From the Preacher...

I really appreciate you taking the time to read this. It shows that you have an interest in bettering your life and that you realize a spiritual need. This is refreshing in this secular, dog-eat-dog world. Too many people seem not to care about spiritual values, and that they have a forever-living spirit made in God's image.

Yet, by reading this far, you're different. You realize you have a spiritual need and that you're on a journey to eternity!

In visiting the Silver St. church and listening to my lessons from God's Word, I earnestly hope that they will stimulate your spiritual appetite, answer questions, make the Bible relevant to your life, and provoke thought and positive action. We at this congregation are sincere disciples and idealistic truth-seekers of the Lord.

Preaching the gospel of Christ is "the full message of this new life" (Acts 5:20). It is done with the aim of your soul's salvation and your life's transformation. "The word of His grace...is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance" (Acts 20:32). Preaching out of Scripture, not the opinions of men, is sublime work of proclaiming the living words of the living God to dying men. The Bible, as it is, was revealed for man, as he is. The famous English poet Coleridge paid tribute to the Bible's relevance when he said that "it finds me." One restless soul described the Bible thus: "It is not only a book that I can understand, but it is the Book that understands me." Scripture is the divine mirror of the human condition, as well as food for mind, medicine for the soul and the only map leading home to God.

I encourage you to read along in your Bible with the references given in the lesson. In religion, it doesn't matter what I think or say about it, but only what God has revealed in Scripture. I am honored if you ask a question. This means you are stirred to know more of God's will. If I teach something that I cannot be proven true by Word's word, you will be my friend by pointing it out to me so correction can be made.

It my aim to "proclaim the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27). It is my sacred duty to "preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke and exhort with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, and will turn away from the truth and will aside to myths" (2 Timothy 4:2-4). This covers a wide range of moral and doctrinal topics that should be addressed without fear or favor.

I do not pretend to know all the answers, but we can strive for "the obedience of faith" (Romans 1:5) to know Him who has all the answers. Let us remember where to look for His answers in life and of faith  -- "the living and abiding Word of God" (1 Peter 1:23).

Come and see how the Christ's transforming truth can better your life.

W. Frank Walton