You desperately need Holy Scripture. Yes, you need it much more than you think.
Now, you don’t need Holy Scripture to improve your self-image. (It doesn’t attempt to do that anyway; it is quite the equal opportunity offender.) You don’t need it to make friends and influence people. Jesus was no motivational speaker and didn’t put much stock in popular thought. You certainly don’t need it to entertain you. You’ve got satellite T.V. You’ve got social media. You’re well connected. No, the Bible is quite dispensable when it comes to this short-sighted, consumerist litmus test for relevance.
Ah, but once we factor in what we need the most, that is, salvation from an offended God, then the importance of Holy Scripture is magnified. So magnified that it dwarfs everything else.
You are a sinner. So am I. Not by our own self-flattering and comparative measurements, to be sure. But according to the standards of God, sin is sin. Full stop. And “the wages of sin is death.”
We turn in vain to nature for help. Nature can tell volumes. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handywork.” “For the invisible things of [God] from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that [men and women] are without excuse.” But that’s the kicker. When we, a guilty, ungodly race, seek to get information on how to approach God, all we find is how good, how pure, how holy, and how inflexibly righteous God is. And by contrast, how dirty and defiled we are. “And if thou shouldst mark iniquities, Lord, who shall stand?” God is a “consuming fire” and we are dry stubble. Nature can only echo the voice of our conscience, that we have trespassed the divine law. And we are under God’s wrath. “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”
How, then, can we escape His unsparing Day of Judgment? How can we pacify our consciences? How can we once again walk with God in the cool of the day, as friends – as it once was and ought to have been?
Deus dixit. God spoke! And the word He spoke was of mercy and grace. He has “spoken comfortably to His people,” proclaiming pardon, freedom, and liberation through His Son.
“Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leaven men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church …” (Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.1)
The Reformed Parish 