Knowable Word - Bible study help

Disappointment and Relationships

July 11, 2025 By Peter Krol

"Close Friends" by makelessnoise (2006), shared under a Creative Commons Attribution license — “Close Friends” by makelessnoise (2006), shared under a Creative Commons Attribution license

Do you ever operate under the expectation that, if you try hard to love and serve people, they will like you in return? God has something better in mind for you!

My comments on this text will follow the pattern I laid out previously.

Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
Bind them around your neck;
Write them on the tablet of your heart.
So you will find favor and good success
In the sight of God and man (Prov 3:3-4).

Command: Exude love and faithfulness.

Consequence: Favor with God and men.

Our meager expectation: Nice people will be well liked and respected.

God’s unbelievable reward: influence. Those with godly influence persuade others of God’s love and faithfulness (Prov 16:7, 21). God favors such humble people (Prov 3:34), who serve others more than themselves. Communities benefit from such people (Prov 11:10).

Echoes: To give a picture of this good favor, God often grants public recognition to the faithful (1 Sam 24:17-21). But the essence of the reward is not about recognition. If you expect every loving act to result in broad agreement and wild acclaim, you will be disappointed. For example, David’s acclaim in 1 Sam 24:17-21 took place at a pretty low point in his life.

Essence: Jesus “came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:11-12). Those children will be hated in this world as much as their master Jesus was. But in persuading some to follow Christ, they receive hope, joy, and a glorious crown of boasting when Jesus returns (1 Th 2:19-20). In other words, they may be disappointed when people don’t like them, but God uses the disappointment to teach them whose favor really matters.

How does Jesus’ rejection help you refashion your disappointment in relationships?

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Learn from Why You Stopped Reading the Bible

July 9, 2025 By Peter Krol

Last week, I shared an article that encourages you to just keep reading your Bible, even when you don’t understand all the details. Perhaps that was not helpful, as you have long since given up your Bible reading anyway.

Katie Laitkep is here with strong guidance to help you pick it back up.

If you were sitting across from me and you mentioned that you’d abandoned your Bible reading plan, I wouldn’t ask you about what went well. We’d talk about what didn’t work. We’d start with what made you stop because understanding why you didn’t finish could be the key to helping you begin again.

She goes on to consider a few reasons why people stop reading the Bible, in order to coach you through overcoming those obstacles and getting back to it. Her counsel is really great.

Check it out!

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Disappointment and Longevity

July 4, 2025 By Peter Krol

We get disappointed when our expectations are not met. We commonly expect that, if we honor God, we will live long and prosper, but God desires something better for us.

My comments will follow the pattern I laid out last week.

My son, do not forget my teaching,
But let your heart keep my commandments,
For length of days and years of life
And peace they will add to you (Prov 3:1-2).

Command: Obey God’s commands.

Consequence: Long life and peace.

Our meager expectation: People who serve God won’t die young.

God’s unbelievable reward: an unbreakable relationship with God. In Proverbs, “life” often refers to more than simply having a heartbeat (Prov 3:21-22, 4:13, 8:35, etc.). Waltke comments that the meaning of “life” in Proverbs is “commonly misrepresented and/or misunderstood” as temporal life that ends with clinical death.¹ As Kidner states, “In several places it is not too much to say that ‘life’ means fellowship with God.”²

Echoes: To give a picture of his everlasting relationship with us, God often lets the righteous live to a good old age (Gen 25:8) and cuts short the lives of the wicked (Gen 38:7). But the essence of the reward is not about old age. If you expect every servant of God to live to old age, you will be disappointed.

Essence: God sent his Son Jesus to die on a cross so he might give us life. Eternal life means knowing him (John 17:3). When we seek life anywhere else, God graciously steps in and disappoints us. He leads us back to what’s best for us: loving Jesus and keeping his commandments (1 John 3:16, 23-24).

How might Jesus’ untimely death help you refashion your disappointment when someone’s life is cut short?

This post was first published in 2013 and is part of a series walking through Proverbs 1-9.

¹ Proverbs 1-15, p. 104.

² Proverbs, p. 53.

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Just Keep Reading

July 2, 2025 By Peter Krol

Erik Lundeen has some surprising advice for those who come to something in their Bible they don’t understand: Just keep reading.

If you’re like many attempting to read through the Bible this year, you’re at a crossroads. You may falter, burning out (as the story often goes) in a difficult section of Scripture like Leviticus and failing to establish a Bible-reading habit. Or you may make it over that initial hump, and regular Bible reading moves from being a checked box to a customary part of life.

I want to help you have the latter experience. I want to offer advice based on years of reading the Bible cover to cover and processing such experiences with others who’ve attempted the same. My advice boils down to this: As you read, keep going and don’t worry too much about understanding. That will come.

Check it out!

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Context Matters: Mary and Martha

June 30, 2025 By Ryan Higginbottom

Harry Thaker (2018), public domain

Perhaps you’ve heard the account of Mary and Martha. One sister (Mary) sits at Jesus’s feet while the other (Martha) complains about a lack of help in the kitchen.

This story is often cited to reinforce the practice of devotional time, to warn against distractions, and to scold people (especially women) about fussiness regarding hospitality.

But we must answer a crucial question. What is the context of this story? The Bible is not just a collection of sayings and proverbs, ripe for picking and snacking on when we please. As we learn to read the Bible for what it is, we’ll see that some of our most familiar passages take on different and deeper meanings than we’ve assumed.

The Middle of Luke

The middle third of Luke’s Gospel begins in Luke 9:51 when Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Instead of itinerant preaching around the Sea of Galilee, Jesus begins to move purposefully toward the city of his ascension (see Luke 9:51).

Much of the beginning of this section concerns discipleship. In Luke 9:51–56, Jesus rebukes James and John for wanting fire from heaven to fall on those Samaritans who didn’t receive Jesus. In Luke 9:57–62 we read of three encounters with hesitant followers, and Jesus presses them on this question: What will be your highest priority—comfort, tradition, family, or me?

Jesus sends out 72 disciples in Luke 10:1–24 to preach (and bring near) the kingdom of God. In this passage, Jesus makes it clear that his followers must rejoice primarily that their names are written in heaven (verse 20). But he also explains how the Son reveals the Father (verse 22) and how those who reject the disciples actually reject the Father (verse 16).

This leads to the conversation with the lawyer (Luke 10:25–28) and the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The Greatest Commandments

This lawyer stood to test Jesus, asking what was necessary for eternal life. When Jesus turned the question around, the lawyer answered correctly.

And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27)

Jesus praised the lawyer’s answer, and the lawyer asked a question in an attempt to justify himself. “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus’s answer to this question is the parable of the Good Samaritan. We won’t take that parable apart in this article, but the ending is instructive.

Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” (Luke 10:36–37)

While the lawyer was concerned about the word “neighbor” as a noun, Jesus wanted him to understand “neighbor” as a verb. Instead of defining who should receive love as a neighbor, Jesus focused on how to be (or become) a neighbor.

And, for many people, this brings the section to a close, with the story of Mary and Martha included as an awkward footnote.

Mary and Martha

Martha welcomed Jesus into her home and we are immediately introduced to her sister, Mary. The first description of Mary is the classic description of a disciple, sitting at Jesus’s feet and listening to his teaching (Luke 10:39).

Martha was “distracted with much serving,” and complained about her sister to the Lord. Jesus addressed her with affection and compassion.

But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41–42).

While Luke makes it clear that Jesus had welcomed, traveled with, and been supported by women from early in his ministry (see Luke 8:1–3), we must not overlook the gender dynamics at play here. Jesus commends discipleship for women over distracted, anxious hospitality.

Jesus directs Martha to the “one thing” Mary has chosen. Namely, himself! And on the heels of a conversation with a lawyer, it stands out that the one necessary thing Jesus mentions is not the law. The law is not bad, but now the Keeper and Interpreter of the Law is present, the One whom the prophets and kings longed to see (Luke 10:23–24).

The Greatest Commandment

After the conversation with the lawyer, the parable of the Good Samaritan fleshes out what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself.” But the story of Mary and Martha is also connected to the lawyer’s answer to Jesus.

In a classic chiastic move, Luke has switched the order of explanation. The last story explains the first commandment.

How do we love the Lord with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind? Look at Mary. She has chosen the good portion.

We keep the greatest commandment by being a disciple of Jesus. We listen to his word. In contrast to anxiety and trouble, we look to and follow Jesus, the One who makes the Father known.

Conclusion

The story of Mary and Martha is not primarily about domestic duties. It’s not mainly about “quiet times” or distractions either.

Luke teaches us to love God by loving and following the Son. And we grasp this point when we read the Bible with our eyes open to all that’s happening within its pages.

Context matters.

Check out all of our Context Matters posts here.

This post was first published in 2018.

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How to Refashion our Disappointment

June 27, 2025 By Peter Krol

Last week, we considered how we must see God’s fatherly love when we face disappointment. Now we’re ready to go back and explore the many realms where we so often feel disappointed.

"Cape Disappointment is Disappointing" by iotae (2006), shared under a Creative Commons Attribution License — iotae (2006), shared under a Creative Commons Attribution License

Proverbs 3:1-10 consists of five pairs of verses (each with a command and a consequence) that address five specific areas of life. Each pair contrasts our meager expectations with God’s unbelievable rewards. We may find echoes of these rewards in our day-to-day lives, but if we mistake the echoes for the essence, we’ll miss the point and end up disappointed. The essence is found in God’s rescue mission accomplished through Jesus. And when he rescues us, he also lovingly disciplines us to desire what he desires for us.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore our struggles with disappointment about the following life issues:

Longevity
Relationships
Guidance
Health
Finances

I’ll connect Solomon’s sayings to the rest of the Bible and to our lives using the following categories (I’ll link back to here from each of the next few posts to remind you of the details):

“Command” observes the command.
“Consequence” observes the consequence.
“Our meager expectation” states a common misinterpretation of these verses.
“God’s unbelievable reward” uses other Proverbs to illuminate what Solomon (and thus God) meant.
“Echoes” uses examples from Solomon’s Bible (books or stories that were available to him) to show how God taught and foreshadowed this reward through real-life object lessons. If we confuse these echoes with the essence, we will expect the wrong thing and end up disappointed.
“Essence” describes how Jesus was denied the promise so we might be granted it. Then it explains how God trains us to love what he loves.

Stay tuned!

This post was first published in 2013 and is part of a series walking through Proverbs 1-9.

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Yes, Context Matters

June 25, 2025 By Peter Krol

Stephen Kneale agrees with us that context matters.

Whenever we read the bible it is important for us to put any passage into context. We must put it into its canonical context – making sure we are clear where this passage fits within the wider book and where that book sits within the scriptures as a whole. We have to put the passage into its literary context – making sure we put the sentences in the context of the paragraphs which sit in the context of sections that are part of larger books. We have to think also about the historical context – what was going on at the time of writing that has impacted what this writer is saying and why…

If that is right, we want to hear God on his own terms. Which is why we very much don’t want to take him out of context. To do that is to twist his words. It is to miss his words. It is to misunderstand him. It is to misunderstand what the creator of the universe has determined is needful for us to know

Kneale discusses the person who comes to the Bible with a particular question, finds a verse that sounds about right, and then makes use of that verse to speak to the issue in question without considering whether the author intended to speak to that issue. These are wise reflections.

Check it out!

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God Displays His Love through Disappointment

June 20, 2025 By Peter Krol

We now arrive at Proverbs 3:1-12, but we must begin our study with the end of the section.

My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline
Or be weary of his reproof,
For the Lord reproves him whom he loves,
As a father the son in whom he delights (Prov 3:11-12)

To understand how God uses our disappointment to draw us closer to him through Christ, we must see four things.

"Discipline" by Grotuk (2010), shared under a Creative Commons Attribution license — “Discipline” by Grotuk (2010), shared under a Creative Commons Attribution license

1. The Lord will discipline and reprove those he loves. Prov 3:12 is clear: “the Lord reproves him whom he loves.” What we consider to be disappointing circumstances, God considers to be disciplining love. God’s discipline is not optional. It is selective in that it applies only to those he loves, but it is comprehensive in that it applies to all those he loves. In a previous post, we saw that God judges people by giving them what they want rather than what he wants. Now we see the flip side: that God blesses people by giving them what he wants rather than what they want. God will not give you what you want; he will give you what you need. This is disappointing, but it will train you to expect what God expects, to desire what God desires. It will be a long road, but his discipline will draw you closer to him.

2. You will be tempted to despise the Lord’s discipline and grow weary of it. Nobody likes to feel disappointed. That’s why he commands you not to despise it or grow weary of it (Prov 3:11). When God’s discipline comes, it will not make you feel good. It won’t put the joy, joy, joy, joy down in your heart. You won’t brag about how much God is blessing you. No discipline is immediately pleasant. When your bank account is empty or people don’t like you or your love life isn’t all you’d hoped it would be, you’re not going to feel great about it. But when it drives you away from yourself and back to the Lord, it will yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness (Heb 12:11). Turning to the Lord helps you not to despise his loving, protective, concerned discipline.

3. You must choose not to despise the Lord’s discipline. Fight the temptation to despair over your situation. Be prepared for the Lord’s discipline to come again and again and again and again until you’re made perfect in heaven with Jesus. Don’t get worn down by it. Don’t loiter in your self-pity. Don’t cave to disappointment by spiraling in & down or out & around. Make a different choice: the choice to reinterpret your disappointing circumstances.

4. You must reinterpret your disappointing circumstances by revisiting your view of God. Unmet expectations are evidence of God’s delighted love for you. God is neither hostile nor disinterested; he is your loving father. Acknowledge that God is better than you are at knowing what’s best for you. Thank him for proving his love by giving you what you need instead of what you want. Let your disappointment draw you closer to him. If you trust in Jesus, God is not out to get you. He is your doting father, and you are his precious beloved child. God hasn’t met your expectations because he has something better in mind.

In short: When life doesn’t go the way YOU want it to go, it’s because God loves you more than you can imagine. Don’t ever let your circumstances affect what you know to be true about the Lord. As my friend Brian is fond of saying, “Remember that God loves you, and Jesus is the proof.”

A loving father might take his child to Disney World, but he wouldn’t ever leave him there. It wouldn’t be good for the child’s well-being, and the child wouldn’t even enjoy the experience. The money would run out long before the happiness did, and what then? But what child is aware of what’s truly good for him when he’s pleading for another day at the park? His contentment might return only when he adopts his loving father’s mature perspective on the matter.

This post was first published in 2013 and is part of a series walking through Proverbs 1-9.

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Why Four Gospels?

June 18, 2025 By Peter Krol

Ben Hicks asks why we have four accounts of Jesus’ life. Why we need four accounts of Jesus’ life. Since they present Jesus in different ways, does that mean they’re all contradicting each other?

Of course not! With a simple, everyday story, Hicks shows how different accounts of the same person can live in harmony with one another.

Imagine you find yourself at a funeral. The funeral is for a man you never met, but was the father of a close friend so you go to show your support. At one point in the afternoon, you find yourself standing in a circle with three adult grandchildren, all reminiscing about grandpa.

Would you be shocked if they each remember different aspects of their grandfather’s strengths an personality?

Check it out!

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Context Matters: The Lord’s Prayer

June 16, 2025 By Ryan Higginbottom

Olivia Snow (2017), public domain

You’re probably familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. In fact, you might feel like you’ve heard it a million times.

You might pray it as a family or during worship at church. Many pastors have preached through this passage, and most of the church’s historic catechisms analyze this prayer in detail.

But we rarely consider the context of the Lord’s Prayer. Because of the frequency with which this prayer is recited, the Lord’s Prayer might be the passage of Scripture most often removed from its context.

But context matters. The Bible is not a collection of independent stories, proverbs, and prayers. Each book was written by an author with a purpose. If we learn to read the Bible for what it is, we’ll discover that some of our most familiar passages take on different or deeper meanings than we’ve always assumed.

The Sermon on the Mount

As recorded by Matthew, the Lord’s Prayer falls in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. (Peter has written about this portion of Matthew’s Gospel recently here and here.)

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9–13)

This sermon is for Jesus’s disciples (Matt 5:1), and in chapter six Jesus is teaching about spiritual practices and values. For a watching world, these are crucial aspects of life that denote one of Jesus’s followers.

Private Religious Practices

In Matthew 6:1–18, Jesus is concerned with the disciples’ religion. And Jesus contrasts the children of God with the hypocrites and Gentiles. The overarching command is this: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 6:1).

When you give to the poor, don’t draw attention to yourself like the hypocrites. Rather, give to the poor in secret. (Matthew 6:2–4)
When you pray, don’t draw attention to yourself like the hypocrites. Rather, pray to your Father in secret. (Matthew 6:5–6)
When you fast, don’t draw attention to yourself like the hypocrites. Rather, fast in secret. (Matthew 6:16–18)

In each of these situations, Jesus says the hypocrites will reap the reward they seek (honor or praise from people) but nothing else. Those whose practices are done in private—without concern for notoriety—will be rewarded by God.

The Lord’s Prayer falls in the middle of this instruction. It is not a prayer that is prayed to attract attention, but it is private, trusting communication between a disciple and God.

God is Father

In the Lord’s Prayer we are famously instructed to address God as “Our Father,” but this is part of a longer and wider point Jesus is making about God’s family.

Until the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had not spoken of God as Father in Matthew’s Gospel. But in these three chapters, Jesus refers to God as Father 17 times, with a whopping 12 of them coming in chapter six. Part of Jesus’s point is that his disciples have a new relationship with God. He is not simply the law-giver or judge, but he is father.

This is the exact point Jesus is making when he introduces the Lord’s Prayer. He tells the disciples not to “heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do.” The Gentiles think that when they pray they will “be heard for their many words.” But for disciples, God is Father, and “your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

You do not need a lengthy or eloquent prayer to turn God’s gaze. You already have his attention. You are his child! Of course he will listen!

The way we pray, including the way we pray the Lord’s Prayer, reveals whether or not we believe God is our loving father.

Forgiveness

The fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer concerns forgiveness, and Jesus continues to teach about the topic after saying “Amen.”

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14–15)

The word “for” at the beginning of this sentence is instructive. For disciples, Jesus’s teaching on prayer must be connected to their interactions with other people. The way they approach God in prayer, and even the forgiveness they seek from God, is connected to the way they forgive others.

We don’t have the space to exhaust the Bible’s teaching on forgiveness, but many other passages teach that we cannot earn forgiveness from God. What Jesus says here must make sense when considering other portions of the Bible which are more straightforward.

In short, the way people treat those who have sinned against them reveals an important part of their heart toward God. Those who are forgiven by God make a consistent practice of forgiving others. And those who do not forgive others may not know the forgiving love of God.

Conclusion

The Lord’s Prayer is not an isolated collection of six requests. And while it is instruction from Jesus on how to pray, it is more than that.

The Lord’s Prayer is an illustration of what it looks like to pray to a heavenly Father who knows what you need before you ask him. It is an example of how to pray in secret, how not to practice your righteousness before men, and how to seek reward from God. And it is a reminder that our relationship with God cannot be divorced from our relationship with other people.

Context matters.

You can find all of our Context Matters posts collected on this page.

This post was first published in 2018.

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