Foundation for Living # 11 December 18, 2005
Let's open in a word of prayer for Chafer Seminary:
Father, we are thankful that in Your grace You have provided us with trained pastors who can accurately teach Your Word, rightly divide the Word of truth that we may be equipped, that we may grow and mature and advance in our spiritual life. We thank You for the men who had the vision to establish this seminary, for Dr. George Meisinger, and his willingness to take on this responsibility, for his church, Grace Chapel, and their support of the mission of the seminary and their support of the seminary financially and with personnel. And Father, we also pray for the future of the seminary, for the financial and personnel challenges. We pray that You would provide these needs. And Father, above all, we pray that You would keep us true to Your word, that we may prepare men in the future who can staff the pulpits of so many churches who want teaching pastors who can come and exegete the Word, and teach it in such a way that we can learn the breadth and depth of Your Word and apply it in our lives. Father, now as we come together to worship You this morning, we pray that our focus will be brought to Your grace and character that You might be glorified. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
Let's open our Bibles this morning for a Scripture Reading from Psalm 119.
Psalm 119:1-8
I will read the first 8 verses. This is set up as an acronym, each stanza beginning with a Hebrew word that begins with the first letter of the alphabet for the first stanza, and the second letter of the alphabet for the second stanza and so on. There are about eight verses in each section.
ALEPH
1 Blessed are the undefiled in the way,
Who walk in the law of the LORD!
2 Blessed are those who keep His testimonies,
Who seek Him with the whole heart!
3 They also do no iniquity;
They walk in His ways.
4 You have commanded us
To keep Your precepts diligently.
5 Oh, that my ways were directed
To keep Your statutes!
6 Then I would not be ashamed,
When I look into all Your commandments.
7 I will praise You with uprightness of heart,
When I learn Your righteous judgments.
8 I will keep Your statutes;
Oh, do not forsake me utterly!
Father, again we express our gratitude for Your grace that You have provided everything for us, starting with perfect salvation, complete salvation, through the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross as our substitute. He was the Living Word who was incarnate in order to explain and reveal You to us. He is also the source of the written Word, which is His thinking. As we study Your Word today, we pray that God the Holy Spirit would make it clear to us. Challenge us with the application of the Word in each of our lives, that we may continue to advance and grow to spiritual maturity. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
We are in a course of a study of basic doctrines related to the Christian life, Foundation for Living. We looked at basic skills for the Christian life, followed up by the basics of the priesthood, the basic responsibilities of the believer priest. We started off by looking at prayer, and last week and this week we are looking at the role of the Word of God in the life of the believer priest. Last time we introduced this by going to Romans 12:1&2. In Romans 12:1 Paul says:
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
We saw that the word beseech means to urge or challenge someone to a particular course of action. It is based on the mercies of God, that is the character of God, especially as Paul has explained this in the previous chapters of Romans, which is an outline of the righteousness of God and God's grace. He says,
I beseech you, I challenge you on the basis of your understanding of grace that as a result of knowledge, you offer, present your bodies, that is your entire person, as a living sacrifice,
That is the point of the command. It is the challenge of every believer, that once you come to understand certain things about God, His character, what He has provided us at salvation, that that challenges each of us to a particular response, a particular course of action. This is related to our priesthood, that we present our bodies a living sacrifice. I pointed out last time that this word sacrifice means to offer something to deity, something of value, it is the giving up of something or setting aside of something of value such as time, money, energy, in order to do something that has a more significant purpose, specifically in relationship to serving God, or studying the Word, so that our thinking is transformed. That is the point of the second verse. This is then defined as our reasonable service according to the translation of the New King James. The word in the Greek indicates that which pertains to reason, it is based on rational thought, intelligent meditation, reflection upon the Word of God and the implications and instructions contained therein. That is the concept of reasonable. The New American Standard translates this your spiritual service of worship, which somehow loses the significance of that Greek word logikos, which indicates that rational foundation for our spiritual service. The last word translated service is the Greek word latria, which indicates service given to a deity, hence, it is Christian service, duties and responsibilities of a believer in serving God, and that starts with knowing God's Word. It begins with an understanding of God's instructions to us. It is not just getting saved and then automatically getting involved in all kinds of church activities. That is the standard MO for most churches. I remember, when I was a young pastor and I was talking to an older pastor who thought he was giving me good advice and said, now son, if you want to grow your church, as soon as you have visitors come a second time, you need to start getting them involved in some sort of function in the church so that they feel like they have responsibility and ownership. And I said, well, that is not how I do things, I want to make sure they have some spiritual growth and knowledge under their belt, and frankly, I don't want anybody doing anything until they sit there for a couple of years and understand what church is all about and have a foundation in the word of God. Well, he really did not understand that, but that is the standard MO for church growth and development. That is why so many of these churches that are growing to such a large size do so. They implement these kinds of things, but they water down doctrinal teaching in the process, and nobody knows anything about Scripture. The word latria is the word used in the context of ritual worship to the Lord in terms of the Old Testament, so it is a focus of our priesthood; it is a focus of the ministry of the believers' priesthood. This is expanded in the second verse, Romans 12:2 says,
and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
This is actually a metamorphosis; it is a complete overhaul, a complete renovation of our thinking. That is the process of the Christian life. We grow up being conformed to the thinking of this age, the thinking of the culture around us, the thinking that is typical of the time period in which we live. The Greek word here is aionos which indicates that zeitgeist, that thinking that characterizes the age in which we live, we are not to be conformed to it, but we are brainwashed with it as we grow up. You are brain washed with it from the teachers you have in school, your peers, you are brainwashed with it by the media, the television you watch, the novels you read, and everything communicates these ideas in a multiplicity of different ways. So the process of the Christian life is to overhaul your thinking so that the values that are established, that you grew up with, that are in your soul, and anchored in your soul, that are basically human viewpoint need to be taken out, examined, re evaluated, restructured in terms of the divine viewpoint framework of Scripture. And this has a purpose, that we can prove, that is demonstrate in our life, it is a physical testimony that as we live on the basis of the Word of God, it demonstrates to the angels and to the rest of the human race that God's will is good, acceptable and perfect. So this tells us that a primary function, in fact the foundational function of our priesthood is to orient our thinking to the Word of God. We must recognize that the Bible is important, first of all because it is the Word of God. 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that all Scripture is, not given by inspiration of God, but literally, breathed out by God. He is the source of Scripture and He does this through human authors. And He oversees the process in such a way that He can guarantee that what they write is free from error. At the same time, He uses their background, their training, their own individual literary styles, their own individual educational backgrounds, all of these things are utilized so that you read different authors in the Old Testament, you have Moses, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and each author has their own style, their own vocabulary, and their own way of expressing things. You get into the New Testament, and you have the same thing, Paul, Peter, John, each one is given different levels of revelation from God, different information, which they write down, each one comes from different backgrounds. Paul had one of the greatest educations in the ancient world. He was educated in the rabbinical school of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, which was the greatest education system for rabbis in the ancient world. He was absolutely brilliant, one of the most brilliant minds in the ancient world. On the other hand, there is Peter who was a businessman. He was a fisherman. Too many people think of that as some body sitting out on the bank of the river, casting their fishing line out into the lake, or just having a small boat or nets, but they had a significant business. They had several boats, and they had people who worked for them. That is what enabled Peter and John to travel around with Jesus so much. Did you ever think about that? Where did they get their money? They had a business that was being run, they were in partnership with their father, and James and John and Peter and Andrew, and they had this business that helped support them. But they were not educated in the same way that Paul was, so that the inspiration God used that work of God breathing out through them, used their different backgrounds, their different personalities that comes through in their writing. So the Word of God, the Bible is important because it is the Word of God. It comes from God; it is God communicating His will, His purpose, and His plans to us. So we need to read that in order to understand it. A second reason it is important is because it is the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:16 tells us,
for who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ.
So it is the Word of God which is breathed out by God, and the Scripture is the thinking of Jesus Christ. So this means that for the believer nothing should be more important than to know how God would have you to think, and what God would have you to think about different issues in life. The Bible gives you the foundation for dealing with every critical issue in life. Many of these are debated, many of these are very complicated issues, and so we go to the Scripture to give us that framework to think about these things. The Bible talks about how valuable this is and so we go into the Psalms, to Psalm 19, two of the most important Psalms related to the Word of God are Psalm 19 and Psalm 119. Psalm 119 uses a variety of different words in the Hebrew to talk about the Word of God. It talks about the ordinance of God, the precepts of God, the testimony of God, the Law of God, and so it is a meditation on the importance of knowing the Word of God, the priority of the Word of God and that is why I have chosen to read through Psalm 119 on Sunday mornings.
Now, in Psalm 19, we read, starting in verse 7
The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul;
So is transforms the soul. That is the idea of verse 7.
The testimony of the LORD
Notice, the writer of Psalm 19 does the same thing as the writer of Psalm 119; he uses various synonyms to describe the Scripture.
The testimony of the LORD
is sure, making wise the simple;
8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
It is a three verse meditation on the value of the word of God, and then the conclusion is given in verse 10.
10 More to be desired are they than gold,
Yea, than much fine gold;
In other words, knowledge of Scripture, putting it into practice in your life is more important than anything else. It is more important than your job, than income, more important than the most valuable things you can think of having in life. So you need to put the pursuit of your spiritual life and your knowledge of the Word over and above everything else in life. Verse 11 goes on to say,
11 Moreover by them Your servant is warned,
And in keeping them there is great reward.
This is one of the reasons you not only need to be in Bible class learning the Word, but also reading the Word for yourself on a regular basis. You get up in the morning and you read through a chapter, or five chapters in the Word, you are reminded of principles, you are reminded about promises. And you are challenged in your thinking, in your mind about what God's standards are, so that this is something you can take with you through the day, and when you have opportunity, you can stop and reflect upon these basic principles that you discover in reading the Word. It is important for every believer to read the Word. Somehow people get the idea that well, I might get confused. Well, if that is your criteria, you shouldn't read anything, because anything can confuse you, the morning newspaper can confuse you. You read the editorials in the New York Times, or the Houston Chronicle, and you get really confused, so let's not read anything. No, that is not the solution. In any endeavor in life as you are growing in knowledge about something, there is always a stage in that freshman period when you are not really sure about how to put everything together and you do get confused, and you have a lot questions, well, that is good. I had a professor in college who used to say, it is more important to know the right questions than the right answers. He was absolutely correct. You need to think about things and that is why God has revealed the Word the way He has, to cause us to think and to interact with what He has said. Biblically, this is known as meditation. It is not the Eastern religious concept of meditation, where you just sort of empty your mind of everything but a sound or a syllable, and just focus on that, it is the idea of thinking deeply about something. And this means that when you read the Bible you should have a notebook, or a pad or something where you can jot down your thoughts and questions that come up. So that it helps you to focus your thinking and not just, we all do this, we start reading something and we see a word or a phrase, or something happens peripherally, and all of a sudden our mind is somewhere else, you ever have that happen?, and next thing you know, you have read a whole chapter and you don't know what you have just read. But your eyes were going across those verses, but you were thinking about things later on in the day, or something that happened yesterday, whatever it may be. And so by keeping a pad and pen there, helps you focus your thinking. Underline verses, if you read a verse, and think, that does not seem to jibe with what I read over there, just put a question mark next to the margin and go back to it later. It is called meditation; it is focused thought, concentration on what you are reading. The Lord told Joshua in Joshua 1:8:
This book of the Law,
the book of the Law was the Torah, the five books of the Pentateuch which Moses had written and part of the law was the standard for the leadership of Israel. And in that, especially in the section dealing with Kings, the King was to hand write a copy of the Law every year in the presence of the priest. He just couldn't cop out and have a little quiet time up in his private chambers, he had to sit down in the presence of the priest, where there was accountability, and hand write out a copy of the Law every year to remind him of what God expected of him. This same kind of thing was expected of Joshua as a leader of the nation.
This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.
This is a verse that perhaps you should memorize. I think I memorized this verse about 30 years ago, before ever I went to seminary. That is an interesting phraseology there, because, the word that is translated meditate in verse 8 is the Hebrew word haga, it is not the primary word for meditation and it means to utter, to mutter, to moan, or to mourn, the King James translates it that way. It means to meditate, and to devise something, or to plot something, to plan something. The primary root meaning to the word is to utter or mutter, it means to say something out loud. So Joshua is commanded, do not let this depart from your mouth. It is the idea of reading it out loud, thinking it out loud. When you read it out loud you are also hearing it. You are reading it, hearing it through your ear, so it is hitting your brain at different levels. The word came to mean to think deeply about something and to discuss it, to talk about it with others. Talk with friends about this, and the reflections you have. It is not something you read in private and then keep it to your self. The root idea of muttering or whispering, suggested that in this practice, they said it out loud. They rehearsed it out loud. So Joshua is told,
8 This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.
Note: it is not just a matter of being aware of what is said, it is not just an academic exercise, but it is a study that is designed to transform and change the way you live. That you may observe to do all according to all that is written in it. It is application. Result, in the last phrase,
For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success
In other words, as a result of the application of God's Word, you will be successful in carrying out the mission that God has for you. For Joshua it was one thing, for each of us as church age believers it is something else. Nevertheless, we will have prosperity in our spiritual life and spiritual growth, and we will have success in our spiritual life if we put the Word of God at the foremost place.
Psalm 119:15 uses the word meditation in a different sense. It is a different Hebrew word. Psalm 119:15 states:
15 I will meditate on Your precepts,
And contemplate Your ways.
There is a parallelism here in the two stanzas in Psalm 119. The first word that is translated meditate is the Hebrew word siyach means to meditate, to muse, to commune, to speak, and in some cases even, to complain. It has the root idea of going over something repeatedly in the mind, to think it through, that means to think about its implications and applications. What are the inferences? It has the idea of taking a verse apart and putting it back together, it would bring to bear the whole concept of doing analysis of Scripture, in which you would perform word studies on the words, look at the grammar and syntax in the original languages, and take that verse apart, and even though you do not have the gift of pastor teacher, and even though you have not gone to seminary, that does not mean that the average believer can't do this. That is the reason that one of the most popular classes at the College of Biblical Studies is a class on Bible study methods. The tools available to the average believer today to get into the Word are just tremendous, from computer tools to in print books that can help you understand the Scriptures you are reading at a little deeper level. That is what meditation means. This is a model for every believer.
I will meditate on Your precepts,
and secondly,
I will contemplate Your ways.
The word translated contemplate is the Hebrew word nabat which means to look at something or to regard it. It has the idea of thinking something through with sustained contemplation and concentration. You take a verse and you decide that this verse is a promise and you need to memorize it. So you repeat it over and over again, you say it out loud, you repeat it to yourself out loud, you think about, okay, what does this mean, you think through the phrases, how they relate to each other, you think about the words that are used in the English, you can look those words up in an English dictionary, if you have a concordance such as Strong's Concordance or Young's Concordance, you can look those words up, and they will give you, usually in Strong's there is a number at the side of the verse, and that number is connected to a very rudimentary Greek or Hebrew dictionary in the back and you can go back there and this gives you a root definition for the Greek or Hebrew word, and you can look it up and see how it is used in other passages in the Old Testament or the New Testament. This is the process of thinking through what the verse means. It is not just a matter of reading it. It is taking it to a different level, and every single believer can do this.
Psalm 119:23 uses this word as well
.
23 Princes also sit and speak against me,
But Your servant meditates (thinks through, concentrates on) Your statutes.
Psalm 119:48
48 My hands also I will lift up to Your commandments,
Which I love,
And I will meditate on Your statutes.
Psalm 119:78
78 Let the proud be ashamed,
For they treated me wrongfully with falsehood;
But I will meditate on Your precepts.
.
So it is not just the act of studying the Bible in isolation from life. In each of these verses there are life situations referred to, that in the first place there is slander against the writer, in Psalm 119:48 focuses on the priority of the commandment, and then Psalm119:78 again is dealing with those who have lied and treated him wrongly, and instead of focusing on retaliation, anger, resentment, the focus is to meditate on the precepts of God.
Let's talk about the process a little bit, and I want to give you an illustration, because people, again, have somehow gotten the idea that, well, I can't really read the Bible for myself. Somehow there is almost a mystical view of the original languages, that if I knew Greek or Hebrew, I wouldn't get confused. No, you would just get confused about different things. It is not a matter that once you know the original languages it solves all the problems. Language just does not function that way. It helps, it is always better to read a writer in the original than in a translation, but that does not resolve all the different problems. God has designed His Word in such a way, that it can be translated into any language, and if the translation is a good one, then you can learn solid biblical truth that can help you in your spiritual life and spiritual growth. In contrast, the Koran is written in Arabic, and according to Islamic theology, you can't get anywhere unless you read it in Arabic. That is why all Muslims are supposed to learn Arabic, so they can read the Koran in Arabic. It is a mystical and rigid view of language that is very different from the biblical view of language. For example, biblically we know that God created all language; therefore He is able to communicate the truth in all languages. He is not restricted to just one language. This adds to the quality of the Bible being alive and powerful. We must admit that the everyday believer is not going to get out of the Scripture that someone with the gift of pastor teacher who is trained is going to get out of the Scriptures. But, if I may use this analogy, the difference between someone who is panning for gold and someone who is a graduate of the Colorado School of Mines in Engineering. The difference is some body who is trained to go deep into the ground and find the rich, thick veins of gold and come out with tremendous wealth, versus a person who has basic, rudimentary skills and pan for gold in a stream, and still come up with a certain amount of value, or even go up stream and find where the gold is breaking off and washing down the stream and he can dig there a little more deeply and find some more gold. You are not restricted in the Scriptures to dependency on the pastor teacher. The pastor teacher is the one who communicates the Word, it is a communication gift. So we have to recognize that every believer has the ability to read the Word, to understand the Word, and to cull some value from the reading of the Word. But, you are not going to grow to spiritual maturity on the basis of your own personal study. That is why God provided men with the gift of pastor teacher. Because these men have communication gifts, and when they are trained they have the ability to dig more deeply in to the word, and find that rich, deep thick vein of gold, and to bring that information to the congregation so they in turn can learn and apply and grow to spiritual maturity. What are the implications of this? One of the implications is that we have to value, as a church, the training of ministers in seminaries. We have to make that a priority. Paul, in 2 Timothy, told Timothy that part of his responsibility as a pastor was to commit the things that were entrusted to him to faithful men. That is part of the responsibility of the pastor, not just to train the congregation, not just to feeds the sheep, not just to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, but also to identify and train and challenge young men in the congregation who have the gift of pastor teacher, and to develop them so that they in turn can fulfill their role in the body of Christ.
Second principle: though there are self taught doctors and lawyers and financial advisors who may be very good, few of us would really trust our lives to those individuals. We need to have well trained, well equipped pastors who can exegete the Scriptures for themselves. They are not dependent on others, men who learn to think critically, so they can go to the scriptures, the gold standard in the Christian life is what does the Bible say. Too often what has happened in the last thirty or forty years in evangelical Christianity is that the gold standard becomes some pastor teacher. I remember when I was in seminary, beginning to notice this that in papers and discussions other students would say, well, this pastor says this, and that pastor says this and this other pastor says this, and I kept thinking that sounds a lot like what was happening in Judaism at the time of Christ. What happened in Judaism was that you studied what the Rabbis said. So you would get into the Mishna, and what you discover is that they would bring up a controversial or debated point and they would say, well, Rabbi so and so said this and this is his argument and Rabbis so and so said the opposite and this is his argument, and Rabbi so and so said this and this is his argument, and you never come to a conclusion. You never understand, this is what the Word of God says, and that is why in the Gospels, it was so striking to the people who heard Jesus that they said, this man speaks as one who has authority. Jesus did not come along and say, well Rabbi Shamai said this and Rabbi Halel said this, and Rabbi Gamaliel said this, He said, thus saith the Lord, this is what the Word says. Truly, truly I say unto you. He spoke as one who had authority. He said, this is what the Word of God says. In many seminaries today they have slipped into that academic mode where they teach the students, that here is Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, and there are five different positions on the relationship between these 2 verses to one another, go, be warm and be filled, bless you my son. And they never learn how to reach a conclusion as to what is actually said there. So they go out into the pulpits of the churches and you ask them a question, what does this say, and they say, well there are five views on that, okay, but what does it say? Well, I don't know, we didn't get that far in my classes in seminary, we I just know what the five views are.
And that is not the way it was in Dallas Seminary, up until the early 80's and one oldie goldie professor there made the observation that when they changed the purpose statement of Dallas Seminary, to where is was no longer just to train pastors, but to train Christian leaders, over a period of 4-5 years, there was a subtle shift from this is what the passage means. He recognized that even his classes, he quit teaching this is what the text says and gradually shifted to these are the five different views you need to understand about the passage. You need to know what those five views are if you are a scholar of the Word, but you need to know which is right and which is wrong and why it is right and why the others are wrong. You need to be able to think it through. This is all part of seminary training. I understand from talking to a faculty member up there recently, this has reached a crisis point and finally some people in authority there are recognizing that there need to be some changes and there are some corrections being made, and that is good. But we have to recognize that the Bible teaches specific things and we have to teach what the Word says.
Third principle: the gift of pastor teacher is a communication gift; it is not a revelatory gift. Think about that. The gift of pastor teacher is a communication gift, it is not a revelatory gift.God does not speak to me any differently than He speaks to you. He speaks only through His Word. The filling of the Holy Spirit does not guarantee that when I am in fellowship with the Lord that what I study and what my conclusions are going to be right. That is a Catholic doctrine known as papal infallibility. We do not believe that. I can be wrong, I have been wrong. I have misinterpreted Scripture. It is a growth process for every pastor. God the Holy Spirit teaches us, but on the basis of whatever our background is in tools and we go through the process of growing and learning the Word. Being in fellowship with the Holy Spirit, being filled by the Holy Spirit is not a guarantee of infallibility. This is not a process of revelation. The pastor does not go into his study, study the Word and have truth revealed to him in that sense. Too often I have heard people say, such and such a pastor said this, therefore he must be right because he is a pastor teacher. We are Protestants, not Roman Catholics. The pastor is not infallible. He does not speak excathedra. He does not have the right to claim an inerrant position from what he teaches in the Scripture. He can be challenged. How do I know that? Because in Act 17, when the apostle Paul, and I am not talking about Joe Snodgrass, who shows up in Berea with his inner linear Bible, we are talking about the apostle Paul. The apostle Paul shows up in Berea and he praises the Bereans because they did not take him at his word, they searched the scriptures daily to see that what I said was so. Now if the apostle Paul is praising the Bereans because after he taught Bible class, they went home and got their Bibles and concordances out, and they checked up on his references, and made sure what he taught was right, what do you think you ought to be doing? Going home, studying what I teach and making sure this is what the Scripture says. You do not just sit there with your mind in neutral and suck up what any pastor says. You are to go home and search the Scripture so that challenges the believer to go to another level in his own personal reading of the Scripture, so that he comes to understand the scriptures at a higher level for himself and that strengthens and builds your soul in the Christian life. So you have to pay attention to Acts 17:11 concerning the Bereans, Luke wrote:
11 These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, (they had a strong positive volition) and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.
They had a strong positive volition. They were checking on the apostle Paul. Now the apostle Paul is getting direct revelation from God, the apostle Paul is an apostle, he is not just a pastor teacher. The apostle Paul is the apostle Paul. But they are checking up on him. So if that is true about him, what about the pastor teacher in the church age?
So how are you to read the Bible? What are some tips, some guidelines? First of all, create a schedule. Pick a time that is your time when you can sit and read the Bible free from distractions. Have a notebook, have a plan, and have a schedule. Do not start off reading your Bible in 1 Chronicles. By the time you get to the end of the second chapter you'll say, why did he say to read the Bible. It is nothing but a list of genealogies for nine chapters. It has a purpose and significance for the nation Israel, and it is the inspired Word of God, but you will just throw it out. The same thing happens if you start with Matthew. You may start off with Matthew 1:1 and get down to verse 15 and say, boy, this is really boring, I don't understand any of this. I remember when I was in the fifth grade and the Gideon's came into school back then they came to school and gave us a little New Testament. I still have mine, a little maroon New Testament. I said, I'm going to read my Bible, I read through Matthew 1 and I got down to about verse 10, and thought, this is really tough stuff. So start someplace like the gospel of John, or the book of Acts, or even if you have never read through the Bible yourself, get a paraphrase, a Living Bible because you are reading more to get the flow or structure at this point more than to get any heavy doctrine. I'll talk about that in just a minute. When I was in college I realized I just did not know the Old Testament. I did not know Jeptha from Japheth. So I figured I had better read the Old Testament. I started reading the King James, and I would just get lost. I was in a little Bible book store in Nacogdoches, and there was this book called the Old Testament Digest, it was sort of a Readers Digest version of the Old Testament based on the Living Bible, and it left out all the genealogies and a lot of the details of the Law and it basically gave the flow of historical narrative. And I read through that in about 2 or 3 weeks, and when I was done I had just a framework for understanding who lived when and where and in relationship to who, and after that, when I read in the King James, or New American Standard, it made more sense, because I had created that historical framework. So you need to create a schedule, a time period free from distraction.
Second, if you commute to work, if you have a long commute, and you go back and forth you could get some of these books on tape, Bible lessons, where Charlton Heston or some body is reading the Bible, and you can listen to it that way while you are driving in your car along with listening to tapes of teaching.
A third idea, set a goal. Read fifteen minutes a day. If you have not done this, some people say, I am going to read 5 chapters a day. If it is a chapter like Psalm 117, which is 2 verses, then you may be able to crank out 5-6 chapters in the morning. But sometimes you hit some really long chapters and you have only read 2 chapters in thirty minutes and then you can get frustrated. So what I suggest is that you pick a time frame, I am going to read for 20 minutes, whether that is 2 chapters or 5 chapters or 10 chapters, I am going to read for 20 minutes. So set a goal and keep to that schedule, something that you can reasonably and realistically accomplish.
Fourth point. Keep a notebook handy. Jot down questions, thoughts, observations and applications that come to mind. Make your applications personal. Even when you are taking notes here, try to personalize the application and say, I need to do something. When I say you need to do x, y, and z, when you write down notes, don't depersonalize it by saying every believer needs to do x, y, and z, put down, I need to do x, y, and z. That makes it personal in terms of application. You can catch me after class, ask me questions, people do that all the time. We are trying to get to a point where we can set up a Q& A section on the DBM website. Where people can email questions in and I can post the ones that are decent and put them up on the website, that way I have some editorial control.
Fifth suggestion. Underline promises, start marking up your Bible, underline promises, put question marks by verses, put notes in the top margins so you can go back and find those verses later on. If you come to a section you don't understand what it says, put a question mark and move on. Don't get bogged down.
Sixth: don't get bogged down in detail. That is what happens when people first start reading the Scripture for themselves. Sometimes they say, well, I read this and I got so overwhelmed by the detail. Don't get bogged down. You are just skimming the surface right now, picking up the main flow and main ideas. You can come back again and read it again. You ought to make a plan. There is a Bible out called Through the Bible in a Year. You can pick up one of those and it gives a schedule. Two weeks from now we have New Years, people make New Years resolutions, and it is a great time to start reading through the Bible in a year.
Seventh suggestion, learn to use some basic research tools and resources, such as a Bible dictionary or Bible encyclopedia. There are various different Bible encyclopedias available. Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia was revised not long ago. Or even a commentary. I recommend the 2 volume set that was done by professors at Dallas Seminary about 1980 called the Bible Knowledge Commentary. One volume on the Old Testament and one volume on the New Testament. Each commentary was written by a different professor, even though on the outside it says done by John Walvoord and Roy Zuck, they did not write it. They were the editors. At the beginning of each book it tells you who the authors are. I know almost all of them, they were professors of mine, it was written during the period I was in seminary. Some commentaries are better than others, but on the whole, it is vastly superior to anything else you can buy in print in terms of a one or two volume commentary.
Eighth. Look at maps and charts in your own Bible. When you are reading the Old Testament and it mentions different geographical locations, rivers, cities, towns, countries, turn to the back of your Bible and look at the maps. Become familiar with the geography of Israel and the Middle East.
Ninth. Read the genealogies as if they were your own genealogy. Don't get bogged down, with, why should I read this, I don't know what this is all about. Think about the fact that most of those genealogies are there because they are leading up to Jesus Christ. So think about that in terms of how God is anchoring everything that is said in the Scripture into historically real people. Think about those genealogies as your own background.
I want to cover two more questions very quickly, questions people always ask.
What translation should I read, and what study Bible should I use?
Eventually I am going to do whole classes on both of these, because there is a lot that goes into it that is very complicated.
The first question, what translation should I read? In answering this question there are two issues you have to address.
- What is the theory of translation that underlies that translation version. Whether it is King James Version, New King James, New International Version, The Message, which is the version I love to hate. In any of these, what underlies the translation.
- What is the view of textual criticism that the authors refer to. Now, textual criticism is a very complicated subject in and of itself. There are basically two views. One is the view that what is in the majority of manuscripts should be the original text. And the other view is that the older manuscripts are the better manuscripts. And that sounds good to people. But if you have an 8th century AD translation that is a perfect copy of a 2nd century one that has been lost, and you have a 4th century copy of a 3rd century that had mis- transcriptions in it, which is better? The 8th century is going to be better than the 4th century. So just because it is older does not mean it is better. I could go into a lot of things, but you basically have these two break downs in which the King James and the New King James are based on what is called the Textus Receptus. That was not a really good critical edition, it was only based on eight rather old manuscripts that were not in the best of condition. It is not the same as the majority text view, but it is closer than what is called the critical text view. The critical text is the older is better idea, and nearly all the modern translations, The NIV, the New English Version, the New American Standard, and the English Standard Version just came out, these new translations are multiplying like rabbits. So it pays to also know something about these. As a pastor, I can look at these and know who was on the translation team, and I can look at those names and I can tell you what their theological presuppositions are and tell you whether I think it is a better or worse translation.
You also have to know something about translations.
(Chart)
Formal equivalence tries to be as close to the original wording as possible. That is not always possible. If any of you have taken a foreign language, if you know anything about foreign language, the wording structure in inflected languages can be quite different from the way we would structure it in English. So there has to be some shift to make it understandable and readable in the English. But a formal equivalence tends to be more literal and therefore, less interpretive. This would be the King James Version, the New King James Version, the New American Standard Bible are more in the realm of formal equivalence. As you move away from that, in the direction of dynamic equivalence, this becomes less literal and more interpretive. For example, in German, the standard greeting would be "wie gehts dir" which literally is "how goes it with you?" Now we would translate that into English, how are you doing? That would be more formal. If you were truly formal, you would say, how is it going with you?
That sounds wooden and stilted in English, so you translate it how are you doing? There is a little dynamic equivalence there, but there are a number of different slang ways that people could say the same thing. That moves in the direction of paraphrase or dynamic equivalence. So the more you move across that slide to the right, into the realm of dynamic equivalence and paraphrase, the more you get away from a real strict translation of the Scriptures. You can read paraphrase or dynamic equivalence to get the thought flow, but not for a study Bible.
For example, I have a couple I want you to look at.
The New King James, James 2:14 and 15, and just to compare the differences, the New King James says:
14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?
That is pretty close to the original.
James 2:14 in the NIV says:
14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Shift from works to deeds.
Then the Message says:
14Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?
See how that has shifted away from what is expressed in the New King James?
Then James 2:15 (New King James Version)
15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food
NIV:
15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.
The Message:
15For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved
Well, brother or sister is a technical term for another believer, old friend is not. So you really lose the original
Now I want to go Romans 6:1-3 in each of those translations.
New King James:
1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
NIV:
1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means!
See, in the King James it says, certainly not. The Greek is me ginoita which is a very strong, God forbid! By no means waters it down a little.
We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
The NIV is more dynamic equivalence. Neither of these examples which I picked really shows flaws in the NIV. One of the worst flaws I've seen in the NIV is in 1 Corinthians 3: 1-3, a passage familiar to most of us where it talks about the carnal believer in the KJ, it's where we get the term carnal, if any of you are carnal. The New American Standard translates it fleshly, which is still a good translation. The NIV says: if any of you are worldly. What? Worldly is either cosmos or aionos, it has nothing to do with sarkikos, which is the Greek word for flesh. So there you get an interpretation, rather than a translation. That is why my friend Wayne House refers to the NIV as the New International Commentary. That is what happens: the more dynamic you become, the more the theological orientation of the translator comes into play, and he is writing more of a commentary than a strict translation.
So now we have The Message:
1So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? 2I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, (where does that come from?) how can we still live in our old house there? 3Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace--a new life in a new land!
That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means.
See how interpretive that is? That is not translation, that is interpretation. It is bordering on paraphrase. So you have to understand the theory of the translation of the language which brings in to bear the theory of linguistics, and most linguistic theory today is influenced by post modernism. Dynamic equivalence is the dominating view of modern translations, so you have to be very careful there. I recommend for a study Bible, for studying the Word, use either the New King James, or the New American Standard. Not the NIV, though I had a number of professors at Dallas Seminary who were on the translation committee of the NIV, I would not recommend it because it is too dynamic, too interpretive.
Then the second question, what study Bible should I use? There is no study Bible out there that is going to nail everything the way I think it ought to be nailed. There is no study Bible out there that is always going to give the right answer in the notes. Each one has strengths and weaknesses. The Nelson Study Bible is the one I most recommend. It is strong in that it has extensive notes and good maps. Generally, the orientation of the translators is the position of free grace. Wayne House oversaw the New Testament, Earl Rodmacher, who used to be the president of Western Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary is a strong proponent of free grace salvation, was a general editor, and they did a very good job. The notes tend to be traditional dispensational, though there are some variances in a few places. The Nelson Study Bible is available only in the New King James version. The one place I see as the biggest challenge is in the notes related to the fall of Satan in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, the trend in modern scholarship today is to reject those passages relating to the fall of Satan, and they all say this just refers to some Canaanite myth. Well, I have done a lot of research on this and there is no Canaanite myth, or, ancient, or near eastern myth that anything in either of those chapters could conceivable refer to. I am convinced it refers to the fall of Satan. I think Ryrie Study Bible still affirms it as the fall of Satan.
There is the Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible, and it is good in regards to charts related to prophecy and notes related to prophecy. But it has notes only related to prophecy. You don't find explanatory notes related to everything, just prophecy. It is available in the NKJ, and maybe in one other translation.
The Ryrie Study Bible, is available in King James, New American Standard, and NIV, I believe. It is consistent, because Dr.Charles Ryrie, who was the head of the theology department at Dallas Seminary for many years, and under whom I studied, I count him a personal friend, wrote all of the notes. So there is that consistency of a single person's perspective, which is like you have in the Scofield Reference Bible. It is traditional dispensational in his notes, he has an excellent summary of doctrine at the back section, with other notes on other things related to Bible study as well. But it is not as extensive for example as the Nelson Study Bible because one man just cannot do it all.
The Scofield Reference Bible is similar. It is one man's perspective, it is traditional dispensational, pre millennial. It is dated though, Scofield made some errors, he thought that Jews were saved by obeying the Mosaic Law, and he has some confusing and erroneous things in there, law versus grace.
Then I come to the NIV study Bible. A study Bible is study notes plus a translation. Some people get confused on that, they say, my translation is a Ryrie Study Bible. No, Ryrie did not do the translation, he wrote the notes. Or, I have the Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible, Tim LaHaye did not write the translation, he just wrote the notes. A study Bible is just referring to the study notes, who wrote the study notes in the Bible.
The NIV Study Bible is related to the New International Version, of course. They did a massive marketing campaign when they came out with that. When the NIV came out in 78 or 79, they had concordances, encyclopedias, all kinds of study tools related to and based on the NIV all hit the market at the same time. So that just captured the market place. It was a tremendous marketing endeavor. The NIV Study Bible is well put together, easy to read, in contrast to the Nelson Study Bible, you can't read it. They paragraphed everything and the verses are superscripts so small, I have to have a magnifying glass to read it. There is so much data in the Nelson Study Bible that it is just crammed in there, the structure is hard to read, but the content is good.
The NIV has great organization, a lot of tremendous notes, they are extensive, and there are very good maps and charts. But it comes from an eclectic evangelical framework. It is not just dispensationalists, or pre millennialists who were involved in translating the NIV, so there is a broader perspective. They will tell you, well there are three views on this passage, but the study notes won't come to a conclusion on these three views.
So you should have a good study Bible, you should have a good translation, NASB, or NKJ, and you should read on a regular basis. This is should be a central part of every believer's life. This is the Word of God, we should know the Word of God, because it is meditating on the Word of God that leads us into deeper understanding and application of the Word. God has given it to us in a remarkable way. We have all this history, poetry and wisdom literature. Why did God reveal it this way ? Why didn't He just give us a grocery list of do this and don't do that? Because giving it the way He did, it forces us to stop and think and to engage our minds in the study of the Word, and to come to application. God does not want robots who just memorize a bunch of lists. He wants His people to study the Word, to reflect upon it and to see how these historical narratives, the wisdom literature, how the epistles, how that information, given the way it is given, and applied to any culture and any time context throughout history, so it does not minimize the thinking of an individual, it challenges our thinking. God wants people who are actively engaged mentally with His revelation.
Father, we do thank You for the study of Your Word this morning. We thank You that that You have revealed Yourself to us. Thank You for God the Holy Spirit who is our guide and teacher, who helps us understand Your Word. And we thank You for the many scholars and theologians and for the scribes that went before us, who were responsible for preserving Your Word, copying Your Word, so it could be available for us today, for theologians who spent hours and hours in candle light, pouring over Your Word and writing volumes that would increase our understanding of what You have given us. We pray that You would challenge us with the importance and the centrality of Your Word in each of our lives. Father, we pray if there is anyone here this morning who is unsure of their salvation, or uncertain of their eternal destiny, that they would take this opportunity to make that sure and certain. Scripture says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but the free gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Jesus Christ paid the penalty for every sin in each of our lives, every sin we committed and every sin we will commit. Nothing was left out. His death was complete and sufficient for every sin, so there is nothing left for us to do other than to trust in Christ's work on the cross for our salvation. Scripture says it is clear, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.
Father we pray that You would challenge us with the things we studied this morning, that God the Holy Spirit would make these things real to each of us. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.