Why the Bible?
Recently sports fans were introduced to a new professional football league. The concept has many familiar aspects of football (e.g., teams are trying to score touchdowns). However, in Fan Controlled Football, decision making is handed to viewers who determine major aspects of the game online such as roster choices and play-calling.
Fad or flop, the premise hinges on humanity’s desire for power and control. The allure of participating is not unlike the human desire to seat ourselves on the rightful throne of God. We want to run our own playbook. Thankfully, God gives us a real, time-tested, viable guide: the Bible.
Viewing the World Through a Biblical Lens
Since the beginning, the Bible has transformed civilization. The Bible is the world’s best-selling book. It is translated into more than 200 languages. It is the foundational text of Western thought. At Arcade Church, the Bible is the lens through which we view the world.
There are many reasons to learn the Bible: for wisdom (Colossians 3:16), guidance (Psalm 119:105), to understand our thoughts and heart (Hebrews 4:12), maturity (1 Peter 2:2), instruction, endurance, and encouragement (Romans 15:4), to treasure God (Job 23:12), reproof, correction, and training (2 Timothy 3:16) to experience freedom (John 8:32), and for answered prayer (John 15:7) to name a few.
But not everyone chooses to run with God’s playbook.
Preparing a Fertile Field
In the Gospel of Mark (Mark 4:13-20), Jesus explains the parable of the sower and the seed. The illustration shows how people respond to the word: they hear it, but it is taken away by Satan’s schemes, it sprouts in a person’s heart but so does persecution and they abandon it, or the “worries of the world” crowd out the fruit produced by it. Only a few are “like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”
At Arcade Church it is our desire to create a fertile field for seed to be planted and grow. Children, young adults, parents, singles, empty-nesters, seniors, beginning Christians and life-long believers will be told of the Christ-like joy and message of the Gospel described in the Bible.
The Arcade Institute
One of the goals at Arcade Church is to establish a pattern of learning biblical truth equipping adults to be disciples who make disciples. Over the next five years, leaders will create the Arcade Institute comprising a syllabus of Bible-infused learning. We aim to teach a minimum of 5-6 courses per year that equip and support Arcadians in their ongoing walk with Christ. We will roll out courses on campus in June 2021.
God is Calling the Shots
Understanding the Bible is more than a matter of preference, it is a matter of desperate need. The Bible is the guide to knowing the one true God. Renown Welsh minister Martyn Lloyd Jones said: “Our supreme need, our only need, is to know God, the living God, and the power of His might. We need nothing else. It is just that, the power of the living God, to know that the living God is among us and that nothing else matters… I say, forget everything else.”
Humanity will continue to seek to satisfy the needs only God can fulfill. History proves, they will fail miserably. Like Fan Controlled Football, calling our own shots has a dubious end. (Over the last two years, two professional football leagues, the Alliance of American Football and the XFL, folded prematurely).
The Bible is a single, wonderful narrative showing readers who God is in His own words. Understanding the whole Bible enables the readers to understand the big news about Jesus Christ. Knowing God through the Bible is the underpinning of our lives and is a lifelong pursuit. At Arcade, our God-authored biblical guide far exceeds that of any human ability or play calling. The Bible assures us, God is calling the shots.
