January 23, 2000 2 Tim. 2:15
The Bible – worth the effort (Part 2)
INTRODUCTION
How much do you value the fact that you have a Bible that you can pick up and read for yourself? [read Jn 3:16 from the Greek Bible] No, I have not started speaking in tongues; what I was reading was from the New Testament in Greek, which is the language that it was originally written in. How many of you understood what I just said? The verse that I just read says this in English: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” How would you like it if in order to read that simple truth for yourself, you had to learn to read Greek or German or Latin? It was not until the year 1382 that there was a completed English translation of the whole New Testament, and it was 2 years later before the whole Old Testament was translated into English. Both were translated into English from Latin for the first time by a man named John Wycliff and his associates. Another man, named William Tyndale was the first to translate the entire Bible into English from Greek and Hebrew. You and I might think that the church leaders of the day would be glad to now have a translation that the common person could read and understand for themselves. How did they react to Wycliff and Tyndale’s work? During John Wycliff’s life, he was hunted and despised by the church for his work and the teaching which he gave as a result of his own personal study. Though he died a natural death, years after his death, his bones were dug up out of the ground, they were burned, and the ashes were thrown into the river. Tyndale didn’t fare quite as well. He was arrested and put in prison for his crime of translating the Bible into English. After being in prison for a year, he was tried and convicted of the crime of giving the Bible to the common people. His sentence was that he be strangled and then burned at the stake.
Why were the church leaders so afraid of the common people having the Bible in their own language? Their stated reason was that they did not think that the common man could understand the Bible for themselves. They feared that if everyone had access to the Bible, they would not interpret it correctly, and all kinds of weird teachings would result. To a certain extent, they were right. Persons who handle God’s Word incorrectly will come up with all kinds of strange ideas and may even lead other people astray. We have seen that happen. It is happening in churches right now even as I speak. Someone is using the Bible to teach their own strange ideas. But the real reason or the underlying reason that the church authorities did not want the commoners to have access to the Bible is because they feared the loss of power.
What happens if I take all of your Bibles away from you? I remove all the Bibles from the church, from your home, from your car and everywhere that you might have access to them. The only Bible that is left in this church is the one that I am reading from this morning, and this one is no longer in English but is now in Latin or German. I suddenly become very powerful. You now have no way of checking up on me to discover whether or not I am telling you the truth. When I say that the Bible says something is true, you have no choice but to accept it if you want to live in obedience to Jesus. I can say, “The Bible says, ‘ Get up, and hop on one foot if you want to go to heaven.’ The Bible says, ‘ Sell your houses and your cars and bring the money to the church.’ The Bible says, ‘ Each of you must take a turn of bringing dinner over to the pastor’s house so that the pastor’s belly is filled each night.’” None of those are found in the Bible – except maybe that last one - , but if you don’t have a Bible, and can’t read that Bible, then you have no way of knowing the truth. You become my Pinochio’s, and I become your Gapeto. I hold the strings that control you because I know what the Bible says, and you don’t.
God didn’t put me in the role of pastor here in order for me to exert power over you. He put me in this place to be an example to you and to teach you from God’s Word and about God’s Word so that you can read and understand God’s Word for yourself. (1 Pet 5:2-3 NIV) Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers--not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.
The men who worked to give us the English translation of the Bible knew the importance of individuals being able to read, understand and apply the Word of God for ourselves. That’s why they were willing to put their lives in danger and even sacrifice their lives in order that we might have this Bible. If we allow this book to sit on the shelf and gather dust, are we not mocking the memory of these men who sacrificed so much for it as well as mocking the Jesus that it speaks about?
Last week, we began looking at the importance of reading and studying the Bible for yourself. We asked and began to answer the questions: Why should I study the Bible? The first reason that we saw is because we are commanded to study the Bible. 2 Tim. 2:15 – “Study to show yourself approved unto God . . .” John 5:39 – “Search the Scriptures . . .” Then we saw that studying the Bible will produce many wonderful benefits in our lives. It will show us what it takes to be approved by God. It will equip us for every job that God has given or will give to us. It will enable us to know what is the truth. The third reason that we saw last week for studying the Bible is that we have the tools available to us to help us to be able to understand it. We said that we have the teaching of others to help us as well as many different kinds of books. We had just begun talking about the tool called “the brain”. That’s where I want us to pick up this morning.
3. We have the tools available to us for studying the Bible.
The process –
Observation – What does it say? (pen & paper, dictionary, translations [ helps you pay attention to details] When you come to the Bible, you must come to it with questions. Rudyard Kipling, the author of “Ricki-ticki-tavi” and other stories wrote this short poem as well:
I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
There is a basic difference between an explorer and a tourist. The tourist travels quickly, stopping only to observe the highly noticeable or publicized points of interest. The explorer, on the other hand, takes his time to search out all that he can find.
Too many of us read the Bible like a tourist and then complain that our devotional times are fruitless. It is necessary that we take time to explore the Bible. Notable nooks and crannies will appear as we get beneath the surface. Ask questions of the text as you go through it. Who is speaking here? Who is he speaking to? What was the writer talking about just before this verse happened and what happens after this event? That’s called looking at the context. You cannot accurately understand a portion of the Bible unless you look at the preceding and following sections. A man got on the subway after a long day at work. The car which he entered was occupied by a man and two young boys sitting beside him. After the train began to move, one of the boys went up to the wall of that train and started kicking that wall and banging his head against the glass. The other boy began to hit on the shoulder of the man he was sitting next to and began to wail uncontrollably. The man who entered the train at the last stop could control himself no longer and said to the other man, “Are these boys your sons?” “Yes” “Don’t you find their behavior unacceptable? Why don’t you stop them?” “Oh, I find their behavior very acceptable. You see, they just watched their mother die in the hospital.” In order for that man to understand the actions of those boys, he had to understand what preceded the action.
If I wanted to, I could pull bits and pieces out of the Bible from all sorts of areas and make it say whatever I want it to say. One man came to the Bible really desiring to know what the Lord’s will was for his life. He took his Bible, placed it up on the binding, and let it fall open to a spot while telling the Lord that he would do whatever the passage said for him to do. He opened it up, let his finger land on a verse, and this is what it said, “And Judas went out and hanged himself”. He thought to himself, “That doesn’t sound too good, maybe I’d better try this again.” He closed the Bible, let it fall open again, let his finger land on a verse. This one said, “Go, and do thou likewise.”
If you come to the Bible with a pen and paper and a mind that wants to discover, 9 times out of 10, God will open up all kinds of new worlds to you. That’s why I began several months ago to provide the note sheets such as what you have with you this morning. I leave out certain words on purpose so that as we go through the teaching, you hopefully will be listening with anticipation and expectation.
Meditation / memorization – What does it taste like?
One of my favorite candies to eat is Skittles. There are three different varieties of Skittles that you can get. There’s original, wild-berry, and tropical. Each of those different varieties has several flavors in each bag. The original has cherry, orange, lime, and lemon. Now you can eat skittles in one of two ways. You can pour some into your hand and separate out the different flavors so that you are only eating cherry or lime skittles at one time, or you can pour them into your hand and throw whatever came out of the bag into your mouth all at one time. That way, you’ll have a rainbow of flavors in your mouth rather than just one flavor. That‘s why they use the slogan “Taste the rainbow” on their commercials. Now if you take the rainbow approach and pop an assortment of skittles in your mouth all at the same time, then you may also spend some time trying to figure out the different flavors that you have in your mouth. “Was that cherry or orange? Was it lime or lemon?” Rather than just allowing it to go from bag to hand to mouth to belly, you slow the process down a little bit, let the skittles stay in your mouth, let your mind work on the whole eating thing a little bit, and then after you’ve sucked every bit of flavor coating off, letting the juices flow down into your belly.
I don’t condone the drinking of alcohol, and I’ve never seen a wine-tasting in person, but I’ve seen it re-enacted on TV a few times. I saw this one TV show one time where a guy was tasting some wine, and it was obvious that he took his job very seriously. The first thing that he did was to take the glass of wine that he held in his hand and lift it up so that the rays of the sun could penetrate it. He wanted to observe the deep red color of the wine. Then he brought it back down and smelled the wine to catch the fragrance of its rich aroma. Then he tasted the wine, but he didn’t swallow. He held it in his mouth for a few seconds letting it sit on his tongue. Then he swished it around from side to side. Then he even gargled the wine. Finally, he let the wine slide down into his throat to his waiting stomach. This man meditated on his wine. And by meditating on it, he got his belly ready to receive it.
God says that we need to meditate on His Word. (Josh 1:8 NIV) Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
(Psa 1:2 NIV) But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
Meditation is not the practice of humming the Bible (ohmmmmm) but of chewing on the Bible. Did you know that a cow has 4 stomachs? [explain the process by which food goes from each stomach being re-chewed over and over again until all the nutrients in that food have been absorbed] How many of you worry? [show of hands – pretend to write something down on your notes while saying to yourself “sermon on worry next week”] Good, I’m glad that you know how to worry. The reason that I am glad that you know how to worry is because that means that you also know how to meditate. Do you know the differences between the meditation that yoga tells you to do, worry, and the meditation that the Bible talks about? Yoga tells you to empty your mind and meditate on nothingness. Worry is when you fill up your mind with all the bad stuff that is going on in your life or could go on in your life. For some of you, your worrying gets so bad that it controls all of your other activities. You worry about getting fat, so you don’t eat. You worry that something bad is going to happen to your house, so you stay home. You worry about the health and safety of your kids, so you keep them at home and don’t let them play any sports. Worry is when you fill your mind with all these fears. Meditation is the same process; it’s just that instead of filling your mind with fears, you fill your mind with good stuff. (Phil 4:8 NIV) Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. The result of worry and meditation should be the same – whatever you put inside your head is what controls every other aspect of your life. Meditation allows the food of God’s Word to sink deep down inside of us and become a part of us as we think about it, mull it over in our mind until the light clicks on.
Part of the process of meditation is memorization. That is the practice of taking portions of the Bible and committing them to memory. Now, I know that for some of you, to memorize the Bible is a scary idea to you. I have asked the choir members to memorize some songs from time to time, and the idea never goes over very well. You say, “I have trouble remembering what I was after when I opened the refrigerator door. How in the world am I supposed to remember Bible verses?” A young believer was discouraged in his attempts to read and remember the Bible. He said, "It’s no use. No matter how much I read, I always forget what I have just read." His wise pastor replied, "Take heart. When you pour water over a sieve, no matter how much you pour, you don’t collect much. But at least you end up with a clean sieve." Even if you are not able to memorize portions of the Bible, which I think everyone in here can do, the very act of spending time trying to memorize and going over the verse time and time again will have an impact on you and will begin to burn its words into your heart.
Interpretation – What does it mean? (concordance, commentaries, cross-references) Sometimes, what a Bible passage says is exactly what it means. (i.e. John 3:16) There are other passages that need a little bit more explanation. (Mark 9:43 NIV) If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, (Mat 19:24 NIV) Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." That one takes a little bit more explanation. If I take that one at face value, then our church is located in the wrong part of town. There is no use trying to reach people who are rich because they can’t get to heaven anyway. But Jesus went on to explain Himself. He said that with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. By the way; that’s true of poor people too. It is impossible for anyone to get to God without God’s intervention in their lives.
There is only one correct interpretation to any biblical text. In our study of Revelation on Sunday nights, we are getting ready to enter into some territory that is very difficult to interpret. There have been many different interpretations made of that book over the years. How can we be sure that the interpretation that we give is accurate? One, we’re going to let Scripture interpret itself. The same topic is dealt with in multiple places throughout the Bible. Whatever passage that you are dealing with, find other passages that talk about the same thing. That’s what concordances and cross-references are for. By comparing passages in the Bible with one another, you will be better able to understand both. Second, we’re going to pay very close attention to detail. That’s why that observation step is so important. The more that you have seen there, and the more attention you have given to the details, the better you will be able to see how the whole picture fits together.
Application – What does it mean to me? What does it mean in my life? There is only one interpretation of any Bible passage, but there are many different applications to any Bible passage. John 3:16 has one interpretation. It means that God loved the world so much that He gave His Son that mankind could dwell with God forever. But John 3:16 has different applications in your life depending on what your relationship is to Jesus Christ. If you are unsaved, the application of that verse to your life is that God loves you so much that He made a way for you to live with Him for all eternity. You need to take advantage of that way. If you are saved, the application of that verse is that God loves the city of Bridgeport. We need to tell them about that love. The process of understanding God’s Word doesn’t have any value for you until you have completed this step. How is what I have seen and understood going to change the way that I live my life today?
NOTE: I know that as I have been going through this process of studying God’s Word, some of you have already shut me out. You figure, “I don’t have the brain or the smarts to be able to understand the Bible, so why should I even try?” It is a lie of Satan that you do not have the mental capacity to read and understand the Bible for yourself!! Who did Jesus choose to make up the majority of His band of disciples – fishermen, stupid fishermen. When I think of Peter, I get the mental picture of someone who looks like David Morris. Yet it was some of these same fishermen who wrote books of the Bible. And it was these men that the Pharisees – the religious leaders of the day, the guys who had all the school and religious training – said of the disciples (Acts 4:13 NIV) When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. You don’t have to be super-educated in order to be able to understand the Bible. In fact, most of the ones that God chooses to work through are the ones that the world would consider uneducated and foolish. (1 Cor 1:26-29 NIV) Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. God gave you a brain to use for Him, and He’s the one who makes it work right. When God was giving Moses the job of leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, Moses gave the excuse that he could not speak well and therefore the Lord needed to choose someone else. How did God respond? (Exo 4:11-12 NIV) The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." Throughout Jesus’ life here on earth, He constantly was faced with persons who had deficiencies in one area or another. Some were blind. Some were lame. Some were deaf. Some were sick. Some were dead! But each time that Jesus encountered a person with one of these weaknesses, and those persons were willing to do what Jesus told them to do, they received healing and strength. If Jesus can bring a dead man back to life, can’t He take your brain and make it capable of reading and understanding the Book that He has given you to govern your life? Whatever you do not use, you lose. God gave you a brain; use it!!
Holy Spirit
(John 14:26 NIV) But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. (John 16:13 NIV) But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
The Bible without the Holy Spirit is a sun-dial by moonlight. - D.L. Moody Whenever you sit down to read and study the Bible, first pray that God’s Spirit would cause you to understand what you read. The Bible is not a book authored by man. It was written by God’s Spirit. It doesn’t look at this world from man’s perspective. It looks at the world from God’s perspective, so it is impossible to understand it without God’s help. Turn with me to I Cor. 2, and let’s begin reading with the second part of verse 10. Someone has well said that the Bible is so deep that no theologian will ever be able to touch the bottom and yet so shallow that no baby Christian will ever drown. (1 Cor 2:14 NIV) The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. For many people, the reason that they cannot understand the Word of God is not because they don’t know how to read, or because they don’t have the right tools or the right training. The reason that they cannot understand the Word of God is because they’ve never entered into a relationship with God through the blood of the Son of God and therefore, do not have the Spirit of God.
The Spirit of God will NEVER tell you to do or believe anything that conflicts with the Word of God.
3. We will receive information that leads to our transformation when we study the Bible.
A preacher of the 19th century by the name of C. H. Spurgeon said this, "A Bible which is falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t!" Reading the Bible will give you a lot of information about history, science, theology, philosophy, people and many other topics. But the reason God gave us the Bible is not simply that we might gain information. He wants that information to transform us. (Rom 12:2 NIV) Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. The way that it transforms us is by . . .
Being obedient to it (Josh 1:8 NIV) Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. . . (James 1:22 NIV) Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. The profit to Bible study is not in what you learn by your study but in your obedience to what you learn. The Bible will either keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.
Giving us a vision of God (Isaiah 6:1,5,8) In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Isaiah’s reaction to the vision was this: 5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." And then Isaiah was changed and became a servant of God. 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Jesus said to the people of His day (John 5:39 NIV) You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, I don’t study the Bible to proclaim that I have a handle on it; rather, I study the Bible in order to proclaim that the Lord that the Bible points to has a handle on me. Bible study is never an end in itself. It must always point us to God.
CONCLUSION
The Bible is God’s love letter to us, but we must never allow the letter to get in the way of the one who loved us enough to send it to us.
