WHERE DO I COME UP WITH WHAT I WRITE ABOUT SCRIPTURE AND THEOLOGY
LEARNING TO SAY WHAT YOU HAVE READ IN YOUR OWN WORDS.
SAYING THE SAME THING IN DIFFERENT WORDS !

I can talk from Ohio to Texas without notes, Charity tells me, so why do I use notes when I preach? I generally don’t say, "Charity, I got this point from MacArthur, Spurgeon and Edwards." But when I preach I am trying to be correct. And when I write on the blog, I do try to be as correct as possible.

Can I say up front in blogging, I am generally not the first person to come up with what I say.
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When I am speaking of theology, there are far too many good people out in the Blogger and Wordpress and Com. etc that do a far better job then I, and will address the issues of the day. If I were to give credit for what I say, I would have to say, every article I write has the flavor of what I have read in some book or article on the Web.

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I have no problem giving credit to anyone. I love to drop names of those who I am reading. As much as I read Blogs, I note that there are a lot of the same quotes, from the same folks. You can quote Spurgeon, the Puritans, Calvin, Edwards, Packer, MacArthur, Luther, and all those folks.
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From the very start of my ministry, I have said up front in my teaching, I study from those who know more than I do. I am not your typical fundamentalist who claims he only reads the Bible for his sermons. I remember trying out for a church in Texas when I was in Seminary and I used notes when I preached and the committee said they didn’t believe preachers should use notes. I do not think I have taught many lessons or preached sermons that have not being bathed in a lot of research and study.
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I believed when I was called to preached that God would give me an extra ability to know the Scripture without research and study and prayer and learning. I believed I would have a better ability to write and think and a skill of better interpretation of Scripture. As a matter of fact I have felt guilty that I have not been able to.
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Instant interpretation of any verse in the Bible has never been something I have had the ability to do.
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Of course, now after some forty years of study, I have retained some of what I have read and studied and have been able to assess and build a frame around what I believe about the Scripture. Today I most likely could give you an opinion on just about any subject in the Scripture. But I have not stopped learning.
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So when someone says "Charles, what do you think?" I will gladly say what I believe. What I believe has come with a lot of study. What I hope is happening in my mind, is that the Holy Spirit is helping me have the right direction in my thinking.
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So when you read this blog about theology in Scripture, remember it’s from a lot of study and research from those who I trust the most to learn from over the last few decades. What I write is not in a total vacuum, where I get it just from my own mind without study.

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