III. HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR STUDY OF THE BIBLE
A. Use a Notebook.
The advantages of writing things down cannot be over-emphasized. When the pen is moving, the brain is working.
1. It helps you ORGANIZE your thoughts.
Make insightful observations, ask questions, make comments, observe patterns, outline, write definitions, make charts, etc.
2. It helps you REMEMBER what you learned.
3. It gives you SOMETHING TO LOOK BACK TO for review.
B. Inductive Versus Deductive Bible Study
Inductive Bible study seeks to gather knowledge from the Bible and lets the Bible lead the student. Deductive Bible study attempts to use the Bible to support a previously made conclusion and has the student leading the Bible.
One of the most common errors is for the Bible student to replace inductive Bible study (exegesis: where meaning is pulled from the Bible) with deductive Bible study (eisegesis: where meaning is pushed into the Bible).
Example:
“After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, "Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this." (Rev 4:1 ESV)
This passage is interpreted by many to symbolize the Rapture of the Church prior to an event known as “The Great Tribulation” at the time of the second coming of Jesus. In order for this interpretation to be valid several facts must be established:
1. John must be defined as a type of the Christian Church in order for his call into Heaven to be symbolic of the Rapture
2. The trumpet must be defined as the last trump of which the Apostle Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 15:52
3. Jesus must be seen as returning to gather up His followers and must occur at the time of the Rapture
4. Adequate explanation must be made for why the identical statement in the passage below does not refer to the Rapture
“And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, "Come up here." And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them.” (Rev 11:12 ESV)
C. Experiential Revelation
It is true that a normal Christian life is filled with miraculous and supernatural experiences. God does speak today personally and directly just as He spoke to His people in the past, by using His own words of the Scriptures. That is easily affirmed by anyone who has heard His call to church ministry. However, He will NEVER contradict, or add to, what He has already said in the Bible. The authority and sufficiency of Scripture cannot be separated.
Christianity, without the supernatural, has no legitimate power, yet those who actively believe in the miraculous are often held with contempt and their beliefs ridiculed and even condemned. You will most often find more skeptics in the church than outside of it.
It is my belief that ALL Christians are called to live supernatural lives every day that have the touch and power of God upon them to affect change in those they come in contact with. Living a supernatural life is the most powerful yet practical way for a Christian to live.
1. The biblical truth is that the supernatural is the natural environment of God.
The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit lives in, and empowers, every Christian (1 Cor 6:19). It would be logical to posit that the natural environment of God exists within them as well. Taking that thought a little farther, it would also seem logical to surmise that God wants every Christian living naturally in the supernatural, with the miraculous accompanying them as they live normal lives. That is purely an ambitious objective because it is a lived reality for only a very minute number of Christians who are often scoffed at for their so-called experiences.
There are those who believe that the 66 books of the Bible are not enough, so they constantly look for private prophetic words, dreams or visions for a more meaningful personal experiential revelation from God. If a private “revelation” given to (or by) someone does not agree or align with Scripture, it is false, and if it does, then it is not needed.
2. The voice of God is the Bible.
God’s written Word must be used as the primary source to confirm a person has heard the voice of Jesus. God speaks with absolute authority from the Bible alone.
3. He alone is truth and Christians must learn to hear His voice. Jesus said in an allegory; “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27 NIV). When Jesus was tempted by the devil, it was not His opinions or experience that defeated him. He was defeated with ‘It is written!” (Matt 4:4-10). Jesus referred to the Scriptures as the authority with the words “It is written” numerous times.
4. The Bible is the only single special revelation from God that human beings possess today. Experience cannot be trusted as it is a type of hearsay. Christians are commanded to believe what is written in the Bible because it is the only pure word from God and is unquestionably sufficient in itself (Psalm 119:160).
In the great high priestly prayer of Jesus for every Christian, He said, “Sanctify them by the truth: your word is truth” (John 17:17 NIV). The daily sanctification work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of every Christian is to bring them closer to Jesus by pointing out both strengths and weaknesses and reminding them that the blood of Jesus has washed away all past, present and future sin. His job is to illuminate what has already been written in the Bible. He does not provide through Angels or by direct “fresh” revelation anything that would add to it in any way, manner, shape or form.
Just as food, air, and water are essential and adequate to keep a human being alive, the inspired Scriptures are essential and sufficient to give the "wisdom that leads to salvation" (2 Tim 3:15 NASB).
5. The Bible is more than sufficient to fully equip the Christian for profitable service and “every good work” because it is the very counsel of God.
I once heard it said that the Bible is completely true about everything to which it speaks, but it does not speak about everything there is to know. The Bible reveals that human beings can acquire knowledge of God by general revelation and draw conclusions about right conduct through observation, rational, reflective reasoning and astute observations of the Cosmos (Prov 24:30-34, 30:24-28; Psalm 19:1-4; Rom 1:26-27; 1 Cor 11:14). However, those are just tools to direct a person to the perfect revelation of Jesus Christ.
6. The Bible has the absolute authority to provide ALL sufficient knowledge needed to know Jesus and receive the gift of salvation, as well as what God’s commands are for every Christian. Because the “heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” the sensory experiences of touch, sight, taste, smell, and hearing and are not reliable (Jer 17:9 KJV).
7. The Bible is the only dependable source for people to know God’s voice.
8. The Bible alone has the answers to all eternal questions.
Jesus and the writers of the New Testament considered the Scriptures as the final rule of authority. When the enemy tempted Jesus in the wilderness, He used only the authority of Scripture to come against him (Matt 4:1-11).
9. The Bible is the blueprint of Heaven and the only reliable source of authoritative truth and is sufficient for teaching because it contains all moral and spiritual information by which humans can successfully live each day as well as build a foundation for any endeavor that is needed for “life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3 NIV).
10. The primary intent of the New Testament is so that people “may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” so that “by believing” they will “have life in his name” (John 20:30-31 ESV).
It is vital that every Christian rely completely upon the Holy Spirit to direct and guide them in understanding and effectively applying God’s Word in every situation they find themselves in.
11. The Holy Spirit has the responsibility to illuminate the Scriptures so that God’s will can be understood.
It is His responsibility to see that the “good work” that was started in each Born-Again at the moment of salvation “will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6 NIV). Christians have the responsibility to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and respond to Him.
12. The Bible is also the primary source to interpret the Bible.
Without reliance upon the Bible as the infallible and supreme source for knowing God’s voice - and as the authoritative rule of faith and conduct - a huge door is opened for the possibility of error and heresy to creep into a person’s beliefs. It must be God’s written Word, which is the cognitive concrete foundation, to base all decisions and belief. The Bible must be studied from God’s perspective. Only the Bible is truly God’s Word and it declares that Jesus Christ is the “Word of God” (Rev 19:13 NIV) and is its author.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1 ESV)
D. Special/Fresh Revelation
There are those who believe that the Bible is a living and ever changing/growing document that is open to personal interpretation by special/fresh revelation apart from its actual grammatical and historical context. It is believed that a person can interpret and give their own meaning to Scripture because Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27-28 ESV), as well as, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev 3:20 ESV).
Another argument I read and continuously hear coming from those who want to justify their beliefs is that they must continuously look for private prophetic words, dreams, or visions for a more meaningful personal experiential revelation and interpretation from God, which supersedes that which is found in the Bible alone, because the 27 “books” of the New Testament were not compiled until after 324 AD, and there was no previous official ‘canon’ (a measuring rod) to determine how to rightly divide the Word of truth in the first century.
It is also believed that because the disciples in the first century had to rely on hearing the spoken Word (rhema) from God, the church should as well because God still speaks today which surpasses His written Word (logos). Therefore, every translation of the Bible in any language is totally unreliable and open to any interpretation by anyone who translates it from the original language it was written in. This belief is being used to validate and justify teaching what is contrary to traditional and historical orthodox fundamental Christianity. This is the primary reason there is so much heresy and doctrines of devils in the church today.
The historical facts are that the first-century disciples considered the letters written by each of the Apostles to be given directly by God as sacred and used them throughout the churches as the final and definitive authority for questions regarding church doctrine. To say that certain verses found in the New Testament were written by specific individuals using their worldly wisdom and opinions to address only cultural issues of the first-century Christians, and are not for the edification and training of the ageless Church universal, is denying the multiple divine attributes of the actual Author of the Bible who used human beings to transcribe them. The Creator of all things would not have let them be placed in the Bible if they were not timeless truths that apply to every person born in the past, present, and in the future.
E. Rhema versus Logos
A basic word study of the original Greek language used in the New Testament (NT) quickly reveals that there is no significant difference between the words ‘rhema’ and ‘logos.’ The Bible also uses the Greek word ‘graphe’ 51 times to always refer to the written Word of God [Holy Scripture; i.e., the inspired, inerrant writings of the Apostles and other writers of the 27 books of the NT].
(See 2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 3:16), and ‘logos’ to refer to that which Jesus had spoken (Matt 21:42; 22:29; John 2:22, 5:39, 14:23-24, 17:6,14; Acts 17:11; 18:24; Rom 1:2).
1. The Greek word ‘logos’ refers to a word, decree, the act of speaking, teaching, reason, account; first sense of collection, counting, conversation; expression of thought, statement; thoughts expressed in words, relates to speaking and thinking, a divine declaration recorded in the Old Testament (OT); systematic and formal treatment of a subject, the content of what is preached'; pertaining to matter.
2. 'Logos' also refers to the Gospel as preached by the Apostles, and not to all the Scriptures (Acts 4:4). It is used regarding the supernatural gifts of prophecy, wisdom, knowledge, and tongues (1 Cor 12:8, 14:9). The ‘logos’ is also ‘spoken’ by angels (Heb 2:2, 12:19) and refers directly to Jesus (John 1:1,14).
The Septuagint translates both ‘logos’ and ‘rhema’ from the Hebrew word ‘dabar,’ which means ‘that which is uttered in speech, or writing; speech, discourse, the subject matter of speech; a minimal unit of discussion, a single word, a focus on the content of the communication.
- The words "rhema" and "logos" overlap in their definitions. The actual difference between the words is simply a matter of writing style and expression.
- The word "logos" occurs 330 times in the NT.
- The word "rhema" occurs 70 times in the NT.
- There are 218 times when the word "logos" occurs, and it is translated simply as "word."
- ”Rhema” is translated 56 times as "word."
- The word "logos" occurs 50 times and is translated "saying."
- Nine times "rhema" is also translated as "saying."
- The words "logos" and "rhema" are equally associated with "word" and "saying."
- Jesus spoke the ‘logos,’ and all that exists came into existence (John 1:1-3).
- Both ‘rhema’ and ‘logos’ are meant to be synonyms and are equated with each other (2 Pet 3:5).
- The word ‘rhema’ can be seen referring to what was written.
- Although the prophets ‘spoke’ words from God, they were written to the people (1 Pet 1:25; 2 Pe 3:2,5; Heb 12:19,11:3; Jude 1:17).
- The word ‘rhema’ is also used of the Gospel that Jesus preached, and not the written word that is used to sanctify and cleanse, or the spoken word (Rom 10:8, 17; Eph 5:26; 1 Pet 1:25).
- The ‘logos’ word is equated to the ‘rhema’ word that was delivered on the day of Pentecost (Acts 10:44).
- The ‘rhema’ words of Peter were seen as ‘logos.’
During the early years of preaching the Gospel, it was not yet written down, but the Gospel is just as well contained in the OT as it is in the NT. The word of faith is ‘preached’ and not ‘written.’ Whether the Bible uses the word ‘rhema’ of God, or ‘logos’ of God, they still point to that which is spoken in the majority of cases. The word ‘logos’ cannot be interpreted as only the written Word (example Eph 6:17; Heb 6:5).
[See ATTACHMENT #3]
ATTACHMENT # 3
Earthly Schools of Theological Thought
This is a brief summation of a few dominant schools of Christian theology in the world today in order to help bring a cursory understanding of them.
Calvinism
The most dominant school in church teaching is Reformed Theology which is also known as Calvinism. This school essentially teaches that God limited atonement by ordaining every future event before creation and has selected only certain individuals for salvation, based on nothing good or bad within the person. God then changes the hearts of pre-selected people to love Him because His saving grace is irresistible. It is taught that Jesus only died for the ones who had been pre-selected for salvation. In what is commonly called Hyper-Calvinism it is believed that God actively causes people to sin or go to Hell. This seems to imply that God plays favorites by arbitrarily saving some while already condemning others from the beginning. The phrases “once saved always saved” or “it provides for a license to sin” is most often used by others to oversimplify this teaching and its effects.
Arminianism
The second dominant school is Arminianism, which is an offshoot of Calvinism with roots in Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism. Pelagianism is a doctrine formulated by Pelagius, a 4th century monk who rejected the concept of original sin and mankind’s fallen nature and asserted that the inherent goodness of a human being is sufficient to enough for a person to work out their own salvation without the help of Holy Spirit and divine grace.
This school of thought teaches that God sees the future and knows who will respond to the Gospel and be saved. It is believed that God first enlightens the sinner and grants them the same freedom of choice that Adam and Eve had in the Garden. A person can freely choose to either accept or reject Jesus. Jesus died for all people, but it only applies to those who respond in faith. To rephrase and over simplify this teaching, the primary belief is that a person can “lose” their salvation by acts of sin after a person becomes Born-Again, to which some say, creates salvation by works and not by the unmerited grace and favor of God. (See John 3:3,7; 1 Peter 1:23).
Open Theism
Another less known school of thought is called Open Theism which teaches that it is impossible for the Creator of all things to know in advance the choices a person will make in the future. It is believed that God knows everything which can be known, but He simply cannot know them in advance. The Open Theist would say that God tests people to see how they will respond and that when God prophesies He steps in to actively cause those events to take place without looking to see the future.
There are those who partially agree with above statements but ascribe to what is known as “Selective Open Theism” which teaches that God can choose to see any detail of the future that He desires. However, He selectively chooses which things He wants to know about the future and which He does not.
Molinism
Another school of thought is known as Molinism which teaches that it is because God is love that He gave human beings the free will to choose to accept or reject Him and to love or hate Him. God knows everything within the past, in the present, and into future. He knew that sin would enter into the world, but He is not the author of sin. He knows the possibilities of every circumstance and every different choice a human might make, yet He willingly allows only one of those potential choices to occur. God knows logically all things that are possible and necessary as well as all possible combinations of every event and choice. It is altogether natural for God to know the logical truths of the Cosmos, such as how many solar systems there are, as well as all potential events that might occur in different circumstances.
Determinism
In Theology ‘determinism’ is the theory that God, via His divine omniscience, or advanced decrees, has a predetermined and unchangeable plan that all humans will do. This has caused a plethora of questions to arise about just how free is human “free will?” It is suggested that there is no freedom of choice and that the universe is entirely determined by God which makes it totally inconsistent with the non-deterministic Quantum mechanical world.
Within Quantum Physics there is the “Uncertainty Principle” which infers that both the spiritual and moral free will of humans play a role in determining their future and eternal destiny. Human beings are free moral agents with the ability to determine what will happen in their lives by the choices they make. The non-predetermined Physical reality is consistent with the spiritual and moral reality described in the Bible. It cannot be fully described using deterministic equations. The future is pre-determined.
