Knowable Word

Helping ordinary people learn to study the Bible

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Read the Bible

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A few weeks ago, I linked to my post at the Gospel Coalition with some advice to readers: Read the Bible. Along the same lines, this terrific article from Jim Elliff recommends heavy saturation in the Scripture:

No plan for Bible reading is a complete waste of time, obviously, but I’ve now come to believe there is a better way of thinking about Bible reading. I’m recommending immersion or saturation in one or two books of the Bible over several months as my preferred method. Frankly, I have never known Bible reading to be so transformative and interesting as with this method, both for me and for many friends who have tried it at my suggestion.

Elliff doesn’t necessarily suggest reading the entire Bible quickly (though he mentions the possibility), but he proposes immersion in a large chunk of text. Such immersion allows us to pickle in the very words of God and avoid three things that distract us from the text:

  1. Devotionalism
  2. Good books
  3. Commentaries and study Bibles

I heartily concur! Devotion to God is important. Good books sharpen our thinking. Commentaries and study Bibles hone our understanding and help provide necessary background.

But too often, we allow such things to replace the Bible altogether. It’s like replacing the vinegar with orange juice and expecting the cucumbers to still taste good on a sandwich.

Elliff’s article is a little long, but it’s quite good. Check it out!

 

Regaining Hope

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Regaining HopeIn his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul gives a recipe for influential leadership that includes humility and hope. And the Thessalonians had hope, along with faith and love, in droves (1 Thess 1:2-3).

But, in a matter of months, they lost hope. Affliction and persecution and besetting sin wore them down, and they had grown weary in doing good.

Can you relate?

Hope is slippery, and this fallen world constantly threatens our grip on it.

The definition of marriage is in question. Religious liberty could be threatened. School shootings become routine. Horrific infanticide takes place in unaccountable clinics. Chemical weapons endanger world peace. Government shutdowns inflame disgruntlement.

Through it all, we try to do good. We love our neighbors, we support the community, and we preach Christ and him crucified.

But it gets wearying.

You’re not alone.

The Relentless Fight blog recently published an article I wrote about 2 Thessalonians called “Regaining Hope.” In the article, I reflect on what Paul might say today to any of us in danger of losing hope.

Check it out!

The 10 Most Biblical New Year’s Resolutions

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After Friday’s year-end roundup, I’m on a top 10 kick. So here are 10 New Year’s resolutions you might want to try this year. They’re biblical, after all, but I take no responsibility for the outcomes.

Lori Ann of MamaWit (mamawit.com), Creative Commons

Lori Ann of MamaWit (mamawit.com), Creative Commons

10. Drink water and eat vegetables. If and only if, by January 11, you are fatter, prettier, and smarter than the rest of your generation, keep it up (Dan 1:11-16). Otherwise, feel free to ditch the vegetables.

9. Do whatever Jesus would do (Matt 14:28-29, 1 Pet 3:18-20).

8. Husbands, always tell your wives what to do (Esther 1:10-12).

7. Act shrewdly enough that your potential enemies and your real enemies won’t be able to team up against you (Ex 1:10).

6. Wives, do whatever your husbands tell you to do (Acts 5:1-2, 7-10).

5. Dedicate to God whatever he brings your way (Judg 11:30-31).

4. Keep your hands to yourself (1 Cor 7:1).

3. Get more money, so you can answer everything (Eccl 10:19) and eliminate all pain and insecurity from your life (Luke 12:18-19, James 5:1).

2. Obey all the lesser-known, but not less important, commands of God, such as: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Drink, be drunk, and vomit'” (Jer 25:27).

1. Build something great for yourself (Gen 11:1-4).

Ridiculousness aside—as for me, I’m going to begin my annual blitz through the Bible. The dark winter months can be so discouraging for me, and the most effective treatment is to drown myself in Scripture to draw closer to its Author. Would you like to join me in a speed-read through the Bible this year? If so, check out my recent post at The Gospel Coalition: “A Bible Reading Plan for Readers.”

Reading the Bible in big chunks might help us not to take individual verses out of context.

What other “biblical” resolutions could we add to the list?

Top Posts of 2013

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Knowable Word LogoBy God’s grace, the readership of Knowable Word tripled from the beginning of the year to the end. I praise God for the opportunity to help ordinary people learn to study the Bible.

The “Popular Posts” list in the sidebar shows which posts have been most popular in the last 30 days. For your New Year’s delight, here were the most popular posts in all of 2013.

 

10. Top 10 Old Testament Verses Quoted in the New Testament

I wrote this post as part of my “NT Quotes the OT” series. It arose from my own Bible reading early in the year, when I kept track of every explicit OT quotation in the NT. The raw data made it onto the Resources page.

9. 10 Old Testament Books Never Quoted in the New Testament

Another post from the “NT Quotes the OT” series.

8. The Best Wedding Sermon Ever

As an aside from my series on Proverbs, I posted this recording of Paul Browne’s sermon from my own wedding in 2004. The recording is almost 10 years old, but the sermon remains the best I’ve heard (and—really—not just because it was my own wedding).

7. Don’t Abuse the Sexiest Parts of the Bible

From Proverbs 5, I challenge modern Christians to avoid two of the commonplace mistakes about sexually graphic Bible texts.

6. How to Honor God with Your Money

This post from last year on Proverbs 1:10-19 contains specific financial advice and continues to be heavily read.

5. How to Study the Bible

I sort of cheated on this one. This post serves as a Table of Contents for the entire series on the Observation-Interpretation-Application Method. At first, readers had to click back and forth to this post in order to read through the series. It’s fixed now, though! At the end of each post, there is a direct link to the next post in the series.

4. Teach Bible Study to a 4-Year-Old

The short series of posts on teaching Bible study to children offers tips for teaching different age levels. My unique twist is that I don’t just want to help you teach them the Bible; I want to help you teach them how to study the Bible (though, see the “4-year-old” part 2 post for a more focused list of suggestions). They don’t have to be old or brilliant to get it.

3. Teach Bible Study to a 2-Year-Old

This was my first post in the “Teach Children” series. It’s been viewed almost 30% more than the 4-year-old post. May it help you to bring the beauty of Bible study to your littlest ones.

2. Our Bible Study Method: OIA

This post serves as the cornerstone for the blog. It’s linked to in the top menu to make it easy for new visitors to find. It’s called “Our Bible Study Method” because I wasn’t the only blogger here when I wrote it! In the last year, my partners have all had to move on, but I can’t bring myself to call this terrific method “my” method.

1. The Only Intoxication the Bible Advises

This post on Proverbs 5 is all about sex. And most of the post is an extended quotation from that “Best Wedding Sermon” (see #8 above), which shows that I’m not biased in my belief that it truly is the best wedding sermon.

Thank you for reading the blog this year! I’m delighted to partner with you in bringing the gospel of grace to our generation through God’s knowable word.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions for the next year, or if you’d like to contribute a guest post.

My Christmas Gift to You

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Glory to the newborn King! Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!

Alan Cleaver (2007), Creative Commons

Alan Cleaver (2007), Creative Commons

In honor of the incarnate King, born to bring the gift of life to the world, I have some special treats for you.

I’ve updated the blog’s Resources page with worksheets for observation, interpretation, and application that you are free to download and distribute for use in Bible study.

In addition, my colleague Dan Miller created a beautiful infographic about OIA Bible study, which summarizes the entire method on a single page.

Check it out! And have a Merry Christmas.

The Knowable Word is Not an Easy Word

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Knowable Word LogoWhen a few friends and I started this blog, we did so under the assumption that ordinary people can learn to study the Bible. God’s word is knowable, and you don’t have to be a superstar PhD theologian to learn to study it.

I retain that conviction as firmly as ever, though Trevin Wax recently wrote of a helpful qualification to this conviction.

“Stress the simplicity of the Bible,” he writes, “and the people you are hoping will read the Bible next year may begin to wonder if they’re just too dumb to understand it. I wonder if, in our efforts to get people reading Scripture, we might be minimizing the tough parts.”

I trust that in writing of how ordinary people can learn to study the Bible, I don’t unintentionally communicate that the Bible is easy. “There are some things in [Paul’s letters] that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:16, ESV). To avoid this danger, we must be taught and stabilized.

That doesn’t mean we should rely on the experts to tell us what to think. It simply means the hard work is all worth it.

I highly recommend the rest of Wax’s article.

Check it out!

Your Method Shapes Your Bible Study

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Recently, Aaron Armstrong at Blogging Theologically posted a short series about Bible study entitled “Getting Serious About Your Studies.” He focuses not so much on principles as tools, and you may find his recommendations helpful.

He concludes the series by reflecting on the crucial importance of our approach to the Bible. The results of our study are not arbitrary; our choices for how to read the Bible will affect what we end up seeing in the Bible.

Whether we realize it or not, we do this every time we pick up our Bible—and the rules and principles we hold to drastically affect what we believe the Bible says. For example:

  • Whether you believe pastoral ministry is for men only or is open to women as well stems from the interpretive decisions you make.
  • How you approach the “God-hates-yet-loves-sinners” paradox is heavily influenced by your hermeneutical approach.
  • How you understand the world to have come into being and how this world will end is drastically affected by the principles you use for interpreting the text.

It’s a good warning to give careful though to our methods.

Check it out!

Give Thanks for God’s Word

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Turn to me and be gracious to me,
as is your way with those who love your name.
Keep steady my steps according to your promise,
and let no iniquity get dominion over me.
Redeem me from man’s oppression,
that I may keep your precepts.
Make your face shine upon your servant,
and teach me your statutes.
My eyes shed streams of tears,
because people do not keep your law. (Psalm 119:132-136, ESV)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Can the Bible be Inerrant When There are So Many Interpretations?

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Derek Rishmawy, writing at the Gospel Coalition, reflects on this issue.

I recently ran across a couple of different writers raising questions about the value of affirming inerrancy or infallibility for the Bible, both of which hinged on the link between the text and interpretation. One wondered aloud at the coherence of claiming an infallible text when you’re a finite sinner, whose faculties are limited, likely disordered by sin and self-will, and whose interpretations must therefore be flawed. The other, a little more boldly, claimed the doctrine unnecessary, only serving human arrogance by lending added weight to the claimant’s own fallible pronouncements.

Have you ever heard these two objections to the Bible’s inerrancy?

  1. Fallible people aren’t qualified to judge the Bible to be infallible.
  2. Only arrogant, condescending people would claim that their holy book is without error.

Knowable Word LogoRishmawy very helpfully distinguishes between inerrancy/infallibility of the interpreter and that of the text itself. In other words, fallen people don’t necessarily make the book erroneous. This distinction is critical as we learn to study the Bible. We submit to the text; we don’t use it to have our own way.

Rishmawy surprised me with his closing discussion of submission to the text. He demonstrates that those who believe in the text’s inerrancy are most likely to wrestle with it and submit to it. If we believe it’s full of errors, we can minimize or disregard whatever doesn’t sit well with us. I rarely see discussions of the Bible’s inerrancy get this personal.

Check it out!

Come Out of Your Shame

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Shame’s nature is to deceive and humiliate. It’s not something we normally like to speak of.

Sure, we’ll break the ice at a party with a round of “what’s your most embarrassing moment?” But everyone knows such things aren’t truly the most embarrassing things. We labor to hide the truly shameful things in our lives. I might speak flippantly of the time I broke a photocopier by displaying one of my least presentable body parts. But I find much more shame in my fear of being unmasculine or in the exposure of my secret hookup life.

Sometimes our shame arises from things we’ve done. Sometimes it arises from things done to us. Sometimes it arises from the work of God in us. All three sources of shame cause us to erect impenetrable fortresses to protect ourselves.

But Jesus receives the shamed. He redeems the shamed. Then he releases the unashamed to change the world. He brings our shame to the light, and he remakes us into something beautiful that reflects his saving glory. He experienced our shame on the cross, and he rose to give us new unashamed life.

Last weekend, I had the privilege of speaking to our students on the topic of shame alongside two of my heroes. From the narratives of John’s Gospel, we showed Jesus addressing the shame of sinners and transforming it by his mercy.

First, Mark Fodale spoke of how “Jesus Receives the Shamed” through the interaction with the adulterous woman in John 8. Here’s a clip:

Then I spoke of how “Jesus Redeems the Shamed” through the healing of the man born blind in John 9. Here’s a clip:

Finally, Dave Kieffer spoke of how “Jesus Releases the Unashamed” through the restoration of Peter in John 21. Here’s a clip:

You can find the full recordings of all three sessions, along with breakout sessions, on the DiscipleMakers website.