“An authoritative Bible whose main characteristic is that it is verbally inspired is a book without a Master and consequently a book with a doctrine instead of a message, its only task to relate what God has already done instead of having to bring men into the sphere of God’s continuing activity. In that way a gulf yawns between the holy events of the Bible and the holy events awaited in the last times. Thereby the present in emptied of content. The present, on the contrary, must take its place as a worthy element within the history of redemption that the Bible reveals and that the Parousia completes, because the present is the time of the preaching of the Word and God is active in his Word.”

– Gustaf Wingren, “The Living Word” (56)

Question:

Wingren seems to caution his readers against a view of the Word of God which confesses it to be only a timeless truth, a revelation of what God has already done in Christ. Such a view would bring forth preaching that would simply be a retelling of those events, biding time until the end of all things. Do you think that differences in preaching today have at their core different views of the Word itself?

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