How to Study the Bible: Devotionally

HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE: DEVOTIONALLY

PROVERBS 4:20 - 23

03 JUNE 2018

One of the more frequent questions that I have received over the years as a pastor is – how do I study the Bible? Sometimes it is phrased – how do I make sense of the Bible? or how can I understand the Bible better? or simply the admission: I struggle with understanding the Bible.

So in this month of June, I want us to take some time to explore this important question – how do we study the Bible?

Before we talk about how, it might help us to remember why we study the Bible.

Quite simply, we study the Bible because we believe it to be the inspired record of God’s revelation of Himself throughout history. This is God’s story – the eternal story. By his great grace, he inspired human beings to make a record of his saving actions. He inspired and instructed them to write it down. And he did so in order that his truth would be accessible to all people at all times. This is a marvelous gift he has given to us. It is a powerful gift, too. We need only think of the history of Western Civilization to see the power of God’s word, for the Reformation of Martin Luther and beyond was built upon the accessibility of God’s word to all people. When Johannes Guttenberg developed his printing press and then used it to print copies of the Bible, suddenly the Bible was available to more than just priests or monks. Other people got to see it and read it for themselves – and the change this wrought in the landscape of civilization continues to this day.

There is power in the Bible and in the ideas contained within it. Romans 1:16 tells us that the gospel is the very power of God for salvation. This book can change your life. It can change society. It has and it continues to change the world.

Unsurprisingly, not everyone appreciates this. At the end of April, GQ magazine identified the Bible as one of the 20 most irrelevant classic books not worth reading. Clearly the editors harbored some prejudice against the ideas they think are in the book, and they are extremely shortsighted in their history – failing to see how the ideas of this book, when unleashed, have given rise to democratic freedoms around the world, an appreciation for human rights, and an abiding sense of justice for all people no matter what their station in life.

What the editors of GQ may have discovered, however, is something you probably already know. The Bible, while accessible is not an easy book. Proverbs reminds us that first and foremost, it demands our attention. We must make some commitment to know it. We must be willing to lay down our social media and our sports and all of our amusements and busynesses and we must give it our attention.

Once we begin to give it our attention, several options for study open before us. Over the next month, we will look at several of those options, but no matter how in-depth you get in the study of the Bible, the essential step is this one. We must learn to study it devotionally.

What does that mean?

First and foremost, that means that we come to the Bible humbly.

There are many people in the world today who are considered biblical scholars, but they don’t really know the power of Scripture nor the God who inspired it. Some of these men and women are regulars on Television specials despite the fact that they fail to represent the orthodox positions of faith. I noticed recently that Bart Erhman is the instructor-of-choice for the Great Courses Series Bible courses – this despite his rejection of Jesus as Divine and his denial of the resurrection. Still, he is recognized as a Bible scholar by some. But he does not know it in the way that has changed the lives of millions and shaped the course of this world!

Why? Because he prefers to stand over God’s word – to break it apart, to put it together again, and to treat it as a thoroughly human book. He is not interested in God’s story.

If we would discover God and his power that lies behind these words, then the first step is to come to the book humbly. We come, treating it as God’s word to us.

Now this seemingly simple step is harder than you think.

It is harder first of all because we often come to Bible wanting it to answer questions for us about our own lives and our situations. We treat it as if it were a self-help book that was going to provide us some options for how live and how to act. We come assuming that our lives are generally good and worthy of affirmation – that our identities are firmly fixed in our family, our community, our activities – we come needing a little pick-me-up – another bit of advice to help us out.

This is not coming to the Bible humbly. This is coming to Bible as if it were simply one course among many that we can choose from in the cafeteria of life. Like going to Luby’s, we can choose this entrée or that entrée – this salad or that salad. Most of us have already chosen the entrees of life – the standards of success that will guide us. We aren’t looking for the entrée. We’re looking for a side item. The world has offered us several – what does the Bible offer? Is it more attractive? More sensible? Will it fit our tastes? Will it help us out?

These are not the questions of humility. These are the questions of pride. We want to use the Bible when it is convenient and easy. We don’t want to put ourselves under it or the authority of God.

And this, more than anything else, keeps us from really understanding this book.

If we are looking for easy answers, this is not an easy answer kind of book. If you are looking for bumper sticker quotes to help live your life by – this is not that kind of book.

And that’s why we so often struggle with it. It is why so many often walk away disappointed, frustrated, and calling it irrelevant.

If we would know it, and the God behind it, and the love and the power and the life it leads us to, then we must first come to it in humility. We come as students, not teachers; we come as learners, not masters; we come as starving beggars who can’t be choosers rather than cafeteria shoppers.

Key to this is understanding that this is not, first and foremost, our story. This is God’s story. We may come to share in it by God’s grace – but this is not just a self-help moral guide to an already fine life. This is a book about a new identity – wholly new – so new it is like being born again. And until we are willing to come to this place in our lives – to let go of the old, to let go of what we know and think we know, to let go of our own stories and the stories the world is telling us – until we are ready to let go of all of those things and receive a new and fresh story, a new identity, a new life – then the power behind this book will always elude us.

But if we come humbly, the book will change our lives.

The Gideon International group has long recognized the power of God’s word. It is why they work hard to place copies of the Bible in motel rooms and hospitals – to give them to students and to distribute them in foreign countries. They have, over the years, collected many, many stories of lives changed simply by reading God’s word. What is often unsaid in these stories – but what makes all the difference – is that those whose lives were profoundly changed by the Bible were people who were humbly seeking for help – for something that would make life worthwhile. They were ready to give up what was behind them and to embrace and be embraced by something new.

The man in the hotel room contemplating suicide who picks up the Bible and reads about a God who loved him so much that he gave his only begotten Son for him is a man at the end of his rope – not standing over Scripture, not looking for a quick fix, but looking for deep answers – he discovers the power behind these words.

The one in prison who gets a copy of the Bible – whose realizes that life is falling apart around them – who thinks back and wonders, how did I come to this? I never wanted this life – this person picks up the Bible and reads about hope and forgiveness. And they discover the power of the gospel contained in this book but now at work to change them.

This is the same power that is available to all people who will humble themselves and come to this book as seekers after the new life. Give attention to it says the writer of Proverbs. Incline your ear. Listen, really listen. Keep your focus on it. And keep them in the midst of your heart.

In other words, know it. Know what is in here. How can we hope for change, how can we hope for life to grow in us, how can we hope for the power of the gospel to overshadow us if we don’t really know the basic story?

Let me suggest a few steps to help you. Start with the Gospel of Mark – the shortest of the gospel stories. Read 4 chapters a week. So this week, read chapters 1 to 4. Read all four chapters the first day. Then read one chapter a day for the next four days. So day 1 – read Mark 1 to 4; Day 2 – read Mark 1; Day 3 – read Mark 2; and so forth. It is a slow reading. It is designed to slow you down and help you know the story.

And as you read, do so prayerfully. Ask – Lord, show me what you want me to know. Then look and listen – incline your ear and keep your eyes open. What jumps out at you? Is it a word? A verse? An action? Is it something you need to do or stop doing? Is it a prayer you need to pray? Is it a question you need answered?

Whatever it is – write it down. Ask God to help you understand it – and to apply it to your life.

As you read, do so imaginatively. What was it like to be there? See in your mind’s eye the dustiness of Judea. Feel the coolness of Jordan River. Taste the saltiness of the Dead Sea. Feel the heat of an afternoon sun, or imagine the darkness of the nights without electric street lights. Smell the fish in the fishing boats. Stand with Peter, sit with John, listen to Jesus as if you were there.

Know the facts of the story – but also know the feel the story. Let it soak into you – into your heart and into your mind.

And here is what will happen – as you take Scripture into your life, as you give sustained attention to it, God will bring it back to you during the week. Something someone says – something you do – something you read about or hear – it will come alongside Scripture and click – you will see things in a new way, you will understand things from a new perspective. You will be changed.

This is the power of the devotional reading. We humble ourselves as a first step. We come seeking, we come hungry, we come thirsty, we come looking and listening, we come to God’s story and get drawn into it.

This is the foundation from which all other true study of God’s word flows. Enter into it this week. Take up the first four chapters of the Gospel of Mark – and get to know them – and then mark how God speaks to you this week.