-for the next two weeks we’re going to take a look at things you can do when you are alone with God. Hopefully you realize that although coming to church and serving together are wonderful things that everyone should be doing, there are also things you should be doing that are just you and God.
-It’s like dating, and I know you all know people like this. There are some couples that are only together in public, they don’t talk or anything by themselves. Then there’s also couples that are only by themselves, they never do anything with anyone else. To have a healthy relationship you need both.
-well with God, we seem to love doing things together, but we aren’t that big on doing things with just us and God. So for the next two weeks we’re going to look at the two major things you can do just between you and God, and you probably know them because they have been taught in Sunday School and VBS and everywhere else. Read your Bible and Pray.
-but how do you do that. What does it look like? Are there things that you can do to help you pray and read your Bible? That’s what we’ll be talking about here.
-for today we’re going to look at Bible Reading.
-here’s the key. You have to understand what the Bible is and how to use it or else it won’t make sense.
-like my favorite with this, you ask people to read the Bible and usually they do the same thing. Start at the “beginning”. Read Genesis 1:1 and go on. Okay, so Genesis is a little interesting. Exodus with the plagues cool. But then you get two and a half books into how to kill a goat to cleanse yourself of skin disease brought on by sin and you’re done. That’s it.
-the Bible isn’t a book. It’s a collection of books. It’s a small portable library. When you go to the library, you don’t go to number 001 in the Dewy Decimal System and just start reading. Especially if you’re trying to look up something specific. It’s the same with the Bible.
-so here are something to think about that may help you get a little more out of reading the Bible.
1. PRAY
-before you start, when you first pick up the Bible, how about praying and talking to God about what you’re about to read? How about asking Him to help you understand it or see something that you may have missed before? I know, what a crazy idea, ask the Author for help.
-what’s even crazier, that’s actually in the Bible! Here’s a prayer of David’s in the Psalms:
**Ps. 119:17-18 -> 17Do good to me, Your servant, so I can live, so I can obey Your Word. 18Open my eyes to see the miracles in Your Teachings. (NCV)
-”open my eyes”, help me understand, help me see what it is You want me to see today.
-after all, even when Jesus taught, people didn’t always get it. In Matthew 13 the disciples are asking about the parable of the seeds, one we’ve talked about here, and Jesus says He talks in parables on purpose, because then those who were ready to understand, God would open their minds.
-so if that’s what Jesus’ teachings are like, that we will only really understand when God opens our minds, maybe we should be praying and asking God to open our minds! Makes sense.
-okay, so ask God to help you understand. But then there’s something else to realize, something else to understand.
2. DIFFERENT TYPES OF SCRIPTURE
-here’s another problem people have with reading the Bible. Remember, it’s different books, not just one book. And there are different types of books. So in the Bible, there are different types of books and different ways to read things. Here are a few examples:
ALLEGORY
-alright English majors, allegory is not something word for word. It’s a metaphor, something poetic, a way to paint a word picture. So it is conveying an idea that is not concrete. Here’s an example:
**Ps. 17:8 -> 8Protect me as You would Your very eyes; hide me in the shadow of Your wings. (GNT)
-okay, do you see it? God does not have eyes. God does not have wings. He does not fly around dropping feathers on people.
-the point is David is asking God to protect him, and David is using an allegory of a mother bird protecting her children under her wing. David is not saying that God is a mother bird, but is asking God to protect us like that.
-so realize, not all Scripture is meant to be read like it’s explaining concrete things, sometimes it is explaining ideas like God’s protection.
HISTORICAL
-there are many books in the Bible that are history, they are telling what happened. Realize with this God is not using the Bible to tell us to do these things, it’s history, the Bible is simply saying this happened. Some things that happened are good and we can learn from them. Some things that happened are bad and we can learn not to do them.
-for instance:
**Gen. 6:13-14a -> 13He said to Noah, “Because people have made the earth full of violence, I will destroy all of them from the earth. 14Build a boat of cypress wood for yourself.” (NCV)
-okay, God is not telling everyone to go and build their own boat for when He destroys everyone, and only those Christians with boats will survive. It’s something that has already happened. Now, we can learn about what it means to be faithful to God, how He protects those He loves, how sin angers God and we should try to live right, but it’s not saying “go build a boat”.
-there are a lot of historical books. Genesis, part of Exodus, Joshua, the Samuels and Kings and Chronicles, Acts, even the gospels, they are historical, they are what Jesus did and said. But there’s a lot to learn from what Jesus did and said.
TEACHING
-there are also books that are flat out teaching. “Want to know God better, do this”. “This is how you should live your life.”
**Eph. 6:1 -> 1Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. (NLT)
-I love this one because I know you guys don’t love it, but it’s in there. It is a piece of teaching. If you want to do the right thing, if you want to do what God wants, obey your parents.
-most of the books in the New Testament are teaching books. They are books in which God told people how to live in a way that He wants us to, and they help us know what God wants for our lives.
-so there are some different types of Scripture. Now with that, now that you understand the different types of Scripture remember to read them in the context they are given. Don’t read historical books looking for step-by-step teaching in how to follow God. Don’t read allegorical books like Psalms to try and paint a literal picture of what God looks like.
-so now that you know the Bible is a small library and there are different types of books in there:
3. READ FROM A VARIETY OF PLACES
-many people have their favorite things, like favorite food. Let’s say it’s carrots. You love carrots. That’s great. Enjoy. But if all you ate was carrots, sure, you’d have a ton of vitamins in you, but no calcium. No protein. To have a healthy diet you need to eat from all sorts of different foods.
-it’s the same here. If you want a healthy understanding of not just the Bible but God Himself, you need to eat a little from all the food groups. Read some from different parts of the Bible.
-the sad thing that can happen is you camp in one section of the Bible and that’s it. That’s all you know. That’s all you care about. Like when I started here, when Kyle was in high school, it was Revelations. They all read Revelations, and that was it. So they all thought a lot about what God will one day do, but it was hard to get them to look at helping people now. It’s not healthy
- I one year did a reading plan, you read four sections of the Bible a day. One history, one prophecy, one gospel and one teaching. It was interesting because you had a broad sense of things.
-which leads to:
4. BIBLE READING IDEAS
-here are some ideas for reading the Bible.
-one is to go cover to cover. Like I said, I’m not a big fan, especially if you’re not used to reading the Bible. I personally do this, but at a different pace, not always good but it’s how I do it. I do it to make sure I’m not always focusing on one thing. But I also read the Gospels at the same time. I should know more about Jesus since He is God.
-so you can go cover to cover. It’s hard but you can do it. Three chapters a day and you will finish the Bible in a year (I think you need to do 5 Psalms a day when you get there because they’re shorter).
-or you can do some other Bible reading plan, like the one I mentioned before where you read a little from each section. The best part about doing either one of these, you will eventually read every word in the Bible. Think for a second, can you say that you have read every word in the Bible? Can you name five people here at church who have? Doesn’t that worry you, that’s how well we know our Holy Book, our letter from God, we have trouble thinking of people who have actually read the whole thing?
-the down side is it’s hard to read the whole thing, especially if you don’t know what’s going on. The book of Jeremiah, it’s prophecy. It’s already a little weird. And it’s not in the order it happened, that makes it a little more confusing. And if you don’t know why Jeremiah's writing it, where he lives, who the book is for, it makes it even harder.
-now the advantage you guys have we talked about last week. You have the internet and you can see commentaries and books bout the Bible and all sorts of things to learn from. It’s cool, but it takes dedication.
-the other big way of reading the Bible is with a devotional. Some devotionals go through the Bible, you can buy special devotional Bibles that will help. It’s more reading, but it’s more stuff helping you understand it.
-but there are also topical devotionals. Remember, the bible is like a library. Very few people go to the library looking to read every book in there. But you may be looking for information on say World War II. So you look at specific sections of specific books that deal with that topic.
-you can do that with the Bible too, there are tons of devotionals like that. It takes you to different sections of the Bible while looking at a topic and helping you see what the whole library says on that idea.
-again, there are tons on the internet, you guys can order devotionals off Amazon or get them at bookstores. We even have some here, both kinds, by book or by topic. Like there’s one there about serving, maybe something interesting to read before the mission trip. Or there’s one on Philippians, what is there to learn in that book? There you go.
-those are free, help yourself, we can always print more. They’re something we put out (and we plan to get more of) because they help you study the Bible on your own, like you’re supposed to.
-then, after you’ve picked what you’re going to read, how you’re going to read it, you’re looking at it in the right context:
5. SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF
-here are two really big questions that will help you grow as God wants you do.
WHAT IS THIS PASSAGE SAYING?
-no matter if it’s teaching, allegory or teaching, there’s always something you can learn from it. The question is what. What can you learn from it? What is it God is trying to relate to all of humankind through these few words? Nothing is in the Bible by accident, God has a reason for every letter, so what is it?
-and like I said, this is where you’re luckier than I was in high school with the internet, you can read other people's opinions, other teaching books, commentaries, all sorts of things. I have a program on my computer, I can type in a verse and it will scan a library of books for that verse and let me see what they all say about it. It really helps. So look for what God is trying to say in that passage.
HOW DO I APPLY THIS PASSAGE TO MY LIFE?
-here’s the kicker, the main reason for it all. Who do you live out what you learned?
-there are millions of people who have read or currently read the Bible and you know what they get from it? Nothing. They don’t do anything with it. To them it’s nothing more than a good read. Ah, that was interesting.
-the Bible is not a nice book you cuddle up with. You don’t read it like a little novel then go on to the sequels Left Behind and The DaVinci Code. That’s not how it works.
-the reason we read the Bible is to learn something from it. And once we learn something from it, we need to actually put it into practice, to apply it to our lives.
-and many times that’s not an easy cut and dry answer, that’s why we encourage Downpour Bible Study and things like that.
-like our verse, obey your parents. How do you do that? What does it look like? Does it mean you always have to agree to obey? What if they tell you to do something wrong like lie, what do you do?
-the Bible’s a pretty deep book and it usually worries me when someone reads a verse and goes, “this is what it means. Okay next.” That’s also partly why I don’t like quoting individual verses but whole sections, it lets you get the context of what is being said.
-but on your own, yeah, you need to be thinking these things. What is God trying to tell me and how do I live out what God is trying to tell me?
-after all the Bible is nothing more than words on paper if you’re not actually doing what it says.
**Col. 3:16-17 -> 16Let the teaching of Christ live in you richly. Use all wisdom to teach and instruct each other by singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17Everything you do or say should be done to obey Jesus your Lord. And in all you do, give thanks to God the Father through Jesus. (NCV)
-a perfect place to end when thinking about God’s Word. The only way God’s teachings are alive is if you live them like this passage says. Everything you do should be to obey Jesus, to do that, you have to know what Jesus wants to be done, also in the Bible. Want to know what to thank God for? Read the Bible, there’s some ideas about that in there too.
