I thought I could be good this morning by holding up these two minutes. This is the Bible,

Mr. Johnson Edwards. Now, make very clear, these are not coordinate authorities in my life.

This is on top, sorry, and this is underneath.

But I want to make a point about that, namely that while this is absolutely

an inherently authoritative, good, Bruce, I wondered if I was supposed to have that on. I'll just stop here and all right

This book. Okay all you pastors live in this book. Oh you lay people live in this book. Oh, you lay people, live in this book. So what's the point of a book like this?

These are the collected sermons, one of their volumes of Edwards. The point is that God has ordained according to Ephesians for 11 and 12

that there be teachers in the church.

And it would be chronologically snobbish, as Seyas Lewis says, of us to only listen to

teachers of our own generation.

And we will become the poorer for it if we only read books in our own century.

We must go outside our century. We must go outside our century or we will become chronological snobs.

And Edwards is 1703 to 1758, I think, I remember correctly.

So he's 250 years old.

So there's a good place to go every now and then. And what you find when you go to the best of God's teachers throughout the centuries is that you find Bible distilled through a holy soul.

And there's something very empowering about that.

Because frankly, if I ask now why did God ordain that there be human teachers alongside the Bible?

Why didn't he just ordain that everybody goes straight to the Bible without a preacher.

Why did he ordain that there be pastors and teachers?

Isn't the written word of God sufficient?

Why do you need pastors and teachers?

And it just seems as though the Lord ordains that this

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