Ministers review oracles of God

Mar. 18—The oracles of God are sacred and should be taken with the utmost seriousness.

Ministers Mark McCuistion and Travis Walker say the entire Bible is an oracle or message of God, but the central oracle is the New Testament, with which Jesus Christ replaced the law of the Old Testament.

"The most important instruction we get is how we can have a personal relationship with God through Jesus, which comes very simply from repentance and faith," said the Rev. McCuistion, pastor of the First Church of the Nazarene.

"Turn from your self-willness, your own way of living and what you think is right, and turn toward God. Ask him to forgive your sins and trust that he will do that and he will guide your life with knowledge and wisdom.

"Knowledge is what you need to know and wisdom is how to apply that knowledge."

Citing First Peter 4:11, which says, "If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God," McCuistion said sin is the problem that the oracles help to distinguish and avoid.

"Adam chose to disobey God and every human being since Adam has had a sinful nature, a self-willness that says, 'I'm going to do what I want and I'll do whatever it takes to get my way,'" he said. "The common phrase is gold, glory and gals or guys, which can be very enticing if God doesn't have control of your sinful nature.

"You have to go to God every day and say, 'I surrender control of my life to you.'"

Walker, minister of Billy Hext Road Church of Christ, said the word "oracle," based on the Greek word "logion," "really just means 'utterance.'"

Noting that the word is also used in Acts 7:38, Romans 3:2 and Hebrews 5:12, Walker said the words of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are no more important that what the rest of the New Testament says because the rest was all inspired by the Holy Spirit.

"Jesus says in John 14:26 that the Spirit, who is divine just as Jesus and the Father are divine, 'will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you,'" he said, adding that the Apostles Paul and John and the other New Testament writers "are not the Son of God, are not deity, but what they say was inspired and therefore is important.

"What you see them write is in total harmony with what Jesus said. There is not a difference between one and the other."

Walker said the oracles "should be taken very seriously because of what Jesus says in John 12:48: 'There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.'"