John Stott in New York

John Stott, who will be 85 this week, I believe, made what will be his last trip to New York earlier this month. On April 12 he spoke on "Toward Christian Maturiity" at a meeting sponsored by the New York Women's Bible Society. Far more people wanted to attend this meeting than the NY Fire Department allow in the allotted space. For me it was thrilling to see so many people interested in Christian Maturity.

According to his figures, some 30,000 people per day make professions of faith in Christ on the African continent and 18,000 per day on the Indian subcontinent, but few of these people actually go on to Christian maturity. Accordingly, John Stott and colleagues have founded "John Stott Minstries Internationl" to train pastors and Bible teachers in the developing world to teach the Bible in greater depth.

Why don't we have more Christian maturity? Because we have an indadequate vision of who Jesus Christ is. He is not Jesus Christ Superstar or the clown of Godspell. Where do we get an adequate vision of Christ? In the Bible. Colossians chapter one tells us

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things
were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
powers or rulers or authorities: all things were created by him and for him. He is before
all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head f the body, the church; he
is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have
the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fulness dwell in him, and through him
to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making
peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

How then do we grow to Christian maturity? By reading the Bible and praying to our incomprable Savior.