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Back to the Bible Podcast
Episode 122: Bible Study Basics, 2
00:30:03
In this episode, we consider things that will help us in our 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.
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Welcome to this period of Bible study. We are so thankful, as always, for the opportunity to share with you in a consideration of God's Word. And we hope that our time together is well spent. And if there are ways where we can be more helpful, we pray that you would let us know. And we make it our effort always to be truthful and to be clear. And if there are ways in which you hear the program, you have questions or concerns, if you have criticisms, or if you have complaints, then we would not mind hearing those. Because what we want to do is we want to be most of all faithful to God's Word. And then we want to be clear as we express that. And we also want to say things that mean something to you and that are a benefit to you. And. And if there is a question, a particular Bible question that you have or a topic you would like for us to address, if there is something that we have said that you would like more information on, we would love for you to reach out to us. The best way to do that would be through our website, backtothebiblepodcast.com backtothebiblepodcast.Com there you can find our programs, you can find information about us. There are archives, older programs, those preached by my grandfather on the Back to the Bible program. And then also there are resources there that you can access. And then we hope to be adding more resources to that all the time. But all of that may not answer the questions that you have, may not address the concerns you have, and we would be happy to hear from you. It may also be that you're looking for a local group to associate with. Maybe you're looking for a church to visit with or even to be a member of. And you could reach out and I would love to put you in contact with someone close to you nearby. If you're listening on local radio, whether it's in Walker county or Franklin County, Alabama, or somewhere around, I think I could point you in the right direction pretty quickly. And if you're listening somewhere else, then it's very possible that we have connections with brethren all over the place. And perhaps we can put you in touch with someone quickly so that they can study with you or so that you can visit them in their worship services. And we would love for you to reach out and find out about that. Let's turn our attention to the study for the day A couple of programs ago, I wanted to talk about key principles for Bible study. And I think that really I laid the foundation for what I think are the keys to studying the Bible. Well, we focused first on the power of Bible reading. I know that Bible reading and Bible study are not the same, but I think that we need to start with regular Bible reading. I think that most of our issues when it comes to knowing the Bible well is a lack of familiarity with the text. And what I mean by that is it is not a matter of the fact that we haven't sat down and dug down deep in the commentaries, though I'm going to mention that in just a second. But I think that the issue primarily is we don't see the connections in Scripture. And the very best way to overcome that is to do regular Bible reading. And I think that is true for all of us. I think it benefits all of us to do that. I can tell you that my Bible reading, for example, in the Prophets, has not been as thorough as it needs to be. I feel like there's other places where my Bible reading has been regular and I'm able to make good connections within the text and even to other places. But I think there are some areas where I have lacked and limited and I need to be aware of that. And I find that when I read something like the Prophets or other places where I'm unfamiliar, what it does is it helps me make connections to other places and gives me more insight. Now I think that the intention of Scripture is to be read and re read. I don't think that the Bible is like some book where you see the plot ending and you say, well, now I know how that story ends. That's well enough for me. I don't think that's it at all. I think that we see the grand scheme of Scripture and we see not only maybe the end of the narrative in the book, but we also see what the end of the story story is going to be in our lives and for humanity and for creation. But I think that the intention is to read it regularly and ponder it. And there's plenty of passages that emphasize that. But I'm thinking about Psalm 1 where he says that the man is blessed whose meditation is on the law of the Lord day and night, day and night. And so we talked about the keys to Bible study is having an open heart. That is, we need to approach the Scriptures with the reality and with the possibility that we didn't know the right answer and we can learn it this time and that what we need to do is humble ourselves under the word of God, God and let it correct us. Now let me say I do not think that it is proud or arrogant to believe that we have the truth, to believe that we have come to an understanding of the truth. Arrogance would be in fact to say that I can't know the truth when I've got the book right in front of me that tells me, but what humility does is to say that I am not the origin of that truth and that I'm going to be willing to submit myself to what God's word has to say. When we come to our scriptures, when we come to the Bible, we need to have an open heart and we need to have an open Bible. That is, we need to be reading the Scripture the most. That's where our focus needs to be. I was talking to someone just a couple of days ago and the appreciation for just working right through a Bible text, working through the book of Luke or the book of Acts or the book of Corinthians, First Corinthians or whatever and working through that now, I think that should be a focus of our study. I think it even should be a focus of our classes. I'm not opposed to topical lessons, but I think sometimes what happens is we don't really know, we don't understand the text that we are quoting to apply to our topic. And I think it's very helpful that we spend a lot of time with an open Bible so that when I go to make a reference to a passage, I know what's going on around that passage in order to make the proper application. And we need an open schedule, we're going to have to make time for Bible study. I have a. What you might think of as a regular ordinary job. And what that means for me is that I'm getting to my job early to do the things that I need to do in order to have time, in order to make time for regular Bible study. And I think that we all can make time for that. The way you make time for that may be different than the way that I do. But I think that we all have to find a way in order to ensure that we're going to have time for Bible reading and even Bible study. Alright, so open hearts, open Bibles and an open schedule. And I think those applications are good when they're taken from Acts 17, that the Bereans were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they searched the Scriptures daily to see whether those things that Paul and his companions taught were so. Okay, let me now go to some ways that I think that we can make application of these principles. Let me suggest first that I think one of the very best ways to ensure that you're going to be a good Bible student is making preparation for Bible classes. Now you say, well, I don't go to a Bible class. Well, maybe that's something that we can consider then. If you want to be a good Bible student, take advantage of the opportunities that are put in front of you. Now, you may be studying some topic or you may be studying some Bible book. Well, that's wonderful. And what you should do is you should make preparation for that. I think that if we just start in our study now, I think we should be reading every day. But if we start in what we would consider a study in making preparation for Bible classes, that's going to help us tremendously as Bible students. You know, I think that it's reasonable, it's right to say, what if the Bible class teacher wasn't going to be there and somebody needed to just guide us through the study? I think that the longer that we study, that could be kind of our approach to it is if I was going to teach this, how would I do it? Now, that doesn't mean that when you get into Bible class, all of a sudden you take over, but it does mean that you make the preparation so that you could have something helpful to say in, in the class. What Paul told Timothy in two Timothy chapter three and verse 14, he says, but you continue in the things you learned and became convinced of knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is God breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work. Timothy, as he was being raised, was being taught the Scriptures from childhood. He knew the Holy Scriptures and those were able to make him wise unto salvation. And they were taking time. His mother and his grandmother especially are referenced as taking time to spend with him in his childhood to make sure that he knew the book. And so I think that what we can do with our children and with ourselves is if we take regular time in making preparation for our Bible classes, it can help us. One tool that I really love is a tool called the Bible periods. Now, there are various versions of these, but the one that we use where the congregation, where I'm a part of is one that was developed by Bob and Sandra Waldron. And I love that because what you do is you memorize the Bible periods. So you start off with before the flood, the flood, scattering of the people, patriarchs, Egyptian bondage, wandering in the wilderness. I won't keep going for right now, but there are 17 of those Bible periods. And what you're doing is as you're memorizing those Bible periods, you are organizing information. It's as if you've got 17 file folders to put information in. And that's valuable for lots of reasons. But one is, once I've memorized those 17 Bible periods and once I have made the connections between how we get from one Bible period to the next, I think that you could sit down and just tell someone what the Bible is all about. I think I could tell you the whole story of Scripture by just going through those Bible periods and telling you how we get from one to the next. Now, the other valuable thing is, or another, I'm sure there's multiple things, is that what happens is you're able to file information into those different categories. For example, when we come to the prophets, it's difficult sometimes to understand who they're talking to, what they're talking about. But the beauty of it is, is that in our Bible periods, we can file almost all of those into what we would think of as the divided kingdom period or the captivity period, or the return from captivity period. And I think knowing which prophets belong where is very helpful. For example, the fact that I know that Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi are prophesying after they come back from captivity and after they've begun making attempts to rebuild the temple, that helps me in understanding the situation that they are talking about, the. The position, the point of view that they have, the perspective. Now, of course, God's Word is inspired by him. It is timeless, it is eternal. But that doesn't mean that what's happening at that moment doesn't have specific concern with the application. And so having those Bible periods helps us understand the context, it helps us understand the situation, it helps us understand the purpose of the passages. And I really think that this is true. I believe that it puts us in a position to direct the story toward the ultimate purpose of Scripture, which is pointing us to Jesus. I believe that you could mention just about any story, any account in Scripture. I think you could bring up almost any verse in the Old Testament. And because of the teaching and training that people have helped me with in knowing the context of books within their Bible period, I think I could start from almost anywhere and preach Jesus. That's exactly what the Ethiopian eunuch got from Philip. And we'll talk more about that later. Let me say that if you're going to Bible class, that investing into the class prior to that is going to give you prior gain. That way, if you go to the class and the teacher didn't do a very good job, that's alright, you want him to do a better job, but maybe he didn't do a good job that day, that's okay because you've made prior preparation and so you're going to be alright, you're going to be able to participate more fully in the class. Sometimes what happens is you just show up and you don't have anything that you can help with or contribute. And maybe even you're not gaining as much because you're so unfamiliar. The rest of the group might be talking and saying, well, you know this passage here and that and, and you're thinking, well, where are they getting that information? And just a little prior participation would have gotten you there. I think it will help you make connections because what will happen is you've studied some Bible passages and another brother or sister will bring up a Bible passage and you will say, oh, I didn't see that one. And now you can put it together with what you already know. It will increase your familiarity. You've studied it maybe for 30 minutes or for an hour before Bible class, and then you go and you study it for another 30, 45 minutes in Bible class. Now you've done it for extra long and you've been exposed to it. And I think that prior preparation could potentially make you useful in that role. And even if you're not going to end up being a Bible class teacher for little ones or for older ones, maybe you're a parent or a grandparent or you interact with people from day to day. And the more preparation you make in talking about Bible subjects, the more equipped you'll be to have those conversations with others. So what does that preparation look like? I think it looks like reading the texts for sure. And I think it means studying those, pondering them. We can talk more about that later. But I think also it means writing down the questions you have or the questions that somebody else might have, and you write those down and you try to work through those answers. And the things you can't work through might be good questions to ask and remember. We want to ask those questions in a sincere and helpful way. Let me make mention of this idea, and I think this is something that we all need to think about is how do we use other resources? How do we use other resources? I think that we read in Scripture that it is right and good to have other people help guide us in our understanding of Scripture. So we have Philip. He goes up to the Ethiopian eunuch and says, what are you reading? And the Ethiopian eunuch says, how can I unless some man should guide me? And then in Ephesians 4, verses 11 and 12, we read there that God, through Jesus gave gifts. And some of those gifts were apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers. And so people who help explain the word of God are gifts given by God. There's a wonderful passage in the Old Testament in the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah, chapter 8, where Nehemiah stands up and he reads the law, and the Levites pass around and they give the sense of the reading to those who are listening. They explain it. Maybe there's translation involved, maybe there is explanation involved, maybe there's connection. But I think we see in Scripture that it is appropriate that there be someone to guide people, even people who are able to listen and look at the Scripture, someone to point them in the right direction. Now, let me say that in some of those cases, we're talking about inspired speakers. So that's different than me getting up and explaining. But I think we can see, at least in some of those instances, that we're talking about people who are guiding people in an understanding of God's word because of their longer exposure and experience with it. One brother, as I was talking to him about using resources, used an illustration that I think is helpful. And it's the wheat and the chaff. It's the corn and the shuck. You know, when we're going to try to get value out of wheat or out of corn, we don't take it all. We shuck it. We get the chaff out and we throw that away and we pay attention. We take advantage of the good that's there. My radar is always on when I'm reading books about the Bible. You know, almost always when I'm reading a book about the Bible, I know that the person may take a bad position on what it takes for a person to be saved. I think they will take perhaps a bad position on what it means for the Holy Spirit to be involved in our lives. They may take a bad position on the end times. Now, in general, what I try to do is if I'm Going to read a book, I like to know the background of the author that I'm reading. I have gained tremendously from people who I would disagree with on a range of topics. And there are books that I have gained value from that I would not just hand over to. To a high schooler or to somebody who's just starting off and studying the Bible. But that doesn't mean that there wasn't value there. And I want to be willing to dig for it. But there are good resources out there. And the best way for me to find good resources has been to talk to brethren who I am confident in their good application and understanding of scripture and say, what helped you here? What helped you about this book of the Bible? And even then, so many times I get word from brethren about books that will be useful. They say, now watch out for this. This is what they're going to talk about. Or pay attention to this, because I'm not sure about him right there. And I think that is very helpful. But we need to have our radar on. And somebody would say, okay, so there are folks that when you read their stuff, you can take your radar down. Not at all. There's among brethren, there's commentaries and books, and I have to read them on high alert. There was a commentary written a few years ago and somebody. It's written by a man who would claim to be my brother in Christ. And I wouldn't deny that necessarily. I don't know all the extent of the disagreements, but it was a commentary on a book of the New Testament. And somebody said now on every point that we would disagree, he takes the opposite position on every point, that is that there are disagreements among brethren, he would take the opposite position of us. That doesn't mean there's no value to it. But I have to be very careful. Even as I read books that are written by people who claim to have a lot of the same commitments that I do, they draw different conclusions. And I don't think they're putting passages together well. And we have to evaluate that. But that will come over time. Let me make one suggestion of a resource that has been tremendous for me, and it's on your phone. It's called the Literal Word app. L I T E R A Literal Word app. Now, they're not offering me any money for this. If you have contact with them, you're welcome to say something to them about providing me money, but I doubt they have very much money from the app because it's a free app. That's wonderful. And it downloads to your phone. So it doesn't matter where you live. It doesn't matter if you have good service or whatever. If you can get that app downloaded, then you can have access to the Scripture all the time, all over the place. And the beauty of it is this. It has the whole Bible included and it includes four translations. It includes the King James Version, the New American standard version of 1995, the English Standard Version that I think was translated perhaps, I think it was finished in maybe 2001. And then it also has what's called the Legacy Standard Bible, which is what I use, and it's an update of the New American Standard. Now, the reason it's valuable is, first of all, I love the fact that I have access to those different translations. I think they are all conservative. I think they are faithful translations. I think the King James text is going to be valuable because it is going to show you the translation that comes from the 16 and 1700s that is beautiful and helpful. And then the other translations, I think, often can be used as study tools to clarify and define. But here's one of the wonderful things about the app that I love, and I think this is kind of the unique thing about it, is that if you can click on a word and it will give you the definition of that word in its original language and will show you all the other places in the Scripture where that word is used, it's a wonderful thing to be able to do. So I was doing some work on the Bible word godliness yesterday, and it was great because I could click on that word and it could show me all the places where the word godliness is used. But you know, the word godliness is not always translated. Godliness. Sometimes it's piety, sometimes it might be reverence. And so that word there, it shows me where all of it is used all over the place, even when it's translated differently. That's wonderful. For me, in the Old Testament, the word hesed, which is translated so differently, whether it's loving kindness or covenant faithfulness or whatever, steadfast love, I think one translation renders it well. It'll show you all those places where it shows up. And that has been a wonderful tool for me. Just try it, the literal word app on your phone and you can download it. And I use that as far as Bible study tools, probably more than anything else because it is so easy to access. I use it when I'm teaching Bible class because I can jump from passage to passage. It'll have footnotes that reference other passages that will help you understand. And I think it's a great tool if you are a beginning Bible student. I don't think that I could recommend another tool more than that little app, because all it's doing is helping you make connections within God's word. It's not bringing in commentary. It's not a study Bible in the sense that that other people are saying something about it, but it is just a program on your phone that gets you connected to the text. And I find that to be extremely, extremely valuable. Now, at a different point down the road, I think I'll take the time to talk about what it looks like to sit down and study a text. But I hope that our time together has been well spent today. And if you have questions about resources, reach out to me and I'll try to help. Until next time, we bid you a pleasant good day.
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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.