Helping ordinary people learn to study the Bible
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!
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.
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.
Has someone ever encouraged you to ask for something in Jesus’ name because He’s promised to give it to you (according to John 14:14) ? Or perhaps you yourself have wondered what Jesus meant when He said in Matthew 18:20, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” (Isn’t Jesus always with us, according to Matthew 28:20?) Or it may be that you’ve heard a motivational speaker emphasize the importance of vision-casting leadership by quoting Proverbs 29:18 in the King James Version: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
If you have experienced these or similar scenarios, you’ve probably scratched your head and wondered what you were missing. Does the Bible really say those things?
The answer is often yes and no – yes, the Bible [sorta] says those things, but no, it doesn’t mean what you think it means.
I recently finished reading a very helpful book that addresses some of the most misused verses in the Bible, appropriately entitled, The Most Misused Verses in the Bible. Author Eric J Bargerhuff does a masterful job of graciously explaining the importance of placing all Bible verses in their proper context – and he works through this by dedicating one chapter to each of these “misused verses”.
The chapters are short, clear and filled with helpful explanations that don’t require a theology degree to understand. Bargerhuff also humbly offers examples from his own life that give the book a warm and approachable tone.
Two quotes to whet your appetite:
[Referencing the temptation of Jesus in Luke 4] What’s interesting here is that Satan not only knows and uses the Word of God, but this time (unlike in the garden), he chooses to quote it correctly. In other words, it is not a misquote or an incorrect citation of the verse, but it is a misuse of it.We have no right to hold God hostage to a promise that we have misunderstood.
If you’ve enjoyed reading Knowable Word, you’ll likely also appreciate reading The Most Misused Verses in the Bible. Check it out!
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.
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.
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.
What do you think? Was I specific enough? Did I remember Jesus?
BibleMesh posted an article yesterday entitled, Can’t I just skip over the genealogies in the Bible? It’s a short read with some good examples of why you should read over those names with thankfulness and hope.
Check it out!
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:
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?
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).
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:
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!
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.
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.
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!
