Collin Hansen recently interviewed David Platt, pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, AL. You can find the entire interview here at Christianity Today. If you are not familiar with David Platt, you should be. If you have not listened/watched his message from this year's Pastors' Conference of SBC, you must. It is quite possibly the best message ever preached at the Pastors' Conference and undoubtedly the most timely.

Here are a couple of quotes from the interview that resonated greatly with me, not to mention challenged me as well.

In answering the question, "How did you develop such a deep understanding and passion for Scripture, David responds,

"God by his grace provided men in my life who poured the Word into me and taught me the supremacy of his Word, that any power in walking with Christ, even more so leading a church, is dependent on understanding God in his Word.

Coming into this role, I have nothing to bring to the table apart from his Word. This is the first church I've pastored. I don't have a lot of wisdom that life experience would bring. We're going to trust that his Word is sufficient and that any authority I have to lead in the church is dependent on the authority of God's Word and my attachment to it. There's no question that anything good is completely attributed to, dependent on, and accredited to the power of his Word. The Word does the work."

Later David explains how instilling in people a greater biblical and theological knowledge is not just about making them smarter, but rather helping them to be conformed to the image of Christ:

"The purpose of God's Word is to transform us into the image of Christ. The Word radically changes the way we live. This is why it's more important for me to preach Leviticus than to give them tips on parenting. The reality is that Scripture is not a guidebook for a lot of the things folks are going through. It's given to us for one purpose: to make us look more like Christ. When we look more like Christ, then when we're walking through grief or a parenting challenge, we find ourselves in touch with Holy Spirit of God, who is able to walk us through those things we're battling day in and day out. No other book in the Christian bookstore can get them in touch with the Holy Spirit of God."

Exactly.