Our elders are reading through Paul David Tripp’s book Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change and I am continually challenged and exhorted by his words.  Here are five principles he draws from Genesis 3 to give us a biblical understanding of personal ministry with people:

• Thoughts, opinions, advice, and relationships are always agenda setting. Though we may be unaware of it, we daily advice each other what to desire, think, and do.

• Advice is always moral, defining right and wrong, true and false, good and bad, wise and foolish.

• We should hunger for the simple dependence on Genesis 1, where everything people thought, said, and did was based solely on the words of God.

• The voices of the world appeal to a core delusion in sinful hearts, the desire to be God, able to understand and live life on our own.  We need people in our lives who love us enough to call us back to a life with God at the center.

• We need the words of God (Scripture) to make sense out of life.  We need to listen for the one reliable voice of the Creator.  His Word alone can cut through the confusion of the world’s philosophy and our own foolishness to make us truly wise.  Real knowledge begins with knowing him.  Wisdom is the fruit of worship, and received on bended knee.  It is the product of a life lived in submission to the One who is wisdom, Christ.