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Watch Out for Silly Putty Bible Study

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Consider the following scenario. What do you think could be the problem with it?

…a Christian woman who has been praying for her family’s conversion stumbles upon Acts 16 during her quiet time. Her eyes settle on Paul’s response to the Philippian jailer, who asked, “What must I do to be saved?” “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved,” Paul answered, then added, “you and your household” (vv. 29–31).

Encouraged by these words, the woman begins to claim the “promise” that her own household will be saved, with the justification that “the Holy Spirit gave me this verse.”

This situation comes from a wonderful article from Greg Koukl about how easy it is to treat the Bible like Silly Putty®—a squishy, doughy substance you make into any shape you want. Koukl’s analysis and counsel is very good.

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Follow Your Heart: Is it in the Bible?

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Yes, it is.

Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

Ecclesiastes 11:9

Mitch Chase wonders what this could mean, in light of all that Jesus, Moses, the prophets, and sages of Israel had to say about not following one’s own heart.

Chase makes excellent use of correlation with other wisdom texts as well as the context of the argument within the book of Ecclesiastes to answer the question. And he arrives at a great place.

The writer, in Ecclesiastes 11:9, is not advocating reckless living but Godward living, decisions made overflowing from a heart that fears and follows the Lord.

The only thing I might add to Chase’s conclusion is that, in light of the joy granted as a gift of God, all throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, “the ways of your heart” here are not only the commands of God that have been written on the heart—but also the personal affections and delights God implants when he shapes a person in his image. In other words, when one fears God, not only their Godward morality—but also their Godward hobbies, vocation, and delights—are unlocked to enjoy to the fullest.

As long, of course, as one never forgets that the Lord remains the judge of our hearts’ delights, such that we might walk in the fear of him.

So go swing a baseball bat, plant a rose garden, or audition for a play—to the glory of your creator. Such things are nothing but vanity in themselves. But the gift of God to those with whom he is pleased is the ability to enjoy such vain things to his glory.

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How Can a Human Book be Divine?

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Lewis Varley addresses a matter commonly raised by both Muslims and secularists against the Christian doctrine of special revelation: How can a book produced by humans be inspired by God or accurately communicate divine speech and intentions? Isn’t God—according to the Christian conception—so far above us that human speech and human writing is utterly unable to adequately communicate his will?

Varley offers a number of helpful responses:

  • The Divine-Human Scriptures Point to God’s Power
  • What Form Should a Book of Direct Revelations Take?
  • God Has Shown His Kindness to Us in the Accommodation of Scripture
  • The Divine-Human Scriptures Are Made Possible Because of Our Identity as God’s Image Bearers
  • The Literary Forms of Scripture Resonate with Our Lives

Here is a taste:

It comes as no surprise that our friends who deny that God could inhabit a human body would also deny that God’s words could also be human words. To deny the character of Scripture as a divine-human book is, by extension, to deny that God could ever come into our world, our times, our lives, but must inevitably be detached from us. To affirm the divine-human word is to affirm God’s immanent involvement in our everyday, often ordinary, lives.

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Subverting Abraham’s Bad Rap

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I am grateful to T.M. Suffield for his courage to take on (and take down) our widespread presumption that Abraham was a cowardly liar. Suffield takes us deep into the argument of Genesis and the overall message of the book.

What I am suggesting is that we should read these texts looking at the warp and woof of the Bible, the texture of the whole story, and considering why these stories are in Genesis at the point that they are. We’ll notice that they have more to do with the grand narrative and with Jesus than we might just think; this isn’t just by contrast either. Jesus does treat his wife differently in the presence of evil kings to Abraham. The point isn’t that he doesn’t disown us, because Abraham doesn’t and Jesus is our brother, but that he can protect us from snake-like kings. Some of them might even turn to God because of the church’s beauty.

And I think Suffield is exactly right. My co-blogger Ryan has written a wonderful piece on how we love to give gold stars to Bible characters. And that tendency too often leads us to draw all the wrong conclusions, sometimes missing the explicit assessment of Bible characters given in the text itself.

For example: Here is my not-at-all-controversial list of things I’ve found people typically get wrong:

  • Noah’s drinking wasn’t the issue; Ham’s rebellion was (Gen 9:24-25).
  • Abraham’s description of his wife as his sister wasn’t the issue; the evil king’s oppression was (Gen 12:17, 20:6-7, 20:18).
  • Jacob wasn’t as much a wicked trickster as he was a courageous fighter for the promises of God (Gen 25:34b, 32:28).
  • Moses: an out-of-control hothead and murderer? Try again: He was an attempted—albeit rejected—deliverer (Acts 7:24-25).

I can’t say whether Suffield would agree with all the items on my list here. But his piece on Abraham and Sarah is well-argued and worth your consideration.

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5 Good Reasons to Mark Up your Bible

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Kevin Halloran wants you to mark up your Bible. Don’t be shy. We agree that it’s a worthwhile practice.

Halloran gives 5 good reasons:

  1. Marking up my Bible helps engage me in more careful study.
  2. Marking up my Bible helps with future reading of the Bible.
  3. Marking up my Bible helps remember past experiences.
  4. Marking up my Bible helps me to encourage other saints who see my marked-up pages.
  5. Marking up my Bible is visible evidence that I treasure God’s revealed Word.

Halloran also suggests what exactly to mark when you study your Bible. For more information, check out our reasons for getting a markup Bible. If you’d like ideas for a new markup Bible, see our post comparing the options.

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The Sluggard in Every One of Us

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Scott Hubbard wants you to know four things about the Bible’s portrait of a sluggard:

  1. ‘A little’ adds up.
  2. Neglect grows weeds.
  3. Our desires often deceive us.
  4. Hard work flows from the heart.

Hubbard does a great job correlating the teaching of Proverbs on the character of the sluggard. In the process, Hubbard models terrific head and heart application.

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Salted With Fire

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“Everyone will be salted with fire,” says Jesus in Mark 9:49. But what does that mean?

Alistair Begg makes skillful use of the literary context (the argument of the larger passage), biblical context (Old Testament background), and cultural context (practices contemporary to Jesus and his disciples) to unravel this mysterious saying.

It’s clear that Jesus deals here with weighty truths. And it’s against the backdrop of verse 48 (in which He describes hell as a place where the “worm does not die and the fire is not quenched”) that His puzzling teaching on salt appears. With the costliness of discipleship and the picture of fire fixed in His disciples’ minds, Jesus asserts, “Everyone will be salted with fire.” How should we understand this peculiar phrase?

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How to Read the Sermon on the Plain

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When studying a passage in the gospels, we must handle parallel passages with care. We’ll make better use of the parallels if we don’t merely harmonize but illuminate.

For example, let’s take Luke’s Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6. Much time could be spent on the question of harmonization: Is this the same sermon as Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, or not? How do we harmonize these two extensive teachings of Jesus?

But that question of harmonization is not nearly as important as the following:

  • What is Luke’s message in Luke 6?
  • What is Matthew’s message in Matthew 5-7?

Those questions may not have the same answer!

To help you with this example, let me recommend an article called “The Sermon on the Plain: What It Is & How It Differs from the Sermon on the Mount.” I wrote this article to analyze some of the similarities and differences between the two sermons. But ultimately, I wanted to get to these four suggestions:

  1. Don’t be distracted by the Mount/Plain question
  2. Read the entire sermon as a sermon
  3. Read the sermon in the context of Luke’s Gospel
  4. Read, read, and read again

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3 Fruits of Engaged Bible Reading

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Because Karrie Hahn believes the Bible is precious, she wants you to read it for the right reasons. She gives three quite compelling ones.

  1. Awe
  2. Transformation
  3. Endurance

Sometimes application means simply letting the Bible shape us in these areas. For example:

An encounter with the God of the universe can’t help but produce awe and wonder in those to whom He reveals Himself. He is glorious and majestic, unlike anyone or anything else:

The LORD reigns; he is robed in majesty . . .  Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the LORD on high is mighty!” (Ps. 93:1, 4)

His greatness is unsearchable, and He is glorious, splendid, and majestic (see Ps. 145:3, 5). Holy Scripture is how we come to better know the God who has called us to Himself.

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Rescuing the One Anothers from our Presumptive Familiarity

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The greatest enemy of observation is familiarity. When you think you know something, you stop trying to learn from or about it. Perhaps you understand that in theory, but what does it look like in the practice of our Bible study?

I recently published a piece on the Logos blog with “4 Tips for Reading the One Anothers in the Bible.” In this post, I evaluate the practice of mushing together the many “one-another” commands of the New Testament into an overarching framework for Christian ethics. Along the way, I attempt to show how our broad familiarity with these one-anothers as a whole has prevented us from properly understanding some of them.

What are the four tips?

  1. Remember that you are reading someone else’s mail
  2. Consider the historical context
  3. Consider the train of thought
  4. Focus on the main point

The article will explain these tips further, with examples along the way.

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