Yesterday, Bruce Baugus posted his story at the Gospel Coalition, and he tells of his journey answering the question: “How do I know the Bible is God’s Word?”
What’s his answer? Read it.
Check it out!
Top 10 OT Books Quoted in NT
Photo Credit: Kladcat (2012), shared under a Creative Commons Attribution License
I recently finished a read-through of the Bible, during which I kept track of every time the New Testament quoted an Old Testament passage.
I counted only direct, explicit quotations, such as those introduced with “it is written,” or “as it says in the Law of Moses.” I gave some leniency, allowing clear quotations on the list even if introduced by a mere “for.”
I did not include any mere allusions or references to people or events in the Old Testament. I don’t think such allusions are unimportant; I just think they can be difficult to measure. For example, when Jesus is called “Son of Man,” is that an allusion to Daniel 7:13, to Psalm 8:4, or to Ezekiel 2:1, 3, 6, 8, etc? Most likely, the answer is “all of them,” but Bible interpreters disagree. Therefore, I left these unclear examples off the list altogether. One unfortunate result is that the books of 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation, which contain Old Testament allusions in almost every verse, are almost completely absent from the list.
This list has the top 10 most quoted Old Testament books. Which books did the New Testament authors most often reference as they wrote of the coming of Jesus the Messiah?
After each book title, I include the number of times the New Testament quotes from that book.
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Psalms (68 times)
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Isaiah (55)
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Deuteronomy (44)
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Genesis (35)
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Exodus (31)
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Leviticus (13)
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Proverbs (8)
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Zechariah (7)
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Hosea (6)
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Jeremiah (5)
It makes sense that the top few books are some of the long books in the OT. But the longest book (Jeremiah) is pretty far down. Also, long books such as 1&2 Samuel (3 quotes), 1&2 Kings (2 quotes), and 1&2 Chronicles (1 quote) are way down the list. For the raw data listing every quotation, see the resources page.
Also, I find it fascinating that Zechariah, probably the most obscure and inscrutable OT book, ranks higher than any other prophetic book except Isaiah.
Does this list surprise you, or is it exactly what you suspected? Perhaps you might consult this list the next time you choose to study an Old Testament book. One could argue that the New Testament authors wanted to draw our attention to them.
My Application
Lennart Tange (2012), Creative Commons
Bible study profits you nothing unless it changes your life by pointing you to Jesus and conforming you to his image. On this blog, we seek to help ordinary people learn to study the Bible. We want you to be like Jesus and to love him more.
To that end, here’s one final post on the topic of application. I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned through my study of Luke 2. I don’t do this to communicate that my applications are in any way perfect. I do this merely to give you an example of what it looks like to “fill in the boxes” of application. You may want to consult the worksheet as you read this post to help you see what it could look like to fill it in.
Peter Krol’s application of LUKE 2:1-21
Main Point: God sent Jesus to be born so he might save the lowly and rule them graciously. This brings him highest glory.
Inward Application: The general idea is that I’m struggling to spend time with my children these days. God has put a lot on my plate, and I’m tempted to let family time be the first thing to fall off my plate. But they are some of the “lowly ones” in my life whom I’m called to care for.
- HEAD: I must reject the lie that I have better things to do than play catch, practice memory verses, or wipe little butts. Jesus stooped down to rescue me; he wants me to do the same for the lowly ones in my family.
- HANDS: I will block out my daily schedule from 5-7pm for family time. I won’t expect to have any “personal time” until the children are in bed. In the next week, I will ask them to do stuff with me more times than they ask me to do stuff with them.
- HEART: I will put off selfishness and put on humility. I will think of my children more than myself. When a child asks me to play a game, I will think about how the Lord Jesus responds to my requests (HINT: he doesn’t make excuses to avoid having to answer me). I will ask the Lord for help to be cheerful when my plan doesn’t work out. I’ll exercise self-control when I feel disappointed or tired.
Outward Application: There’s a guy I disciple who struggles with putting himself in other people’s shoes (in contrast to Jesus, who took on our nature so he could save us). He gets stuck in his own perspective, and he loses influence with people when they feel misunderstood or ignored. This passage can help me to help him.
- HEAD: I can point out specific situations where I see people either gaining or losing trust with this person (usually I’m too lazy to take note of specific instances). I can help him to connect the dots between his actions and the consequences of those actions (increased or decreased trust). We can celebrate the victories, and look to Jesus in the failures.
- HANDS: As we discuss specific situations, I can ask “what went well, and what could you have done differently?” We can practice listening and conversation skills to help them become more natural.
- HEART: Next time we meet, I’ll ask him to label the issues with biblical terms (learning to be quick to listen and slow to speak, learning kindness and tenderheartedness, not thinking of himself too highly). As the issues come to light, we’ll consider how Jesus lowered himself for our sake, and I’ll ask what desires keep him from doing the same. In other words, why does he love his own perspective so much? What does it give him that makes it so hard to give it up?
What do you think? Was I specific enough? Did I remember Jesus?
Be Specific in Your Application
Bible study is perfect for people like me who fear exposure. We who love to mince words and divert attention feel right at home in some churches because it’s easy to deceive spiritual people with high-minded platitudes.
“How are you today?” “I’m too blessed to be stressed.”
“What did you think of the sermon?” “It was pretty good. I like the pastor. He’s easy to listen to.”
“How would you like to grow this year?” “I don’t pray enough. I need to pray more.”
“I need to love my family.”
“I’d like to be a witness to my coworkers.”
And on and on and on.
We hear God’s Word all the time, but we often respond so generally that we rarely change. But God wants to change specific people in specific ways. So we must be specific in our application.
The Apostle John wrote a letter to churches infiltrated by false teachers. These teachers were slick. They were full of vague platitudes like “We know God” and “We love God’s people,” but something was seriously wrong beneath the surface. True believers were second-guessing themselves and their assurance of eternal life because these teachers claimed to have critical inside knowledge unavailable to the masses.
John tackles the issue head-on at the beginning of the letter:
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8, ESV).
In other words, anyone who refuses to acknowledge that he is a sinner is utterly deceived. There is no fast-track with God that can eliminate sin this side of glory. Anyone who claims otherwise does not live in reality.
But notice which error John exposes next:
If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us (1 John 1:10).
In other words, when confronted with a specific sin, anyone who covers it up, shifts the blame, or denies it calls God a liar. This person does not understand God’s Word.
What is the point?
John says that those who understand God’s Knowable Word will acknowledge two things:
- They have sin (as a general fact)
- They have sinned (in specific instances)
It’s not enough to trust in Christ to forgive your sin, if you are not willing to ‘fess up to the details.
This means that our application of Scripture must be specific. Platitudes aren’t enough. General principles will go only so far.
What does it mean to apply the Bible specifically?
- Point your finger at yourself before you point it at anybody else. You’re not qualified to help others grow in Christ unless you are growing in Christ yourself.
- Focus on your heart more than on your behavior. Don’t apply the Bible shallowly. Figure out what you desire or believe, and work to change those desires and beliefs. Don’t worry, your behavior will follow.
- Know your next steps. Don’t be satisfied with your application until you’ve identified specific steps you can take to address the issue. When you close the Bible and walk away, what will you do to put the application into practice? How will you remember these lessons in the midst of temptation?
- Make progress measurable. How will you know if you did the application or not? “Pray more” is not measurable. Next week, can I ask you if you prayed more? Prayed more than what? How? When?
- Put off and put on. Think of application as a process of stopping certain things and starting other things. Put off the old self and put on the new self. Don’t focus on stopping sin without actually replacing it with godliness.
- Don’t be lame. It’s easy for application to become mechanical or to miss the point (“tomorrow I’ll set my alarm 10 minutes early and pray…”). Ask others who know you, “what do you think I most need to grow in?” Target those areas. Don’t miss the point of what God wants to do in your life by focusing on irrelevant minutiae.
God’s Knowable Word is a piercing Word. It rips us apart and puts us back together. It identifies exactly what is wrong with the world: me and you. It shows us the solution: Jesus. It gives us hope that we can break the patterns of brokenness and replace them with more life-giving options. Let it speak to the details of your life (Heb 4:12-13).
Why Study a Book like Genesis?
The elders of our church just finished a year-and-a-half-long sermon series through the book of Genesis, and I had the privilege of preaching the last sermon.
I titled this final sermon “Why Did We Preach Through Genesis?” and I gave 3 answers:
- To build your confidence in the Bible
- To build your confidence in the Basics (how to love God, love your neighbor, and make disciples)
- To build your confidence in Jesus
Have you doubted whether old books like Genesis are useful to us? Have you wondered what is the main point of Genesis? Would you like to understand better how Genesis teaches us about Jesus?
You might enjoy the sermon. Check it out!
Remember Jesus in Your Application
Paul, the great Apostle to the Gentiles, was about to die. He had fought the good fight; he had run the race; he had kept the faith. The crown of righteousness was awaiting.
But he had a few final instructions to pass on to his main man Timothy. One of the most important ones went as follows:
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains like a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory (2 Tim 2:8-10, ESV).
Demi-Brooke (2009), Creative Commons
It’s hard to imagine such a mature Christian needing to say something so apparently frivolous. How could Timothy possibly forget about Jesus? Isn’t Jesus the reason he became a pastor? Isn’t Jesus the one who put the “Christ” in “Christianity”?
But Paul knows what we so often ignore, that one of our primary temptations as Christians is to forget Jesus. Especially when it comes to studying the Bible.
Isn’t it so easy to think we needed Jesus before we become Christians, but now we need more discipline? We delight in Jesus and his saving work that rescued us from our past sins, but now we live as though it’s up to us to please God.
We come to the Bible as a book of hope for sinners who can find eternal life by knowing Jesus. But over the years, we change. We begin treating the Bible as a book of rules, and we bludgeon ourselves and others into following those rules out of a sense of guilt or duty. We bind the word of God, and we burden the elect with ethical or doctrinal chains.
I’ve already written about the importance of interpreting every Bible passage through the lens of Jesus. Now, I highlight the importance of remembering Jesus even in our application.
When studying a Bible passage, you might make a theological connection to Jesus, but your work is not yet done. Your application must also connect to and derive from Jesus and his saving work: “Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them” (Heb 13:9).
In other words, nothing gets up your gumption for serving the Lord more than grace, grace, and more grace. You can’t drum up more faithfulness from the inside. You must be broken by God’s unbelievably high standard, and you must rest in Jesus’ death in your place and obedience on your behalf. Every day. Then, you’ll walk the straight and narrow. And before you know it, you’ll be ready to pass the torch to a new generation.
Here’s what I mean. Once I served as an elder in a church that hired a young new pastor. This guy was a fine preacher, and he had been well-trained to preach Jesus. He got in the pulpit his first week and preached with boldness and clarity.
But he made a few mistakes. He stumbled over his words. He got nervous and said a few things that, frankly, were pretty naïve. After the service, he was discouraged by his failures, and he expected me to hammer him for them. After all, preaching is important business. You can’t mislead God’s sheep, or you’re in big trouble.
We evaluated the sermon together, and he braced himself for some well-earned criticism.
I did not ignore the mistakes. I didn’t approve of them. But I reminded him that Jesus had already died for them. Because the gospel was true, this guy was free to make mistakes, even big ones. I encouraged him to make more such mistakes in the future. I preferred that he give it his all, making a few mistakes in the process, than that he hold back out of fear of imperfection. He was free to live his calling as a preacher with confidence that he was accepted by God and already approved.
He had learned all about how to interpret the Bible with a focus on Jesus, but he had to practice applying it with a focus on Jesus.
So, let’s study (and especially apply) the Bible with such great confidence in Jesus that we can “sin boldly,” as Martin Luther advised his student Philip Melanchthon:
Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2 Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign.
3 Myths Exposed About Solomon’s Wisdom
We often ask God for wisdom with the expectation that he’ll teleport it directly to our minds. If we ask, he’ll give, and he’ll give it quickly and fully.
But, as we’ve seen in our series on Proverbs, that’s not at all how wisdom works.
Till He Comes just published a guest post I wrote as a companion piece to my Proverbs study. In this post, I debunk 3 common myths about Solomon’s wisdom. One of the myths is that God supernaturally zapped wisdom into Solomon’s brain. Nope. Nada. Not true.
I’m not going to tell you the other two myths here. You’ll have to go check it out.
The Legacy of Howard Hendricks
Howard Hendricks, long-time professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, passed away last week. I never knew the man, but I have much respect for his book on OIA Bible study entitled Living By the Book.
Dave Miller’s eulogy for Dr. Hendricks at SBC Voices captures the wonderful legacy of this man and his love for teaching others how to study God’s Knowable Word. May it be said of us that we had such passion and influence in propagating love for the Bible in our generation.
Check it out!
How to Apply the Bible: Summary
A few weeks ago I promised that anyone could learn how to apply the Bible to life. Since then, I’ve given a several categories to help flex your application muscles. Today I’d like to pull it all together.
We can apply the Bible in 2 directions and to 3 spheres. Think of these things as a matrix, with the spheres (head, heart, hands) down the left side and the directions (inward, outward) across the top. Here’s a worksheet to help you visualize it.
When you sit down to study the Bible, and you feel stuck in application, use this worksheet to help. Just write a few ideas in each box, and see if you can fill all six.
Here are some tips to help you do so:
- Don’t fall into the trap of too much self-centered living. Push your application outward, and consider how you can be more effective at influencing others to know Christ.
- Don’t fall into the trap of overly theological application (too much focus on your head). God cares about what you think and believe, but he also cares about your character and obedience.
- Don’t fall into the trap of overly ethical application (too much focus on your hands). God cares about what you do, but he also cares about your thinking and character.
- Don’t fall into the trap of overly pietistic application (too much focus on your heart). God cares about who you are, but it should flow out to your thinking and obedience as well.
Finally, here are some positive suggestions:
- Remember Jesus Christ,risen from the dead (2 Tim 2:8). Your application will fall to pieces if it’s about you and your strength to produce change. Only the resurrection power of Jesus, put within you by his Holy Spirit, can make any difference in your life.
- Get specific. Your application will flutter about in the wind of life if you don’t nail down details. Don’t settle for broad principles; make concrete action steps.
I’ll expand on these last two tips in the next few weeks.
Apply the Bible to Your Heart
Bill Ward (2009), Creative Commons
It’s possible to apply the Bible vigorously to your head and hands and still not end up in the right place. Just look at how many (ungodly) theologians and legalists abound in our day, and you’ll see what I mean.
So we must not miss the third sphere of application: the Heart.
In calling us to change, God’s ultimate purpose is to conform us to the image of Jesus (Rom 8:29). That’s a fancy way of saying he wants us to be like him.
It’s not enough to believe the truth. Unless you put it into practice, you remain only “not far from [but not yet in] the Kingdom of God” (Mark 12:32-34, ESV).
It’s not enough to do good things. Unless you become a new person, your obedience remains filthy and worthless. “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Gal 6:15).
Therefore, as you seek to apply the Bible to your life, you ought always ask the question: “what kind of person does God want me to be?”
You can tackle this question in a few different ways:
- What do you desire or value, and what should you desire or value instead?
- What ungodly character traits should you turn from, and what Christ-like character traits can you imitate instead?
- How might you be relying on your performance, and how can you rely more on Christ’s performance?
- What are your greatest hopes? Is your bucket list too small compared to the Lord’s bucket list for you?
- Are the kind of person others should imitate? Why or why not, and what will you do about it?
Let’s practice once again with Luke 2:21. We’ve stated the main point as: “God sent Jesus to be born so he might save the lowly and rule them graciously. This brings him highest glory.” In light of that point, what sort of people ought we, who have hoped in Christ, to be?
Some inward Heart applications might be:
- I ought to live more for the God’s glory than my glory.
- I don’t need to get defensive about… (whatever someone tried to confront me on). It’s okay if my weakness is exposed. I need to grow at being more approachable.
- I can be honest about my struggles with my friends, spouse, church family and children.
- I must not look down on others for any reason. If God can save me, he can save anybody.
- I should love non-Christians and desire their salvation. Why do I struggle with this?
Some outward Heart applications might be:
- I should speak of God’s glory often, and call others to do the same.
- I’ll figure out why I’m ashamed to speak of Jesus in public. What do I value more than his glory?
- As I mentor younger Christians, I need to ask better questions to uncover what they value and desire in their sin struggles. Then I can help point them to the cross so they can repent and be made new.
- My children have a greater need to learn teachability than to learn any particular skill or behavior. Am I modeling such teachability as a parent and calling the children to imitate me?
- Since Jesus didn’t hide from his conflict with me, I will not run away from conflict with others. I will pursue it with grace, intending real reconciliation.
What other Heart applications from Luke 2 can you think of?
