How to Study the Bible

I Timothy 4

7 – Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.

8 – For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value to all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.

Joshua 1

7 – Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.

8 – 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.

II Timothy 2 :

15 – Do your best — Study-to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

You know, here in the good old U S of A we say that excellence is very important. In fact we spend tons of tax dollars to hire inspectors whose job it is to make sure that every thing from TIRES to T-SHIRTS are made to specifications that insure the very best quality. How many of you remember the old TV commercial where the inspector says, They don’t say HANES until I say they say HANES?

Well, I was reading this week and was surprised to discover that our standards of excellence aren’t as high as you might think they should be in regards to some of the FOODS we eat. For example our government’s Food and Drug Administration tells its inspectors that when it comes to APPLE BUTTER if the mold count is 12 percent or more…if it averages 5 or more whole insects (not counting mites or aphids) or 4 or more rodent hairs per 100 grams, well then, the FDA will pull it from our shelves. Otherwise it will go right onto your English muffins. COFFEE BEANS will be withdrawn from the market if an average of 10 percent or more are insect-infested or if there is one live insect in each of 2 or more immediate containers. If they find only one container with a roach crawling around in it, the java is still considered excellent-up to snuff-but more than that is simply not acceptable. DRIED MUSHROOMS cannot be sold in the US if there is an average of 20 or more fly larvae of any size per 15 grams. According to this standard 1-19 larvae is fine but more than that is a no-no. FIG PASTE….if there are more than 13 insect heads per 100 grams in each of two or more samples, our FDA ruthlessly tosses the whole batch. HOT DOGS…well let’s just say you don’t want to know about it.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I define excellence in food by the absence of ANY mold or bugs or parts of bugs in my apple butter, coffee beans, mushrooms, fig paste, or hot dogs. But the surprising truth of the matter is that our governmental standards settle for LESS THAN THE BEST when it comes to these-and many other foods.

And this IS unsettling…but what is even more disturbing to me is the fact that so often you and I settle for LESS THAN THE BEST when it comes to spiritual growth and maturity.

Christians who sincerely strive every day to mature and grow and be all that they can be for our Lord seem to be few and far between. They are the exception and not the norm. Most believers tend to shy away from the pursuit of spiritual maturity and instead settle for a shallow, mediocre faith. Richard Foster speaks to this when he says, [Spiritual] superficiality is the curse of our age. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for DEEP people. Now, why is this so? Why do we resist those practices that promise to mature and mold us into more Christ-like disciples? Well, I think there are a number of reasons.

• First of all we are so very busy…too busy to take the time to deal with spiritual maturity.

  We live at such a frantic pace that if it weren’t for our day-timers and palm-pilots and cell phones we couldn’t possibly finish our daily to-do lists. We constantly HURRY…to and from work, to and from our children’s schools, to and from the grocery store or the mall…to and from the gym…to and from our kid’s sports activities. And one of the greatest drawbacks to this kind of existence is that it makes it very hard for us to grow spiritually. This kind of lifestyle leaves no time for such things. John Ortberg writes, Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life…for many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith it is that we will become so distracted and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it.

• And then…another reason we shy away from spiritual growth is the fact that we are too pre-occupied with the things of this world.

  I mean, usually people will tolerate a brief dabbling in the inward journey toward Christlikeness.

  They’ll attend a revival or a retreat every once and a while but then they think it’s time to get on with REAL business in the REAL world. As I told you a few weeks ago, we tend to live for the HERE AND NOW rather than the THERE AND THEN.

• But you know I think the main reason we settle for second best in the area of spiritual growth is ignorance.

We simply do not know how to go about maturing spiritually. Now, this has not always been a problem. In the days of the early church, it was not necessary to give instruction in the BASICS of how to mature spiritually. Back then most Christians were very familiar with those spiritual disciplines that are essential for anyone who wants to strive for excellence in his or her walk with Christ. Practices like how to study the Bible, how to pray effectively, and how to fast…these things were common knowledge. People even seemed to have a better attitude toward worship, realizing that it was for God more than it was for them. They had a healthy reverence of God that made it unthinkable to demand a certain worship style to meet their needs.

But these things can not be said about our generation. No, today there seems to be a widespread lack of knowledge when it comes to even the most simple and practical aspects of nearly all the classic Spiritual Disciplines. And this is why I have felt led for us here at REDLAND to address this issue. I want us to all yearn to be the best we can be for our Master. I want this to be a church whose members understand, revere, and practice those habits that make us more like Jesus. So for the next few weeks I am devoting our pulpit time to go back to the basics and look at some of those classic disciplines that will help us to grow toward spiritual maturity. Let’s begin this basic training by reminding ourselves what the spiritual disciplines are NOT:

• First of all they are not…a ONE TIME thing.

  This is a disappointment to many of us because we WANT spiritual maturity but we are so busy that we want it fast…we want it convenient. We figure that since we have our choice of several FAST food restaurants all equipped with drive-through windows…since we can go to GIANT and purchase things like instant grits and instant pudding…well then, we think there must be some way to gain INSTANT godliness. We believe spiritual growth is something we can do quickly and then check it off our to-do lists and move on to other things. But there is no such thing as instant godliness. In fact, spiritual maturity is the result of a commitment to an ongoing process that we never complete this side of eternity. These disciplines we are going to be looking at are really different kinds of TRAINING that we must practice daily for the rest of our lives. You see, spiritual growth never comes cheaply or easily. We must practice godliness in the same way an athlete practices a sport day after day after day. This is what Paul meant in our text when he encouraged young Timothy to TRAIN himself to be godly. And we do this by embracing these daily disciplines…things that many people refer to as holy habits, practices that over the years help us to grow to be more and more like Jesus.

• Another thing…these disciplines are NOT…a barometer of spirituality.

  I’ve met many people who seem to believe that THEY are spiritual because they read their Bible daily and fast twice a week. They get into a sort of spiritual pride thing because they feel they have been more faithful in these disciplines than others around them. When we fall into this way of thinking we define how GOOD a Christian we are by how well we are performing the disciplines. And when this happens, the disciplines become an end in themselves rather than a means to an end. Looking at these holy habits in this way is equating spiritual DOING with spiritual BEING.

  But this is a great misconception. You see, the spiritual disciplines are to life what practice is to a basketball game. Once the game starts basketball players get no bonus points for the number of free throws they shot in practice. The only reason they practice these shots is to be able to make them in the game. And, we read the BIBLE and pray and fast and worship, and tithe for the purpose of training ourselves to react in the game of life more like Jesus would. The TRUE barometer of spiritual maturity then is seen in how we live…not in how often we engage in these disciplines.

• And then…these disciplines are also NOT…a way to earn favor with God….

  They are not about trying to be good enough to merit God’s forgiveness and goodwill. We don’t do them to get extra credit or to demonstrate to God how deeply we are committed to Him. In other words, they do not oppose or exist in tension with grace. They are simply a means of growing toward the wonderful quality of life that God graciously offers. Richard Foster puts it this way, God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving His grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that He can transform us.

Okay,enough of the negative…what IS a spiritual discipline?

Well I think we should begin by defining the word DISCIPLINE. And I like the way John Ortberg puts it. He says a discipline is, any activity I can do by direct effort that will help me do what I cannot do now by direct effort. You see disciplines are practices that make it possible for us to do what we cannot do by our willpower alone. This is the secret of the success of Alcoholics Anonymous. The first of their famous twelve steps is to acknowledge that an alcoholic cannot stop drinking by willpower alone. He must arrange his life around certain disciplines or practices that will enable him to do what willpower can’t. He must enter a life of TRAINING for sobriety.

• Well a SPIRITUAL discipline then, is any activity that helps us get the power to live life as JESUS would want us to.

  A spiritually disciplined person is someone who, due to his training in godliness, is more likely to do the right thing at the right time in the right way with the right spirit, someone who has trained himself to act and re-act and think in any situation as Jesus would. So these disciplines are the secret to spiritual power…but they are more than that.

• They are also the secret to growing an ever closer RELATIONSHIP with God.

These holy habits help us to become closer to God…they help us to develop a deep fellowship with Him. And we must understand at the onset of this study that God wants this…so very much. He yearns to be in close relationship with us. You know, seven days ago we dropped our son Daniel off at Grove City College which by the way, is located 263 miles from here about 38 minutes north of Pittsburgh. These last seven days have been hard for us. We have missed Daniel deeply. Sue and I have a constant ache in our guts. We yearn to see our son. If you are a parent who has ever dropped a kid off at college or boot camp then you know the feeling I am describing. Well, bring that feeling up into your memory…FEEL IT AGAIN for a moment…and magnify it an infinite number of times and you begin to understand how God feels. You see, as our Heavenly Father yearns to fellowship with us, to share our moments and our days, to talk with us and guide us. In Matthew 23:37 Jesus expressed this when He looked out across Jerusalem and said, How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! God yearns to be in close relationship with us and the spiritual disciplines provide a way for this to happen.

Okay with these basic understandings in mind…let’s begin our study by looking at the first and most important discipline…the discipline of PERSONAL BIBLE STUDY…because as Jerry Bridges says, Discipline toward holiness BEGINS with the Word of God. If we truly want to move toward spiritual maturity…if we want to move toward excellence in our faith…we must discipline our lives with a healthy diet of the Word of God. Remember, the word disciple means student and a student is someone who studies. As disciples of Jesus Christ, as Christians, the focus of our study…our textbook…is the Bible. This is what Paul is getting at when he wrote in II Timothy 3:17 saying that we must study the Bible if we are to be …thoroughly equipped for every good work. Now, many people are often afraid of studying the Bible in depth. To do so seems a bit overwhelming to them. They develop a sort of Biblio-phobia. And this is somewhat understandable because the Bible is full of long, hard-to-pronounce names and words. It is often hard to understand at first glance. Well to get past this fear and develop a love of Bible study you must remember several study tips…

1. First of all you must have the right TOOLS….

And the MAIN tool you need is of course a Bible…one that is written in language that is not only an accurate translation of the Greek or Hebrew but one that is easy for you to understand. These days we are blessed to have dozens of good Bible translations to choose from. In fact I have found that it is best in my study to have a couple different versions handy, a good literal translation and a good paraphrase. Most scholars agree that the most literal…the most accurate version available now…is the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION. In fact we used to use it in seminary to check our translations of the Greek and Hebrew. My favorite paraphrase of the New Testament is THE NEW TESTAMENT IN MODERN ENGLISH by J. B. Phillips. I think he puts the scriptures in easy to understand words and phrases without straying from the literal meaning of the text. But there are several good translations out there…the NIV, the NRSV, the TEV. Pick one or more and use them in your study of God’s word.

These days many Christians give up on this particular discipline because they use only the King James Version and that was the best translation available back in the 17th century. Even today it has a beauty and a rhythm that is not found in other versions. But the KJV does not use the words we use so it is hard to understand in several places.

About the time the KJV came out Sir Christopher Wren was made the architect in charge of the rebuilding of London after fire of 1666. His most ambitious task St. Paul’s Cathedral which took 35 years to complete. After work was completed the reigning monarch at the time, Queen Ann, was escorted through the building. When the tour was complete Wren breathlessly awaited her reactions to his work. When she finally spoke she used three words to describe what she saw: She said, It’s awful- It’s amusing – It’s artificial. Now to us those are three rather derogatory words to use when describing a church building but in those days awful meant awe inspiring, amusing meant amazing, and artificial meant artistic. I share this to help you see how important it is to study from a translation that uses words that you and I DO understand since the meaning of words change so much overtime.

A second item to have in your Bible study tool belt is a good concordance. I say this because there will be times when you need to find a verse that deals with a certain subject and a concordance lists all the words that appear in the Bible and where they can be found. The best concordances are huge. I refer to my exhaustive concordance as my exhausting concordance because it is so heavy. But, thanks to computers you can have a complete concordance on one CD easily accessible in your study.

Another important tool is a good commentary. Just be sure it is written by someone who has a healthy respect for the Scriptures. I personally have found that purchasing sets of commentaries is usually not a good use of my money. It’s like eating at a smorgasbord where there is always a great quantity of food but the quality is less than you would want to find. I think it’s better to purchase commentaries on individual books written by Christians you respect. For example, I like Herschel Hobbs’s commentaries on the four gospels…and Charles Swindoll’s commentary on the book of Philippians.

One final tool I recommend is a notebook…a journal…to use in writing down your thoughts as you read the Bible…your observations…your questions…the prayers that come as a result of your study.

So, use the right tools when you study the Bible.

2. The second thing you need when studying the Bible is…the right ATTITUDE.

One reason I say this is because many people fall into the prideful habit of reading Scripture to APPEAR spiritual. They purchase a Bible because of it’s size or weight thinking the bigger and heavier the Bible the more spiritual its carrier. Other people are of the attitude that we read the Bible to amass information. They make it their goal to memorize the names of all the disciples or all the kings of Israel. But, we don’t read the Bible for information as much as we do for transformation.

Larry Richards tells the story of the Prince of Granada, next in line for the Spanish throne, who was condemned to spend his life in the solitary confinement of a Madrid prison cell. As he lived out his life behind these ancient walls he was given one book to read, the Bible. For 33 years this would-be king languished in his jail cell. And, over the years he apparently read the Bible through hundreds of times. As he read through its pages day after day, year after year, he used a nail to scratch out notations on the soft stone walls of his cell. For example he scratched the following things:

• The eighth verse of the ninety-seventh psalm is the middle verse of the Bible.
• Ezra 7:21 contains all the letters of the alphabet except the letter J.
• The ninth verse of the eighth chapter of Esther is the longest verse in the Bible.
• No word or name of more than six syllables can be found in the Bible.

Now, understand, this was a man of greater than average intelligence. He spend the majority of his life reading the Bible with no interruptions or distractions. And yet from his study of the book of books all he gained was trivia. What a waste!

I say this because we don’t read the Bible to be smarter. We read it to be more like God and less like the world. Thanks to the fact that we live in a fallen world, our minds and hearts are cluttered with false beliefs and attitudes, deadly feelings, misguided plans and hopes and fears. Because of this, as James says, we must purify our hearts. James 4:8 And the Bible can do this if we let it. This is what Paul was referring to in Ephesians 5:27 when he talked about Christians being, …made holy, cleansed by the washing with water through the Word [of God].

So, we must have the right attitude as we study the Bible. We must admit our need to be changed…renewed…by it’s truth.

3. The third thing requirement for anyone who wants to truly understand the Bible is the aid of the right TUTOR.

Before you begin reading the Scriptures take a moment to ask God to speak to you. Then as you study anticipate that He will do so. He will because Jesus promised that He would. In John 16:13 He said, The Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth. I can tell you from personal experience that this verse is true. God will meet us in His word. When I was in college there were several months in which I was going through a time of particular emotional hardship. I won’t go into any details but it was one of those trials that consumes your every thought. I couldn’t even sleep at night. My life was a real nightmare and one night in anguish I cried out to God for help. I asked Him to help me find peace. In response I felt Him encouraging me to read the Bible. I opened it to the book of Isaiah and my eyes fell on chapter 26:3 where it says, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee. As I read those words a feeling of peace rushed over me as God told me through that verse that as long as I dwelled on Him rather than my problem I could have peace. I fell into a deep sleep with my Bible in hand and in the coming months any time fear began to invade my thoughts God brought that verse back to my mind and with it His peace.

So, as you study enlist the aid of the right Tutor. Learn to say with the Psalmist to God, Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in Your law. (Psalm 119:105 ) Remember Bible study is not just getting to know the word of God as much as it is getting to know the God of the Word! As the hymn text says, Beyond the sacred page I seek THEE Lord…my spirit longs for THEE Oh Living Word.

4. Fourthly…as you study the Bible you must use the right METHOD….

And there are several things to remember that will help us to do this. First of all don’t take verses out of context. Read what went before and after. Many men are quick to quote Ephesians 5:25, which says, Wives, submit to your husbands as a proof-text that husbands are to domineer over their spouses. But doing so is ignoring verse 21 which says that husbands and wives should, …submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. To properly understand the scripture we must read all of it, not pick and choose verses or phrases to support our opinions. It also helps to consider the historical situation and the culture in which certain texts are written. Doing so helps us to glean the principle that we are to apply to our lives today. This is where a good commentary can come in handy.

Another thing, don’t just pick it up and start reading from Genesis. Most people who do that quit by the time they get half way through Leviticus. Adopt a read your Bible through plan that allows you to read it through in a balanced way. With only 12 minutes a day it is possible to read the entire Bible in a year and this morning I want to challenge you to do that. There is an insert in your bulletin that contains a good plan that will help you to do this. But, go slowly, take MORE than 12 minutes…don’t just skim the surface of the Scriptures. Take time to absorb the truth. Remember success in Bible study is not measured by the number of pages you read. No, the goal is not to get through the Scriptures…but for the Scriptures to get through us. I think that as you read the Bible through it is best to immerse yourself in a short passage of Scripture, perhaps just a few verses. Read them slowly as you would a love letter at the height of a romance or an e-mail from your son who is away at college! Allow the words to sink into your heart. And, as they do ask God, What do You want to say to me here? In Psalm 119 David advises us to meditate on the law day and night and I think this infers this practice of taking small portions of Scripture and dwelling on them until their truth dwells in us.

One way we do this is to MEMORIZE scripture. In this way Scripture becomes a part of the way we think and react to life…part of our programing. So for example if fear is something you wrestle with try memorizing Psalm 27:1 where it says, The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? If pride is a problem for you try, Philippians 2:3 which says, Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.

One more study tip…

5. We must USE the Bible in the right WAY…

In our study of God’s word, we must move beyond the question, What does it mean? to asking, What does it mean TO ME? We must seek to apply the truth of God’s word to our lives. This is where Bible study becomes a little less comfortable because we have to actually practice the things we read which involves changing the way we live…giving up sinful habits and thoughts. We may not like this but Bible study is incomplete and really pointless unless we apply it’s truth to our lives…unless as Blackaby says, we adjust our lives in obedience to God’s teaching. So, as James 1:22 says, Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away immediately and forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard but DOING it…he will be blessed in what he does.

For Bible study to benefit our lives we have to apply it’s truths TO our lives. And you know, the same thing is true of worship. It is pointless for us to gather here each week unless we apply what we learn…unless we respond personally, individually…to what God says. We come now to the time of our service in which we encourage you to do just that. Today God may have told you that you need to commit to personal Bible study…to reading His Word daily. If that is true then I challenge you to make that a public decision….walk forward and say, Mark, I am going to study the Bible every day. Pray for me as I do so. Others of you may feel God guiding you to join this church…to become a part of this spiritual family as we seek to grow and be more and more like Jesus. And then…there may be someone here this morning who doesn’t know God personally. You’ve never asked Jesus to forgive you of your sin and to come into your heart and life as Savior and Lord. You’ve never met the God of the Word…the Author of this book. If that applies to you, then I urge you to make that commitment…and if you do come and share it with me. Whatever decisions you have to make, I invite you to do so by walking an aisle and sharing them with me or Steve as we stand now and sing.