Welcome to Paul Tripp's Wednesday Word podcast.

I'm Dalton, a member of the Paul Trip Ministries team.

Join me each week as I read aloud Paul's popular Wednesday's Word devotional.

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Or you can read online at

paultrip.com slash Wednesday or on Facebook, Instagram, and the Paul Trip app. This week, Paul

wants to help us realize how desperately we need community in our walk with the Lord. Here's

week's Wednesday's work.

I wrote last week that ecclesiastical consumerism has seriously weakened the church.

The mentality of a passive body that pays the professionals is not what God designed for the body of Christ.

See Ephesians 4 11 through 16. In the same way, a similar theme found throughout the New Testament is that your walk with God is a community project. Anonymous, isolated, Jesus and me, Christianity

is unbiblical. I was teaching on the community aspect of

Christianity at a conference once, and an attendee stopped me during the break. But Paul, if I have

the New Testament in my hands and the Holy Spirit of the New Testament in my heart, why do I need

the ministry of others? On the surface, it sounds like a fair question. Indeed,

the Holy Spirit is the wonderful counselor of the church. He enables us to understand God's word,

convicts us of sin, works in us a willingness to obey, and enables us to do what we have been

called by God to do. But you could also use the same flawed logic to argue that you don't

need public worship and the public ministry of the word at church every week. This mindset of,

I only need the Bible and the Holy Spirit, misses so much of what the New Testament describes as

necessary in our sanctification process. On the contrary, the writer of Hebrews provides this powerful argument as to why we need the personal ministry of others.

Quote, take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

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