Knowable Word

Helping ordinary people learn to study the Bible

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Bible Study is Hard Work

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Desiring GodAt Desiring God, Jen Wilkin asserts that Bible study is hard work. She asserts that it doesn’t come easily or naturally to anyone. She accuses us of giving up or seeking a shortcut when progress is slow.

Being a student of any subject requires effort — the process of gaining understanding is not easy and can often be frustrating. Depending on the subject, learning may be enjoyable, but it will not be effortless. Learning requires work.

This is as true of learning the Bible as it is of learning algebra. We think that learning the Bible should be as natural as breathing in and out; if knowing God’s word is so good for us, surely he would not make it difficult for us to do so. But learning the Bible requires discipline, and discipline is something we don’t naturally embrace. Because learning the Bible is a discipline, patience will play a much-needed role in our progress.

What do you think?

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Observing John 3:16

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Will Humes (2009), Creative Commons

Will Humes (2009), Creative Commons

Douglas Smith has some helpful observations on the Bible’s most famous verse (John 3:16). In my summer Bible study, I may ask the group to make 50 observations on this one verse, as it summarizes much of the Bible’s message.

There is so much life-changing truth packed into this verse that, according to some stories, evangelist Dwight L. Moody’s life and ministry were changed by sitting under the preaching of a man who preached from John 3:16 throughout daily meetings over an entire week!

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Idolatry is Embarrassing

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Idolatry is not only stupid and offensive to God; it is embarrassing. Check out this post by Ryan Higginbottom on Isaiah 20 and how embarrassing idolatry is. It’s a good example of finding the main point of a text and applying it specifically.

Those same soldiers in whom Judah had hoped were paraded naked through the streets by their captors. What a display of their weakness and frailty! What a dramatic point about the foolishness of trusting in them! You can almost hear the heavenly narrative: “Instead of me, the Lord of hosts, you trust in these guys? Really?!”

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Everyday Application

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Bible application is exhausting. Must we do it every time we study the Bible? Must we constantly add one more thing to our to-do list?

Desiring GodAt Desiring God, David Mathis says it depends on what we mean by Application. If we mean that we must come up with something new to do each day, then no. We’ll never be able to keep up. But if we mean that we must be changed in our thinking or desires, then yes.

Rather than dictating specific actions, he wants to see us formed into the kind of persons who are able to “discern what is pleasing to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:10).

In Scripture, we see the Lord. As we see, we will become amazed. In our amazement, we reflect and meditate until the word is written on our hearts. Then, over time, we’ll see gradual and specific change in our lives.

Mathis is on to something, though I’ve used slightly different language for it. I suggest the 3 spheres for application as a helpful model: Head, Heart, Hands. Yes, change should occasionally hit our hands and produce new behaviors or action steps. But we must not neglect the other two spheres, where we address our thinking and character. Head and Heart application rarely produces doable behaviors, but it makes us into the kind of people who are more attuned to the Lord and his commands. Such people will then see behaviors change over time.

But can we confidently say there’s something for us to apply in every passage? Absolutely!

Yes, take every word as spoken to yourself, with this essential anchor in place: Seek to understand first how God’s words fell on the original hearers, and how it relates to Jesus’s person and work, and then bring them home to yourself. Expect application to your life as God speaks to us today through the Spirit-illumined understanding of what the inspired human author said to his original readers in the biblical text.

Mathis shows us how to follow this plan to bring the Bible home to our hearts. I recommend the article to you.

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Four Modern Versions of the Bible that are Ruining the Bible

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Donna (2006), Creative Commons

Donna (2006), Creative Commons

Ben Irwin asks if the modern proliferation of Bibles might be part of the reason we’re reading Scripture less. The Bible is so available to us that we don’t hunger for it. And four kinds of Bibles lead us to devalue the Bible.

  1. The Commodity Bible (teen version, young couple’s version, single white female version, etc.)
  2. The Disposable Bible (planned for obsolescence)
  3. The Accessory Bible (colored to match your shoes)
  4. The “Have it Your Way” Bible (pick a translation—and change translations from verse to verse—so it says what you want it to say)

Irwin’s background in publishing Bibles commercially lends a certain gravity to his musings. And he suggests:

It’s not too late to chart another course. It’s not too late to remember that while the Bible was given for us, that doesn’t make it ours to tailor as we see fit. Scripture, as it turns out, is not that interested in catering to my personal “felt needs.”

It’s not too late to remember that the Bible is not just another commodity — that the whole point of owning and reading the Bible is not so I can fit bits and pieces of it into my life, but so I can fit my life into its story.

This thoughtful article is well worth considering. Check it out!

Proverbs 6, Structure, and Careful Observation All in One

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You’ve gotta check out this blog post by Dan Phillips at Pyromaniacs. He walks through Proverbs 6:1-19, showing how his understanding of the text unfolded as he observed more and more carefully. He noticed the structure, and the way the passage hangs together around the three progressively bad kinds of fool.

And his careful observation leads him to many of the same conclusions I drew about this text and these three kinds of fool.

I highly recommend it, if you’re up for a fun journey. Check it out!

Bible Study is for the Heart not Just the Head

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According to Dave Kraft, “How You Approach Scripture as a Leader is Critically Important.” He writes of his experience with OIA Bible study (though he labels the first step as “Information” instead of “Observation”) and of how easy it is for such study to influence merely our thinking.

But character matters, too. In fact, if you are not learning from the Bible, you are not in a position to be teaching it.

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Hope for the Backsliding Bible Reader

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Recently, the good folks at the Good Book blog posted “Confessions of a Backsliding Bible Reader” by Helen Thorne. Ms. Thorne lists all the great excuses she makes each day that keep her from reading her Bible. Then she shares truth that helps her walk through the excuses.

She writes of how God delights to be known by us:

The reality is that God would much prefer a sleepy attempt to engage with him than no attempt at all. I could quite happily pray on the bus and listen to his word on my mp3. No-one in my office would actually mind if I took a proper lunch-break and went somewhere quiet to read. And it would probably be far healthier for my spiritual life if I did a little less “for God” and spent a little longer “with God” occasionally saying “no” to an activity so I can spend some serious time with my heavenly Father.

In the end, she offers a simple treatment: connect with your church community. None can stand alone, so why not open ourselves to others and ask for help?

Her brief meditation is well worth the look. Check it out!

John Piper’s Desired Legacy

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Desiring GodI couldn’t be more thrilled with the new direction of John Piper and Desiring God ministries. From Piper’s blog post last week called “The Legacy I Want to Leave“:

For most of my pastoral life, I heralded the wonders of what I saw in the Bible.

I tried to do this in such a way that people could see that the wonders really did come from the Bible, and not from me. But I seldom focused on how I saw the spectacular truths of Scripture. My preaching and writing aimed mainly to bring people to a banquet, not take them into the kitchen.

When I think of the coming generations, I am not content to only leave them a deposit of books and sermons that celebrate the glories of God and the wonders of Christian Hedonism…

Underneath all the arguments is the Book. The Bible. If future generations only learn what we saw, and not how to see it for themselves, they will be second-handers. And second-handers cannot last. They grow bored and boring. Powerful, truth-preserving, God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, soul-ravishing, mission-advancing ministry is sustained by the power to see for yourself the glories of God’s word.

So I have a new and focused passion to help people really see the riches of God’s word for themselves.

http://vimeo.com/88838646

Please check out the rest of the post and Piper’s short video explaining his vision. And let’s pray that God would use this influential man of God for incredible good for Jesus’ sake. Let’s pray that his legacy would truly be more than a deposit of books and sermons, but a generation of Christians who know how to look at the Book and mine its riches for themselves.

And while you pray, please pray for me. I imagine Piper will write a book about how to study the Bible. I’m sure it will sell better than my recently released book on the topic. Please pray that I would resist any petty jealousy and delight in the Lord’s word going forth.

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I Can Do All Things…Except Ignore the Context

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Pastor Yancey Arrington recently wrote a great post about everyone’s favorite inspirational verse: Philippians 4:13. “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (ESV). We love quoting this verse to motivate ourselves to try harder, run faster, and work smarter.

However, Arrington reminds us that context drives interpretation. And in the context of Philippians 4, doing “all things” means “facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need” (Phil 4:12). In other words, “I can do all things” has more to do with resting and learning contentment than with pushing and triumphing.

Arrington makes a good case, and I encourage you to check it out!