“Man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” Deuteronomy 8:3.
This post is a shameless plug for the support of a seminary. As we come to the close of the year, many people receive a flurry of appeals from various institutions and causes for monetary support. Many of these causes are truly worthy of our support. But of all those causes worthy of our gifts, I would like to suggest that faithful seminaries are among the most worthy of your consideration. I say that in part because of these Spirit-inspired words of Moses.
The Word of the Lord is decisive for the creation and maintenance of our lives, our well-being physically, emotionally and spiritually.
“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth” (Psalm 33:6). Not only did God create all things by His word, but the Bible tells us that God upholds “all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). By the word of the Lord, our heavenly Father calls us to Himself, unites us to Jesus Christ through faith, grants us forgiveness of sins and eternal life in Him, and feeds and nourishes our souls daily until he takes us to himself in glory.
At Christmas time we remember and celebrate the coming of our Savior. The eternal Son of God, the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us. The Creator partakes of the flesh and blood of His creatures (Hebrews 2:14).This is Jesus Christ.
One day Jesus fed over 5,000 of his followers with two fishes and five small loaves of bread. But they did not understand who he was. So he said to them, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you…I am the bread of life, and he who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. Jesus has the words of eternal life. When by faith we receive Jesus Christ in the preaching of the Word, we eat His flesh and drink His blood. And Jesus feeds and nourishes our souls with all the benefits of His redemption purchased for us on the cross.
You see, we shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds for the mouth of God.
Romans 10 teaches us: “How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:14, 17).
If you have saving faith in Jesus Christ, it is because God has given it to you through the instrumentality of His Word. At some point, God used preachers in bringing you to faith. That means most likely a seminary has been involved the training of the ministers in your life. All glory goes to God alone for our salvation. But all honor also. And God has been pleased to use faithful messengers to proclaim the gospel so that we His people might have life.
For this reason I would commend to you the labors of faithful seminaries by whom our God is training preachers to bring glad tidings of our Savior’s birth.
There are a number of faithful Reformed seminaries in North America. I would especially like to commend to you Mid-America Reformed Seminary as particularly worthy of your support. I am alum of this seminary, and have served on her board for six years. For thirty years Mid-America has faithfully trained men for the gospel ministry, carefully instructing them to properly and honorably handle the Word of God, thoroughly grounding her students in the historic, orthodox Christian faith as it is also expressed in the great creeds and confessions of the Church, and in particular the Reformed tradition. All of this training is with the express purpose of equipping men to be faithful pastors and proclaimers of the Word of the Lord in the Church of Jesus Christ.
If the Lord has blessed you with an abundance of resources this year, I encourage you to consider a generous gift to Mid-America Reformed Seminary. Man shall not live by bread alone; but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
Jim Sawtelle