’s very, very interesting. Let me give you just an insight from it.

Of course, those of you who don’t even know who Robinson Crusoe was have a real problem, but there is the internet, and you can click on “Robinson Crusoe,” and I’m sure he has a website, you know? Because the fact is that people are no longer allowed to read Robinson Crusoe, because it is historically accurate, and Robinson Crusoe arrives on an island at a time when there was still slave trading. That was fact! So, having negated fact, we’ll just move to fiction: “The differences between the two fictionalized stories”—not that Robinson Crusoe was fact, but the historical setting in which it was placed was factual.

When Crusoe survives the shipwreck and finds himself safe on land, he thanks God for saving him. Mr. Hanks’s character offers no prayers, but shouts [out] “Anyone? Anyone?” Crusoe continues to thank God for having spared his life, while [Hanks’s character] expresses little more than loneliness. …

Chuck [that is, the Hanks character] endlessly [in his isolation] studies a photograph of the girl he left behind, even copying it on the walls of his cave; Robinson [Crusoe] reads the Bible, keeps a journal and reflects on the state of his soul.

Emerging from years of isolation, Chuck takes just a few weeks to readjust to modern civilization. Although he is sad to discover his former love has married in his absence (her grieving period was profound but brief), he seems unchanged by his ordeal. Robinson’s return to society follows years of thinking about his sinfulness. He knows his soul and returns a new man. Robinson Crusoe’s story is a classic of trial and redemption; Chuck’s story has no meaning, because Chuck learns nothing, except that he needs to look for a new girlfriend.

Chuck Noland is truly a man of our times, lacking any inner life, having little to think about other than a lost love. He has no sense of religion and is utterly incapable of seeking meaning in his experiences or his life.[21]

Why? Because it is the Bible that makes a man wise unto salvation. It is the Bible! This is the work of the Bible that does this! It has been God-breathed, and it is profitable for correction and for rebuke and for training in righteousness, “so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”[22]

The Bible points out that we’re living our lives upside down, in rebellion against God, and that the ministry of Christ is to come and to turn us the right way up.

So some of you are going to go out and do youth ministry, and you have a guitar, and you can play it. Congratulations! And you have a basketball, and you can bounce it. I’m thrilled! And you have a strategy, and you’re about to implement it. I couldn’t be happier for you. But let me tell you: If you don’t teach your young people the Bible that makes them wise unto salvation, you may produce a bunch of guitar-playing, basketball-bouncing, strategy-filled nincompoops that will amount to nothing for the kingdom of God. Nothing! Because it is only the Bible that makes wise to salvation.

That is the distinction, you see. I want to remind you. Do you feel like you’re being reminded? “Ugh! Yes,” you say, “give us the last reminder. We would like you out of here.”

A Reminder About Ourselves

Fine. Let me say a word about worldview, a word about the Bible in its clarity and vitality, and a word about myself. Isaiah 66:2: “This is the man to whom I will look, says the Lord: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and who trembles at my word.”[23]

Incidentally, when Hebrew conjugates the verb to be, it goes, “He is, you are, I am.” English conjugates the verb to be “I am, you are, he is.” The Hebrew way around is the way to sanity in relationship to yourself.

The challenge to Timothy—again, in 2 Timothy 3—is that he’s going to exercise this ministry of the Bible in an environment when men will be philautos: they will be “lovers of themselves … rather than lovers of God.”[24] Surely a society is in real difficulty when what is described in the Bible as a disease is offered in the culture as a medicine. From pillar to post you’re constantly told, “You know, what you need to do is have a view of yourself. You need to love yourself.” Paul says, “You got a problem, Timothy, because you’re going to teach the Bible in a context, and people love themselves.” Now, the answer to self-love is not self-hate. The answer to self-love is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Then we have a due understanding of where we are.

What’s taking place now at the beginning of the twenty-first century, at the end of the twentieth, is nothing short of shameful. Everybody’s driving round, as I’ve told you before—I’m sure I have, ’cause I say this everywhere I go. I’m so fixated with it. But everybody’s driving around with signs on the back of their minivans about how brilliant their children are. Everywhere you go: “My child did this,” “My child did that,” “My child jumped off a building,” “My child did this.” In an earlier generation, that was nothing other than arrogance and pride. You don’t walk around and talk about what your children did or who your children were or where they went. You may be quietly happy and proud and encouraged, but as a matter of family affairs, you don’t drive up and down the high street announcing it, do you? It’s the same in the church.

But it’s not the same in the Bible. “Moses, I have a job for you.”[25] Moses says, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?”[26] And [Pharaoh] comes to Joseph, and he says, “I hear that you’re able to interpret dreams.” And Joseph says, “I can’t, but God will.”[27]

And they came to John the Baptist, and they said to him, “John, tell us something about yourself. Who are you? Are you one of the prophets?”

“No.”

“Are you this person?”

“No.”

“Well, who are you?”

“Well, I’m a voice. I cry out in the wilderness. I’m a light shining for a little while. I’m a finger pointing in the darkness.”[28]

Do you think if you’d been given the privilege of bearing the incarnate God, you would have had a website? “Hey, my name is Mary. Check in with me. I’m great.” Or do you think you would have sung the song with Mary: “Who am I that you would regard the lowly estate of your handmaiden?”[29]

G. K. Chesterton, a funny man and a great writer, I think, in [1909]—it’s staggering, this—[1909], he writes this: “Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition … [to] the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.” Isn’t that right? We’re supposed to be doubtful about ourselves and undoubtful about the truth. Now it is perfectly okay to say, “I don’t know anything about truth, but I know a lot about myself.” Says Chesterton, “We are on the road”— [1909]—“to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table.”[30]

Do you want to know what the hardest thing for me is in my Christian life? Thinking of myself more highly than I ought.[31] Pride. When a man is proud, he doesn’t pray. He doesn’t feel he needs to. When a girl is proud and self-assured, she will not depend upon God. She believes she can depend upon herself.

Charter Day, 2001—over a hundred years of history, shoulders on which we stand, and at the very heart of it all a view of the world that reminds us, “I’m here to glorify God and to enjoy him forever,” a view of the Bible which assures me that it is able to make me wise unto salvation, and a view of myself which, in light of the first two, put me in my place.

I carry this in my Bible. It’s easy to carry it in your Bible; it’s hard to put it into practice. I have it in the front all the time. My secretary laminated it for me a few years ago. It says this: “Lord, I renounce my desire for human praise, for the approval of my peers, the need for public recognition. I deliberately put these aside today, content to hear you whisper, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”[32] I tell you, young person: If you’re prepared to take that and make that your credo, then what an impact for God you will make on the journey of your days.

Thank you for listening so carefully to these three Charter Day reminders.

[1] 2 Peter 1:5 (NIV 1984).

[2] 2 Peter 1:10 (NIV 1984).

[3] See 2 Peter 1:11.

[4] Joshua 4:6–7 (paraphrased).

[5] The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 1.

[6] Dissertation on the End for Which God Created the World, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Edward Hickman, vol. 1 (1834; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974), 105.

[7] Alistair Cooke, Letters from America (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1951), 9, quoted in Alistair Cooke: The Biography, by Nick Clarke (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999), 258.

[8] Hal David and Burt Bacharach, “Alfie” (1966).

[9] Noel Gallagher, “Wonderwall” (1995). Lyrics lightly altered.

[10] Marilyn Bergman and Alan Bergman, “The Windmills of Your Mind” (1968).

[11] See Malachi 4:2.

[12] See Psalm 37:4.

[13] Chariots of Fire, directed by Hugh Hudson, written by Colin Welland (Warner Bros., 1981). Paraphrased.

[14] Thomas à Kempis, quoted in C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, vol. 1, Psalm I. to XXVI. (London: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 6. Paraphrased.

[15] Alec Motyer, Look to the Rock: An Old Testament Background to Our Understanding of Christ (Leicester, UK: Inter-Varsity, 1996), 19–21.

[16] Francis Schaeffer, “Are Christians Headed for Disaster?,” interview with Melinda Delahoyde, Moody Monthly 84 (July/August 1984). Paraphrased.

[17] Motyer, Look to the Rock, 22.

[18] 2 Timothy 3:15 (KJV).

[19] 1 Corinthians 1:20 (paraphrased).

[20] 1 Corinthians 1:20–21 (NIV 1984).

[21] Diane Ravitch, “Tom Hanks, You’re No Robinson Crusoe,” Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2001, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB979003845495439448.

[22] 2 Timothy 3:17 (NIV 1984).

[23] Isaiah 66:2 (paraphrased.).

[24] 2 Timothy 3:2, 4 (NIV 1984).

[25] Exodus 3:10 (paraphrased).

[26] Exodus 3:11 (NIV 1984).

[27] Genesis 41:15–16 (paraphrased).

[28] John 1:21–23; 5:35 (paraphrased).

[29] Luke 1:48 (paraphrased).

[30] Gilbert K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: John Lane, 1909), 55–56.

[31] See Romans 12:3.

[32] Matthew 25:21, 23 (NIV 1984).