She had visited the congregation where I preached a number of times, and we had studied together a few times. The thing that turned her off was the emphasis we were placing on the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and the importance of the new birth. She brought our studies to a close by saying, “I like my church because we don’t teach any doctrine.”

Sadly, in some places, the church has turned from a “believing church” into an assembly of activities with countless programs and committees going to and fro satisfying their own desires — many of which have less to do with being “servants of the Word.”

Far too many folks have become religious consumers. They look to the church to meet their needs — and quickly look elsewhere if they feel their needs are not met. The emphasis is no longer on God and Jesus Christ, but rather on “me, myself, and mine.”

For many in our world truth has vanished — leaving it to each person to do as he/she pleases. As David F. Wells has said, “The bottom line for our modernized world is that there is no truth; the bottom line for Christian consciousness is precisely the opposite.”

James Orr, over a century ago, stated that the New Testament “comes to men with definite, positive teaching; it claims to be the truth; it bases religion on knowledge. . . A religion based on mere feelings is the vaguest, most unreliable, most unstable of all things.”

In past years, when I had the privilege of standing in Hardeman Nichols’ pulpit, he always said to me, “Preach the Word.” It seems to me, especially now, that the great need of the hour is to “preach the Word”—it remains God’s power to save!

Or to quote the inspired Jude, “Contend for the faith which was once for all entrusted to the saints” (verse 3c). ~~~ John Gibson, Little Rock, AR