2 Peter 1:19-21 – Getting the Word into Our Lives
I read of a minister who was visiting one of his members. The lady of the house was trying to impress him about how devout she was by pointing out the large Bible on the bookshelf and talking in a very reverential way of it as "the Word of God". Her young son interrupted the conversation, "Well, if that’s God’s book, then we’d better send it back to Him, because we never read it!"
Tonight, as we continue our series on walking in the Spirit, we are going to look at how we should approach the Bible. What do we do with it? This isn’t going to be a message about how to study it, though that’s not really a bad idea either. This is about different ways that we put it into our lives. Let’s read from 2 Peter 1:19-21.
The main thoughts from my message tonight come from the Wesleyan author and speaker Keith Drury. He’s written some excellent books over the years, and his latest one is called With Unveiled Faces. It’s about knowing God better through spiritual disciplines, practices and habits we put in our lives in order to bring us closer to Him.
Our text says that we will do well to listen to the word of the prophets. Now, notice it says “word”. Not “words”, but the singular. Put together, representing the whole OT. It says that as we study the word of the prophets, as we understand scripture more and more, and as we apply it, there will be a dawning in our lives. It’s compared to daybreak.
As an aside, the passage also uses a word that the NIV translates “morning star” – the KJV uses “day star”. The word in Greek is “phosphorus”, which means “light-bearer” – one who carries light. It likely means the planet Venus, the brightest thing in the night sky. What’s interesting about the word is that in Latin, it still means the same thing, but the word is translated “lucifer” – from “lux” meaning light, and “fero” meaning “to bear”. It’s funny that one of the names we give to Satan, Lucifer, is actually better name for Jesus. Satan doesn’t bear light; he just appears that way. Christ is the light-bearer. I wonder if we rob Christ of His deserved glory when we call His enemy, literally, the one who brings forth light. Anyway…
The passage continues with a further explanation of scripture. It says that it didn’t come from man – it came as the Holy Spirit inspired people to write. The word means “being carried along.” It’s not that people just wrote down what they thought would be right, as most people would say today. It’s that the Holy Spirit led people to write they did. Not so much of an exact dictation, but more of a thought-by-thought process. Each writer wrote in his own style, but the thoughts came from the Holy Spirit.
So the Word, the Bible, is not just men’s thoughts, but it is the very thoughts and message from God. And it will light our way – it will provide illumination for us. It will help us go through life.
John 17:17 says that the Word is truth, and it will sanctify us. It will set us apart; it will make us holy. Ephesians 5:26 says that we are cleansed by “the washing with water through the word” – that is, as we expose ourselves to the Bible, and as we think on it more and more, it cleanses us. Hebrews 4:12 says that the Bible cuts us open and exposes our motives. James 1:22 compares the Bible to a mirror, showing us what we look like. The Bible is infinitely useful for accomplishing God’s plans for our lives.
There is a story about a rabbi and a soap-maker, who went for a walk together. The soap maker had some negative things to say about religion: "What good is religion? Just look around you. what do you see? Trouble, misery, wars - even after all these years and years of preaching and teaching about goodness, truth, peace. What good is religion with all its prayers and sermons if all this evil still exists?
The rabbi kept quiet as they continued their walk. Then they noticed a child playing in the gutter. The child was just filthy with dirt and mud. The rabbi said to the soap maker: "Look at this child! Now you say that soap makes people clean, but what good is it? With all the soap in the world this child is still dirty. What good is soap after all?"
The soap maker immediately answered him: "But rabbi, soap can’t do its job if it isn’t used!"
"That’s exactly right,’’ said the rabbi. “And so it is with religion. It will not accomplish anything unless people use it!"
Well, so it is with soap and religion, so it is with the Word of God. Not to say that God cannot use it unless we study and apply it. But, as believers we should not be afraid of the Bible. Nor should we be afraid of getting the Bible into us. How do we do that? Keith Drury lists several ways, and I’d like to share them with you tonight, plus one of my own.
The 1st way to get the Bible into you is through devotional reading. That’s when you read the Bible to hear what God is saying to you personally. It’s not about reading what you want into it. People do that all the time. But it’s about trying to hear what God wants to say to you.
There is a hard time trying to put together 2 different trains of thought in this. One group would say that a scripture cannot mean something differently today than what it meant when it was written. Like the 2 Chronicles passage about God healing our land if we pray and confess and stop sinning. That was written to Israel, God’s people in the land He had promised them, not to Canada in today’s age. It doesn’t mean God will heal our land.
But others would say it can mean us today, and it does. That’s devotional reading. That God can make texts come alive for us today, and mean something different than they originally meant. At any rate, no matter which side you fall into, it seems that God trusted people enough to let us decide. He trusted us with His word and how we can put it into practice. The point is, we need to read the Bible, asking God to apply it to our lives.
The 2nd way to get the Bible into you is study. This happens when you make a serious study to discover what the Bible meant when it was written, and then figure out how it applies to us today. It takes into account the original language and the original audience. This is what brings rational thinking into devotional reading. This brings context into NT passages about things like speaking in tongues, and public worship, and women in ministry, and communion. Drury says that for every 100 devotional readers, there’s only one person willing actually to study the Bible. He says that if more people studied the Bible, there’d be a lot less confusion in the church today.
The 3rd way to get the Bible into you is memorization. Today it’s hard to imagine that for 1500 years, there were very few books. Most people didn’t have them, and most people couldn’t read. So, the way they learned scripture was to go to church more often and heard more of it. Most people today often can’t tell the difference between a Proverb and a saying by Ben Franklin. Memorizing scripture builds up our knowledge so that we can be reminded later of the truths we learned. Memorizing gives us things to ponder all day long, even when we can’t have our noses buried in our Bibles. Few people memorize today, but it’s a useful way to help us walk in the Spirit.
The 4th way to get the Bible into you is meditation. That’s when we turn a scripture over in our heads, pondering it, “chewing on it” as I say, digesting it so that the meaning settles into our hearts. Now, the word has taken some negative meanings over the years, thinking that it’s a New Age thought. But it’s way older than new Age. Joshua 1:8 says, “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night.” Psalm 48:9 says, “We meditate on your unfailing love.” Psalm 119, which is all about God’s Word, tells us to meditate on His precepts, meditate on His decrees, meditate on His wonders, meditate on His law, meditate on His statutes, and meditate on His promises. Clearly, meditation is not wrong. When we fill our mind with scripture, and let it simmer in our hearts and minds, then it becomes part of us, and we are drawn closer to Him.
The 5th way to get the Bible into you is through reading it all. To read it all, from cover to cover, whether in one year – as we’re doing next year as a church – or more slowly, gives you a bigger picture of the history and the events and the chronology and who so-and-so’s grandfather is… it brings context to all the stories you read in Sunday school.
The author Amos Mills wrote a little poem. It says this:
I supposed I knew my Bible,
Reading piecemeal, hit or miss,
Now a bit of John or Matthew,
Now a snatch of Genesis,
Certain chapters of Isaiah,
Certain Psalms (the twenty-third),
Twelfth of Romans, first of Proverbs —
Yes, I thought I knew the Word!
But I found that thorough reading
Was a different thing to do,
And the way was unfamiliar
When I read the Bible through.
You who like to play at Bible,
Dip and dabble, here and there,
Just before you kneel, aweary,
And yawn through a hurried prayer;
You who treat the Crown of Writings
As you treat no other book,
Just a paragraph, disjointed,
Just a crude, impatient look.
Try a worthier procedure,
Try a broad and steady view;
You will kneel in very rapture
When you read the Bible through.
The 6th way to get the Bible into you is hearing it. Paul told Timothy, “Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture.” That’s how the early church did it. That’s why we have responsive readings. That’s why they put the Bible on CD’s and tapes – to help it get into it. Some people learn visually; some learn through the ear-gate. Hearing the Word affects us differently from reading it, and it’s another way to get the Word into us.
And finally, perhaps the most important, the 7th way to get the Bible into you is doing it. That’s our goal. It’s not about knowledge; it’s about life change. More important than knowing it is living it. The scripture makes us into different people, and the more we do it, the more we change. I have found a principle when it comes to the Bible: the more you act on it, the more you understand. It’s one thing to know the verses and where they are found and what they mean. It’s entirely another to know them by experience.
Listen: if you want to walk in the Spirit, then you need to know how God wants you to live. Which is written for you in the Bible. So then you read it and apply it. And God helps you understand it by experience. Then you figure out better what the Scripture says. Then you can read it better. Then you can apply it better. And so on. That’s walking in the Spirit. That’s God’s plan for you. So, where do you need to start?
