The book we call the Bible is a vital part of our lives as believers. Without it we would have no way of knowing God as we do. We wouldn’t know the reason our lives were filled with sorrow and pain and tragedy and guilt. We wouldn’t know that He had provided a solution for those things. We wouldn’t know that God loves us with a love that has no end and that is unconditional. We wouldn’t know how to become a child of God, how to live life as a child of God, or what eternity will look like for the children of God. We wouldn’t know where to look for the real and true solutions to the dilemmas that we face in our lives. We wouldn’t know where to look for hope, where to look for help, or where to look for peace.
As unbelievers we tried it without the Book – we still do sometimes, even as believers. Yet, there is always something that draws us back to the truth we know. And, where do we find that truth? In the Bible, the Word of God.
Tonight I want to take some time and talk about something that is uncomfortable and, very often, intimidating for many people: studying the Bible.
Now, I’m not going to go into a treatise on all of the technical tools available to help with the etymology of the words in the Bible from their original languages, the books available that will explain the social customs of the times the Bible was written in, or the complex tools available for the seminarian and the scholar. What we are going to look at is how everyday Christians can read and study and learn from the Bible in a clear and understandable way that will transform lives every day. See, the Bible is there for us to gain understanding of the nature and character of God so that we can know and love and serve Him better – every day.
Look at the following passages: Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1. Let’s read these together and then we’ll discuss them for a moment.
Both texts talk about two things: 1) how to approach the Word of God; and, 2) what the blessing is that comes from doing so. The promised blessing is, of course, that we will be prosperous. Does that mean financial prosperity? It may, depending on how much of that God knows we can handle appropriately. Some people would fall away from God and fall into sin or be overwhelmed by wealth. God knows this and, in His love for us, will not allow us more than we can handle. Interesting, isn’t it, that we don’t have a problem accepting the promise that He won’t allow more of the bad stuff than we can handle but we don’t like so much the promise that He also won’t allow more of the “good stuff” than we can handle?
Each of us needs a different prosperity than others around us do. Some need prosperity in their relationships. Some need prosperity in their ministry, others in their finances, others in their health, others in the restoration of their family, and still others in their prayer and devotional life. God knows what areas you need to prosper in. Just entrust that to Him and focus on doing your part. That will suffice.
Okay, now on to how to study the Bible with meaning and purpose and receive all that God has for you through that.
The first way we have to approach the study of the Word with is consistently. Look at Joshua 1:8 and Psalm 1:2. Both verses contain the same phrase that signifies consistency: “day and night”. Does this mean that we are to have our nose buried in our Bible every moment of every day? No; but it does mean that we are to have His Word in our minds and in our hearts every-day-all-day. It is never to “depart from our mouths”. It is supposed to be a living part of our life, just like breathing or eating. In fact, look at what Job says in Job 23:12:
(ASV) I have not gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
(BBE) I have never gone against the orders of his lips; the words of his mouth have been stored up in my heart.
(ESV) I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food.
(KJVA) Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
(NASB) I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth (in my breast) more than my necessary food (prescribed portion).
(RV) I have not gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
(Webster) Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
What is Job saying? He is saying that, if he has to make a choice between eating and the Word of God, the Word of God wins every time. Job was the wealthiest man who ever lived, lost everything, and then received back tenfold over what he lost because he remained faithful. He had no guarantee that God was going to restore his health, let alone his family or his wealth. Yet, he remained faithful to what He knew about God. What he knew about God he got from being in His Word “day and night”. Can we say this?
Here come the complaints:
“I just don’t understand what the Bible says most of the time.” Focus on what you do understand and don’t worry about what you don’t understand. God isn’t going to hold you accountable for what you don’t get; only what you do get. Mark Twain, who was not a Christian, one time said, “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” This is how it is with us many times, too. It is much easier for us to focus on what we don’t know and understand than on what we do know and understand so that maybe we can claim a little ignorance and thus escape having to take a real and honest look at our sinful choices.
This, I think, is at the heart of many of the complaints of the skeptics about the Bible. “How can this be?” “Why is this so?” “Well, what about the aborigine in darkest Africa who has never heard about Jesus Christ?” and questions like these all point to an attempt to avoid the truth. We dare not travel down that path.
“Why didn’t God just put the Bible together by topic so it would be easy to find things out? Why is it so hard to understand so often?” Then you wouldn’t read the whole thing, you would be more ignorant than you are now, and you wouldn’t have the reward of the treasure hunter. The parts you are meant to understand will be understandable to you. Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to keep a thing secret: but the glory of kings is to have it searched out.” God keeps much hidden in plain sight. Things seem obscure and murky sometimes. You may have to read a section of Scripture two or three or fifty or a hundred or a thousand times before God opens it up to you. Then, one day, you get that flash of discovery and viola! You get it! We have to dig through the Scriptures as if we are delving deep into a gold or diamond mine that He has given us. What we work for and wrestle with we have a greater understanding of and appreciation for. The easy stuff isn’t the stuff that has great value to us. It isn’t the stuff we cherish and treasure. Think about the lessons that you have learned the deepest and that you have the strongest appreciation for. Those are the lessons that were hard-fought and hard-bought, aren’t they? It is the same with studying the Word of God. What God shows you through your time with Him and His Word is what becomes yours – it is what you know and understand and what God has given you and holds you to account for. The rest? Don’t worry about it. If and when it is time for you to understand it, the Holy Spirit will lead you into the truth (John 16:13), and He will remind you of what Jesus has taught you (John 14:26). That is re-mind; He will not bring to your mind what isn’t all ready in there. You have to do the digging. Speaking of digging…
“The Bible is so dry in parts – it’s like eating sand, it’s so dry.” You never know the refreshing treasures God will have in store for you when you faithfully and consistently read His Word, even when you are in a drought and even when it seems dusty and dry. There are times when you go through a dry spell, when what you read sounds like the adults in a Peanuts cartoon. In 2 Kings 3, there is the story of when the kings of Israel Judah and Edom went out to war against the king of Moab. They and their armies were in the wilderness of Edom and were without water. King Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, knew they needed to find water or all of the men and animals would die. He turned to the prophet Elisha for help. Elisha told him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘make this valley full of trenches.’” So, the king and his men dug trenches in the dry ground. In the morning, the trenches filled with water and everyone had enough water. They went on to the victory that God has promised them. See, it’s about being faithful. That’s what consistency is; faithfulness. We have to dig through some dry stuff in order to receive a refreshing later on. It isn’t about instant gratification. It isn’t about getting the nugget of treasure right now all the time. Sometimes we have to invest in the seemingly dull and boring in order to allow God to do a work in us for later. You wouldn’t put a sunflower seed in a vase on your kitchen table, but you might well enjoy the sunflower that grows out of that seed. So it is with sowing the unattractive and unappealing in our own lives, especially when it is those portions of the Word of God that we don’t get and don’t enjoy.
What I’m saying is that you need to schedule the time, make the time, and then be faithfully consistent in investing that time in being in the Word of God every day. How often do you eat? At least once a day? Why? So that you can survive and live and be healthy and pursue the life God has given you. Then we need to be like Job and desire God’s Word more than we desire food – or, at the very least, as much as we desire food. Otherwise, all we are doing is strengthening the flesh and weakening the spirit. Keep in mind that it’s the dog you feed that gets the strongest. Flesh Dog or Spirit Dog – which do you want to rule your life?
Okay, first we approach the Word of God consistently. Then we have to approach our study of the Word expectantly. I’ve told this story before, but it bears telling again. There was an island in the Mediterranean that had been without rain for many months and the people on the island were getting gravely concerned. The crops of grapes that were their livelihood were withering away and soon there would be nothing left. The people were going to starve if rain did not come in very short order. Thee all gathered at the church in the center of the village and asked the priest there if he would pray to God and ask Him to make it rain for them. He said that he would and told everyone to gather outside the church later that afternoon. The priest walked outside onto the top landing of the steps leading up to the church doors at the appointed time and looked out upon a sea of faces. Young, old, men, women, children – it seemed that every human being on the island stood before him. In anger he said, “Go home! All of you! You have no faith for prayer! Why are you wasting my time with this nonsense?”
No one understood, and they were deeply troubled that the priest would not pray for rain. A cry went up, “Why must we go? Why won’t you pray? How can you say we have no faith? We’re here, aren’t we?” To this he replied, “You have no faith! If you truly believed that God would answer your prayers, you would have brought your umbrellas!” Slowly, quietly, dejectedly, they all withdrew to their homes.
A few hours later, the priest went to leave the church and walk into the center of the village to see what he could buy in the way of food. As he stepped out into the fading light, he was astonished at what he saw before him. A sea of opened umbrellas met his gaze. As far as he could see, there were hopeful faces peeking out from beneath the canopy of opened umbrellas. So, he prayed. The people prayed with him. And God sent the rain.
In Hebrews 11:6, we read, “Now without faith it is impossible to please God, for the one who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently search for Him.” Do you believe that God is a rewarder of those who seek Him? Then He will reward you if you seek Him. Look at another time this was promised by God: Jeremiah 29:13; “You will be searching for me and I will be there, when you have gone after me with all your heart.”
So, we study the Word of God consistently, expectantly and then prayerfully. By prayerfully I don’t mean say a prayer, read the Word, and then pray when it’s over. What I mean is, be in conversation with God while you’re reading His Word and while you’re hearing His Word. His Word is “living and active”; He is speaking to you at the very moment that you are reading it. His Word is not just some stuff that a bunch of guys wrote down several thousand years ago. His Word is as fresh and alive as if the ink were still wet on the page. Talk with Him as you read His Word. One excellent example is in Daniel 9, which we looked at a couple of months ago during a Sunday message. Daniel was reading again from the scroll of Jeremiah, what would be in our Bibles Jeremiah 25. It strikes him as he’s reading that the timetable that God has established and given through Jeremiah for the return of the Israelites to their land was coming to a close.
Daniel immediately goes to God and lays out confession and repentance and worship, and he asks God for understanding and insight into what he has just read. God’s response? He sends Gabriel, His ace-messenger to deliver the answer. Gabriel even tells Daniel that God heard and sent an answer to Daniel’s prayer as soon as he prayed it. Do you know and live in the truth that we’ve talked about so far? Do you know and live on the truth that God will be found by you when you seek Him with your whole heart and that He will answer you when you ask Him something with an honest desire to understand His ways? He may tell you that it is not for you to know yet, but even that is an answer.
This ties in well with the next way we approach the Word and that is meditatively. The word for meditate that we found when we read Psalm 1 is a term that comes from animal husbandry that means “to chew the cud.” Think of a cow or a sheep and how they eat. They take in their nourishment, as much as they can hold, and then they lay down somewhere, bring it up again, and chew on it for a while. Their system starts pulling out nutrients for energy and strength and health and for all that they need for their life. A little later, they’ll bring it up again and chew on it some more.
That is what happens when God gives you a truth to ingest while you’re studying His Word. God will bring it to mind throughout the day, throughout the week, for months and months and years to come. The more you can saturate your mind with the Word of God, the more your thinking comes into line with His. And, remember what He tells us in Proverbs 23:7: “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” If we have been washed with the water of the Word and our minds are clean and clear of the lies we have been captivated by, we are then able to know the will of God and live the life He desires to bless us abundantly with. We need to ask these questions of every text we examine:
1) Is there a sin exposed that I need to repent of?
2) Is there a command given I need to obey?
3) Is there a promise made I need to hold on to?
4) Is there a truth revealed that I need to believe instead of some lie I have been believing?
God’s Word is rich in all of these things, even in the lists of genealogies that seem so dry and boring. As an example, let’s look at the list of people given us in Genesis 5. I think you will be somewhat surprised.
Adam means “man”;
Seth means “appointed”;
Enosh means “subject to death”;
Kenan/Cainan means “sorrowful”;
Mahalaleel means “from the presence of God”, or “God shines forth”;
Jared means “one comes down”;
Enoch means “dedicated”;
Methuselah means “dying, he shall send” (the year that Methuselah dies is the same year that God sent the Flood ;)
Lamech means “to the poor and lowly”;
Noah means “comfort and rest”.
Take a look at the meaning of these names in order and you will see the Gospel spelled out in the very beginning of the story of God’s dealings with man. “Man, appointed and subject to death, sorrowful; from the presence of God One comes down dedicated; dying, he shall send to the poor and lowly comfort and rest.”
See the amazing kinds of treasures God has buried in His Word for those who diligently seek Him?
The last way we need to approach our study of the Word of God is obediently. It does no good to read or hear what God has to say and then not be obedient to it. In James 1:22, we are told quite clearly, “But prove yourselves doers of the Word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” To simply pay lip service to what the Word of God teaches is to be self-deceiving, thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought, thinking that just because we know what the Bible says in our heads makes us solid in our walk with God. A little later James tells us, “Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself (2:17).” What he means is if we aren’t obedient to what we say we believe then we have nothing to back it up – it’s just a bunch of empty words in our lives and there is no life in it. A dead faith is a worthless faith.
Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command you (John 15:14).” There is also a very strong promise with a warning recorded for us in John 3:36: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides in him.” Strong words; we need to give them heed. The goal of our life is suppose to be to know and believe God and everything that He has told us about Himself. To believe is to obey – no exceptions. We cannot know those things if we don’t go to the place that He has recorded those things for us: His written Word. This is where we discover all of the basic truths that we need to know and understand in order to be true followers and children of God. There are no other options – this is a non-negotiable. Each of us is to “Study earnestly to present yourself approved to God, a workman that does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15).”
Notice that I keep saying “studying” rather than “reading”. The reason for this is that studying connotes a purposeful and systematic approach to reading through the Scriptures, while just reading connotes a helter-skelter, willy-nilly, get-what-you-can-by-accident type of approach. It has to be consistent and diligent and purposeful to be called study. That doesn’t mean we aren’t to enjoy it. What it simply means is that it is all in our approach, all in our motivation. It isn’t a matter of how much time we spend in the Word, it’s a matter of how we invest the time we spend in His Word.
Someone asked how quickly a person should be able to read through the Bible from cover to cover. The answer to that is: read through the Bible at the speed of prayer. It isn’t a timed event; it isn’t a contest. It is an experience you share with God. The Holy Spirit gives you the understanding you need to have at any given moment. That is not to say that a concordance or a Bible dictionary or some other such tool isn’t good or useful. What it does mean is not to expect to understand the deep things of the text the first or second or twentieth or hundredth time you read through it. The little example I gave from Genesis 5 came after many years, many times through it, and something someone said that caused me to look at it a little differently than I ever had before.
God has given you a gold mine. Now you get to choose what you’re going to do with it. Do you sell it or give it away? Maybe you visit, see what you can see, then leave again and forget about it. Or, perhaps you take a leisurely walk through the mine, picking up a bit of rock here and there, wondering if there really is any gold in this mine after all. Or, maybe you investigate ways to work a gold mine and delve into mining your gift for every bit of rich ore that you can find. That’s what studying the living Word for God is like. God’s Word is what it is, no matter what you do or don’t do with it. The question is, do you want what God has for you in His Word, or are you satisfied with living a stagnant faith that lacks the richness of all the promises of God. See, you can’t really go to God and stand on His promises if you don’t know what those promises are, can you?
Jesus told us, “And He [the Holy Spirit], when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in me [obey me]; and concerning righteousness, because I go to My Father and you no longer behold me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has already been judged (John 16:8-11).” Then later, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Paul teaches us that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”
There is a unique and mysterious blending of the work of the Holy Spirit with the written Word of God. Jesus is called the Living Word, and it is He whom the Holy Spirit speaks of and testifies to. Righteousness and obedient life cannot be separated from the work of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and the indwelling Christ.
Hopefully you have a better sense not only of the importance of studying the Word of God on a daily basis, but also have an idea of how to approach it without fear and apprehension. He doesn’t expect us to get it all the first time. He just asks that we obey what we do get. He will never give you a whole bunch of things to work on. One thing at a time is enough, and He knows this better then anyone.
When you read or hear the Word taught, be interactive and prayerful. When He shows you a blessing that comes from a life of obedience, thank Him in your heart for that promise and that blessing. When He reveals a character defect you need to have corrected, tell Him you confess that sin and thank Him for the forgiveness available through Jesus Christ and ask Him to correct that in you. When He demonstrates through story the faithfulness of one of His children, be grateful for the preservation of the story and thank Him for giving you an example to follow.
Want to prosper? Meditate on the Word and do not let it pass from your lips. Want to bear fruit in keeping with being a child of God? Then make the Word a real and living part of your everyday life.
“For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).” Let His Word do its work in you. Invest time in study everyday. You can’t afford not to.
