Good morning everyone and welcome back to another mornings with the masters.

Would you vote ourselves to the Lord daily with you.

We are picking back up with new morning mercies, I'm just going to take from here.

It says this, I love the theology of scripture. I wouldn't know how to think without it. In my

early seminary days I would take the subway home, run up the stairs to our

third floor apartment and say to Luella I'm learning to think I'm learning to think.

It was more than dusty estoteric theological academia. It was much much more than gathering together the elements of a system of

theology. It was profoundly more than getting to know my faith better. I was receiving

more than advanced biblical literacy. I was being given a way to think about everything and the whole system

stood on four radical words, the first four words of the Bible.

In the beginning, God.

I wasn't simply being educated.

I wasn't just collecting a boatload of theological information.

No, something deeper was happening. I was going through a process of heart and life

transformation that was deeper and more formative than I understood at that moment. I was

changing. In the whole direction of my life, my thoughts about my identity, my definition of meaning and purpose and where I would look for my inner sense of well-being were changing as well.

Everything that I have written has been written out of the life-altering

perspectives I was helped to see from the Word of God in those early and exciting days.

I can still see myself in the back row of my theology class saying to myself I think my mind is melting

All this gave shape and direction to my life it provided the context in which all my decisions would be made.

It gave me reason to get up in the morning and it confronted me with how huge my need for grace was.

This is what the theology of scripture is meant to do.

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