Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.

Today’s preachers cannot be ”eyewitnesses” – not in the sense in which the earliest disciples were – but we continue to be ”servants of the word.” It is surely stating the obvious to say that the Bible is not there to serve our purposes, but for us to serve its intentions. We are under its authority; it is not under ours. We are to flow along with the current of Scripture, not cut our own channels.

I heard about a well-known preacher whose habit was to prepare his sermons on his knees: a perpetual reminder to him that he was a man under the Bible, and not over it. I’m not suggesting every other preacher should do the same. It wouldn’t be physically possible for many anyway. But I am profoundly impressed by this individual’s heart- posture.

One other thought: I don’t know if Luke and John knew each other. But if they did, I feel certain they would have agreed that to be a servant of the word was ultimately to be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:1-18).