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Back to the Bible Podcast
Episode 120: Bible Study Basics
00:30:02
In this episode, we consider basic helps for Bible study.
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Back to the Bible. Let it be our plea, God's Word alone, our authority, every word, every step in the name of Christ. Back to the Bible for the way of life. Thank you for taking the time to join us for this period of Bible study. And I hope that our time together is well spent, that it is beneficial for you, and that you are able to gain insight into God's Word as we consider it and as we make it our desire to go back to the Bible for it all. Today, as I'm recording, it is the Lord's Day and I am ready to go and be with the saints where I am. If you are listening to this on a Sunday morning, then you can make preparation to go and be with a group of God's people. And if you're listening to this through the week, then you can make preparation for the Lord's Day that's coming up to be gathered with people who are interested in worshiping God and in doing his work and in sharing together in the way that the Bible prescribes. And so we would, of course, encourage that. And if you're looking for a group to assemble with, to associate with, to be a part of, you're looking for folks who are interested in going back to the Bible and the way that they do their work and their worship and the way that they live their lives, then we would love to point you in the direction of people. Let me tell you this. When you send us a message, we will not be able to send you the perfect church. The congregation I'm a part of is not a perfect church, in part because they have to deal with my preaching from time to time. But one thing is, is that there are churches that are committed to certain things that other churches aren't committed to. And I would rather have a church that has certain objectives and goals, knowing they're not perfect, rather than be a part of a congregation who, because they're still made up of imperfect people, don't even have the right goals or agendas in mind. And so we have to make decisions and choices about who we're going to assemble with and where we're going to go. And the kind of people that I want to assemble with are people who are committed to going back to the Bible for it all. And so we would love to point you in the direction of a group that is growing and trying to be more like what they see in the Scriptures, and of course, made up of individuals who are trying to be more like Jesus. You can reach out to us at our program backtothebiblepodcast.com backtothebiblepodcast.Com and there's a form there where you can fill out the information and you can contact us and we'll be able to get right back with you. Let me also mention the resources that are available there. There is the program that you're listening to today. If you wanted to share it, that would be a good place to share it from. I know some people listen through either the radio or through some kind of podcast hosting application, but you could go to the website, you could share it from there. In addition to that, there is information about us and what we're trying to accomplish. There are other resources, there are links to books that we've tried to make available and there are archives of older lessons from my grandfather who really started this program and had lots of programs preceding it and with whom I was able to work together on this program in Walker County. And now we do it through the podcast and the radio. And so we know that we are able to reach more and different people in different ways. But there's no reason for you to miss out on the things that he had to say. And I think you will find value in that. And so we encourage you to check out the website at some point and you can also find previous episodes of this recording. That is my lessons. I think we're about 120 lessons now. This is. You can access all those previous episodes and go back a couple of years to listen to those. Alright. What I'd like to talk about today are some key principles for Bible study. I don't say this as someone who believes that I am a good Bible student and really not a good Bible teacher in many ways. But I say this as somebody who wants to be, who wants to come to a better understanding of God's word. And so I think there's some principles that we can consider and that we can look at that will help make us all better Bible students. And what I want to do first, I want to think about the power of God, Bible reading, just reading the Scriptures. I know that when we think about Bible reading and we think about Bible study, maybe we're thinking about two different things. And I know that's true, that is right. But I think that sometimes we downplay the value of just reading our Bibles as value for Bible study. Brother Tom Holly, who I have heard preach and teach Bible classes many times in the recent years, is a major advocate of Bible reading and he has really helped me in this area. And I think he's helped dozens of other preachers and probably hundreds of other Christians who are listening to him when he says we need to read our Bibles. And he's an intense Bible reader and he has lots of suggestions that I think are helpful and powerful. And I am not where he is in Bible reading, and I do not claim to be. But what he has impressed on me and what I've been able to see is the value of reading the Scriptures regularly. I see it in myself, I see it in others, I see it in my children that regular Bible reading is a major help. And we know that should be the case, given what the Bible is. Think about what Paul says in First Corinthians, chapter 2. In verse 9, he says, Just as it is written, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him. Now, the text there, sometimes people use that to talk about heaven. And I do think that it is true that our eyes haven't seen and our ears haven't heard and it hasn't entered the heart of man, all that heaven is going to be, and he has prepared it for those who love him. But that's not the emphasis of what this text is talking about. What this text is talking about is the revelation of the will of God. We couldn't see it or hear it on our own. We couldn't think it up on our insides. God has prepared it, and he's prepared it for those who love him, who want to hear what he has to say. Verse 10. But to us God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the depths of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, the depths of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the depths graciously given to us by God. Now, of the depths of which we also speak not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual depths with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the depths of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually examined. But he who is a spiritual examines all things, yet he himself is examined by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he will direct him. But we have the mind of Christ. Notice what Paul is saying. There that we could not know what's in another person's mind. I mean, I just want you to consider this. You can't read my mind. If you could read my mind, you would know what I'm holding in my hand. Do you have any guesses? Now, if you guess this correctly, I want you to send me a message so that I know who the mind readers are out there. But if you can guess what I have in my hand, then that says something, that maybe you have some insight. But even if you could read my mind, and you know, if you're married, you can't read your spouse's mind, your children don't read your mind, you can't read their mind. You know that even the people that you're closest to, you might know the line of thinking that y' all are on, but you don't know what, what they're thinking all the time. You can't read their mind. And just like you can't read a stranger's mind, how much less would you be able to read God's mind? He's on a different plane. In case you were wondering, I had a clay slingshot pellet in my hand. If you guessed that, that's pretty good. But my point in that was, is to say if you can't read my mind and we're on the same human level, and many of those, I anticipate that those of you who are listening, you probably speak the same language and we live in the same area. And if you can't read my mind, then how much less are we going to be able to read God's mind? But here's the beauty. That God revealed his will to the apostles who wrote that down, combining spiritual thoughts, spiritual depths with spiritual words. The very words that were written down are the word of God. And so we want to read that because it is God's word to and for us. Flip over to the book of Ephesians if you've got your Bible handy. In this text, Paul has just said some pretty deep things about the transition of the Gentiles from being outside of Christ, being in Christ, from being away from the covenant people of God, to being fellow citizens in that kingdom. And in Ephesians 3:1, Paul says, For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles, if indeed you heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before, in brief, about which when you read, you can Understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise of Christ Jesus. Through the Gospel of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace which is given to me according to the working of his power. I want you to see what Paul says here. He says that God revealed to him the mystery. When we think about the mystery in the New Testament, the mystery is something that had not been revealed but now is made known. It's one of those things that there was evidence all along the way. But it's not until we see Christ and until we have the word of revelation under the New Covenant that we have all those pieces together. It's kind of like a mystery movie or a mystery book. As you're reading, there's some thing that it's all pointing to, maybe the who done it of it. But what you see is you just see evidence along the way, but you don't put it all together until the end. That's what Paul's saying happened. There had been evidence all along the way, but we didn't know the fullness of that picture until by revelation, God made it known. Now I want you to think about that. Down in verse five. He says this was not made known to the sons of men. It has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit I think we do have. The apostles are primary there. Then the prophets are also revealing in the New Covenant era. But what we've got is God's will being made known through inspired men like Paul, Peter, John. These inspired men, notice what he says. Made known to me the mystery as I wrote before. In brief, I take it to be he's talking about what he has just said in chapters one and two. He has just talked about the mystery, the thing that has been revealed. The reason I make that connection is because he begins to talk about in verse six what the mystery is. And he talks about the Gentiles being fellow heirs, members of the body and partakers of the promise, which is what he had just discussed in chapter two. Now notice, he says by Revelation it was made known to him. He wrote it down. And notice what he says to the Ephesians, about which, when you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ. What could they do? They could read what Paul wrote and Understand what he understood about the mystery that was revealed in Christ. What do you think about that? Do you see that? They could read Paul's words, and even though they were not getting direct revelation, they could come to know God's will because they were reading what Paul wrote down. Now, what's the lesson for us? The lesson is, is if that's how they could come to a knowledge of God's revelation, then reading the Bible is how we can come to a knowledge of revelation. We can see the mystery and the mystery revealed as we read the Scriptures. So there are a couple of things that I think that are helpful in reading the Scripture. One is just we want real familiarity with the text as we answer questions. I think most of the time when we have Bible questions, almost always if we just have a good familiarity with the text, we would be able to put some things together. And of course we want to study and we want to practice putting those things together. But I think the more we read, the more we will see the text very clearly and we will remember it and we will be able to put things together. Because I think the very best way to explain Scripture is to use Scripture when there are phrases or words or ideas that we see in one place that we want to see what that means. I think almost always the best context for that is other passages that say something about it. Now, there are some things. There are some things the Bible teaches that maybe we don't have a lot of insight from other passages about. But almost always other passages give us insight and context and understanding into what we need to know. And I think the power of Bible reading is that we have that on our minds all the time. I don't know how many books you read over and over, but as far as books to read over and over, the Bible is the grandest. It is the one that is worth reading over and over. Brother Tom, who emphasized Bible reading so much, makes the point, is God worth 1% of your day? And surely you would say, isn't he worth way more than 1%? Okay, that's right. And there is a way in which God should have all hundred percent of your day. Every part of it should be ingrained with an awareness of God and with appreciation and with application of His Word. But Brother Tom makes the point that if we gave God 1% of our time in Bible reading, then do you know what we could do? That would be about 14 and a half minutes every day. If we round it up to 15, you would be able to read the whole Bible and more Every year, if you just gave him 15 minutes a day, 1% of your day. And so I think the power of Bible reading is it makes us familiar with the text. We are able to connect Scripture together. And Paul says that when you read, you can understand his insight into the mystery of Christ. Do you see the value of Bible reading? Let me make one other point very quickly. I think if in fact 1% of our day is worth giving to the Lord, then I believe if we have little children, I think there could not be a better way to spend 1% of our day. I don't think there's a better way than sitting around the coffee table or in the living room or around the dining room table and reading God's Word together. I think that would be a precious, valuable, important, significant 1% of your day. And maybe it would become more, I don't know. So when we come to good Bible study habits, there is a great example of this in Acts 17:11. Now, several episodes ago, it's been a while, but I did a lesson on Ezra, who was the model Bible student. And I think that is true. Ezra was a model Bible student in that he had set his heart to know it, to know the law, to do it, and to teach his statutes and judgment in Israel. He wanted to go from knowing to application to instruction. That is a great path for somebody who wants to know and do and teach God's Word. And that's a very important order. Now when we come to Acts 17:10, Paul has just been driven out of Thessalonica and he has come down to the city of Berea. Acts 17:10 and the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. Now these were more noble minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the Word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether those things were so. Let me make the case that what the Bereans do here is a great model for Bible study. The first thing that we see about them is they have open hearts. The text here says they were more noble minded. The idea of that is they were more honest hearted. They are receiving the Word. They are interested in knowing what they have to say. They have open hearts. Jesus would say that if you are my disciples in order to be his disciples, if we abide in His Word, we are his disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you or make you free. Now, in order to have an open heart, there are some things that we need. First, we need humility. If we're going to have an open heart, we have to say, I may not have all the answers. Maybe we would say, I don't have all the answers. Now, even though we are humble and recognizing that I don't have the answers, I think that it is not humble to say, but I'm not sure the Bible does either. Our commitment must be two ways. We must have humility in ourselves and and confidence in the Scriptures. Because if we don't trust ourselves 100%, but we trust the Scriptures 100%, then we will have open hearts to hear what the Scriptures have to say. And so we want the truth and we want to be willing to submit to that. That's what an open heart demands. So the model of the Thessalonians is open hearts, but that's not it. Their model is open Bibles. Now, they probably did not have their own copy of a Bible like we do. We are in a wonderful position to be able to have a copy of our Bible accessible to us. I've got my computer open. I've got my iPad, I've got my phone sitting over there on the counter. I can go to my bookshelf and grab probably a dozen or more Bibles. And that's just the ones that I've got access to right here at home. And so what we've got is we have access to God's Word all the time. They probably didn't have that as readily accessible, I take it to be. They probably had to go to the synagogue and get a scroll to unroll. And it was the synagogue copy. It wasn't as if they all had their individual copy of it. But they had those Bibles open, didn't they? They had the Bibles open because they were searching the Scriptures daily to see whether or not those things that they were being taught were. So we don't want to just accept the word of a preacher just because he's our preacher or our pastor or the person that we trust or our parents we want. I have zero problem with listening to good Bible teachers. I hope I have zero problem with that, because I'd like for you to listen to this. But never say that I can know the truth about something because some teacher told me, you can have teachers that will point you in the right direction. You will have teachers who will point you to Scripture. But if they can't back up what they are saying by Scripture, then what they are saying you should not put that much investment into. And if it contradicts scripture, you certainly need to just reject it. But notice these folks, they have open Bibles. They are examining the Scriptures daily. Why would they do that? I think it's because they recognize what Paul says in 2 Timothy chapter 3, that all Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for doctrine, for correction, for rebuke, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished to every good work. Why would they want access to their Bibles daily? It's because of what the Bible is. All scripture, every word is breathed out by God and the production is, is a book, listen, that can teach, that can rebuke, that can correct, and that can give us instructions in righteousness. One said that it can tell us what's right, what's not right, how to get right, and how to stay right. I think that's right. Lately, one Gospel preacher that I do appreciate very much used this illustration. He said, it is as if you were walking down a path in a national park. And the Bible is the path. It can show you the right way to walk. But it is also those signs that say, you're not on the path, you're off the path, you're in danger, get back. And it is also signs that point you back to the right path. And then it is instructions about staying on that way. And that's what scripture is. That's why we want it in our lives daily. Because we want to know the right way to walk. We want to know if we're not walking the right way, we want to know how to get back to the right way. And then we want to continue on the path of life all the way through. When we think about the Scriptures, it is important that we have open Bibles because we need to see the truth that God has to say to us. Can I tell you, you know the story, the account of the rich man in Lazarus? I don't know if the rich man in Lazarus is what we would think of as an actual story or a historical event, or if it's a parable. I don't think it matters ultimately because Jesus is making application from that. And if he's making application from. From something that isn't even going to happen, then where's the application then? Why would I be motivated if the seriousness of the story is just all made up? But I don't think Jesus made it up. I think Jesus is talking about real places. I think he's talking about real situations. And remember that the rich man says, I want you to send Lazarus back To tell my brothers. First he wants him to come over there and dip his finger in water and drip it on the. On his tongue. But Abraham says no. And then the rich man says, well, just send Lazarus back to tell my brothers. And Abraham says no, they have listen. They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. But he said, no, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. But he said to him, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead. I want you to ponder this. If you are not listening to the Scriptures, then you do not have hope of eternal life. And if there is a loved one of yours who has lived a life in such a way that they are lost, then their great desire for you is that you not come to the place where they are and notice what the solution to that is. Read the Scriptures. The solution is not to just depend on the way they live their lives and say, well, I don't want to do anything different than they did. I don't want to do something different than mom or grandma or grandpa did. I want to live in a way that they did. Because, you know, if I do this or that, then what am I saying about them? The rich man said, I want my brothers to do what's right. And Abraham says in this parable, Abraham says, then they need to be reading their Bibles. They need to be reading their Bibles. So they, the people in Berea, they had open hearts, they had an open Bible, and they had an open schedule. They were doing it daily. They were interested in this, they were pursuing this. And I think the only way that we're going to let the Bible shape us is if we give regular, steady attention to it. Psalm 119, verse 9. How could a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to your word. Psalm 119, verse 104. The text there says, from your precepts I get perception, therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Verse 97. O how I love youe Law. It is my meditation all the day. Verse 164. Seven times a day. I praise you because of your righteous judgments. Set a time, set a priority. Self sacrifice, make your schedule well. There's much more to say about being a good Bible student. But can we say that regular reading with an open heart, an open Bible and an open schedule is the very best place to start? Until next time, we bid you a pleasant good day. Back to the Bible Let it be our plea God's word alone, our authority Every word, every step in the name of Christ Back to the Bible for the way of life.