Study Your Bible

Introduction

You know the thing about Florida is that nobody’s from Florida. Now that’s a bit of an overstatement. But let’s take a survey. By a show of hands, raise your hands. If you now live in Florida, but you’re not from Florida, weren’t born here. Nobody’s from Florida. Oh, there’s a few of you. But most of us are from some other place, some other country or some other state. And we carry an affinity for home, don’t we? Of where we’re from, or at least most of us do. And most of the places that we’re from, most of the states that we’re from, and this would include our natives, are usually known for something. So just think about it. Where you’re from, whether you’re a native of Florida, or whether you, like myself, were born and raised somewhere else, what is your state known for?

I haven’t mentioned it in the last 30 minutes, so I’ll just remind you I’m from the state of Alabama. What is Alabama known for? Now I’ll admit that historically Alabama has been known for some things that we’re not real proud of. But there’s some other things that Alabama is known for. We’re known for college football. We’re known for white barbecue sauce. If you haven’t tried white barbecue sauce on your chicken, you’ve missed out. Alabama is known for producing great gospel preachers.

I don’t know why everybody’s laughing. But Alabama’s also known for some landmarks. If you’ve driven or traveled the highways in the state of Alabama, you’ve seen certain landmarks that we’re known for. You’ve driven south of Montgomery heading toward Gulf Shores, you’ve seen the water tower in the shape of a peach in Clanton, Alabama. If you spend any time in Birmingham, you’ve seen the statue of the Vulcan. When Greg and Kashka announced they were moving to Birmingham, he asked me, what’s there to do? And I said, Well, Orlando has SeaWorld, Universal, Disney World. Birmingham has the Vulcan statue. And if you’ve ever driven south on I-65 around Prattville, you may have seen this Alabama landmark. And this just kind of lets you know that two things about Alabama that number one is it’s the buckle of the Bible belt.

And it also lets you know that we’re kind of simple folk. And we just state it simply and bluntly. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen this sign on the side of I-65 by a pond. And the owner of that sign kept it there for decades, and it just simply says, go to church, or the devil will get you. You know, it’s kind of hard to argue with that. Simple homespun wisdom, isn’t it? Go to church or the devil will get you. Now I want to change that sign just a little bit for our purposes this morning. Still just as simple. In a very basic lesson, I just want to say, study the Bible, or the devil will get you. And so this morning I want to talk in again a very basic simple lesson that I’ve titled very basic and simple.

It’s just called Bible study. And I want to spend what little time we have together for the remainder of our worship period just encouraging you to study your Bible.

It’s possible that you don’t study the Bible at all.

It’s possible that you don’t study the Bible well.

Or the devil will get you. The need for Bible study should be apparent among Christians. It may be one of those things that we know we ought to do, but we still neglect it like we do with so many different things in life. It won’t come as a surprise to you that the world doesn’t study the Bible. You need some evidence of that. I read an article recently entitled Biblical Illiteracy. And I want to read some, maybe not shocking, but some stunning facts from that article. It said, and this is a survey among Americans.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Fewer than half could name those.

1. Prepare Your Heart and Mind for Bible Study

They don’t study history in addition to studying, not studying the Bible, right? 50%, 50% believe that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. And a large number of that surveyed thought the Sermon on the Mount was delivered by Billy Graham. And it doesn’t surprise us that the world doesn’t know the Bible. But it might surprise us how few professed Christians know the Bible. Or maybe let me rephrase that. It might surprise us, or maybe it wouldn’t surprise you, how many professed Christians don’t regularly study their Bibles? And so I just want to encourage you to study the Bible. The first thing we need to do is to prepare for Bible study. Any good worthwhile endeavor is going to require some preparation, some getting ready for it.

And so let’s talk about what we need to do to prepare for Bible study. First, and I mean first in every sense of the word, we must prepare our heart and our mind to study the Bible. True Bible study begins with desire, and desire begins with the heart. Would you read with me a few verses from the 119th Psalm? Psalm 119, the longest of the Psalms, and if we count it as a chapter, the longest chapter in all the Bible is about the Word of God. And it’s not just about the Word of God, but it’s about the psalmist deep love and desire for the Word of God. And let’s just read some excerpts from this. Start with me in verse 11. We’re going to be skipping through Psalm 119.

Verse 11 says, Your word I have hidden in my heart that I may not sin against you. Verse 14.

I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your ways. I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget your word. Verse 20.

Verse 40. Behold, I long for your precepts. Revive me in your righteousness. Verse 97. Oh, how I love your law. It’s my meditation all the day. 103. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. 105. Your word is like a lamp to my feed and a light to my path. 127. Therefore I love your commandments more than gold. Yes, than fine gold. 174. I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight. Preparing for Bible study begins with desire, and desire begins with the heart. And so we have to prepare the heart. We have to have a heart that loves and longs for God and therefore loves and longs for his word, as the psalmist David did.

Now, what if I told you? What if I told you about my best friend? A friend that is closer than a brother, a friend that I love more than life itself. But I told you that I haven’t spoken to that friend in a long time. That best friend of mine that I’m trying to convince you is my best friend, have sent me numerous emails, but I haven’t read them. Oh, a few of the emails I’ve kind of glanced at. But it’s my best friend. You might meekly raise your hand and say, you need to look up the definition of best friend. You’re not really convincing us that’s your friend if you don’t communicate with them and let them communicate with you. And you’d be right. And to our chagrin and maybe even shame, we need to recognize that it’s not honest to call God our friend, our father, our savior if we say we haven’t communicated with him.

We haven’t read and delight in his word. And so we must prepare. We prepare our heart, and we prepare that through design. And with the decision must be made to study God’s word. We prepare ourselves in the sense that we recognize that prayer must accompany the study of God’s word. We’re preparing our mind. We go into our Bible study with a positive attitude, recognizing and knowing that I’m opening the Word of God, and I’m going to be able to see something and learn something from God’s Word today in my study. And I’ll be able to understand it and apply it into my life. An undistracted mind must be prepared. And that’s getting harder and harder to do. Turn with me to the book of 1 Peter.

I want you to notice the language and some of the language that might at first be lost on us when Peter talks about the mind and engaging the mind in regard to the word of God. 1 Peter 1 and in verse 13, he says, Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind. Be sober. Rest your hope fully on the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Gird up the loins of your mind. What does that mean? Well, then that’s an old, outdated phrase. But girding up the loins, maybe the best way to explain that is to just translate that into a modern day saying. If we were writing that, if Peter were writing that today, he would say, not gird up the loins of your mind.

He would say, roll up the sleeves of your mind. Now that we understand, don’t we? Rolling up the sleeves means we’re getting ready for work. Or fighting, one or the other. And that’s the same thing the phrase girding up the loins in the first century would have meant. They’re getting ready to either fight or work. And so when Peter says, roll up the sleeves of your mind, that paints a picture, doesn’t it? Getting ready to work. Bible study is going to require some work, a mental exercise. Not rolling up the sleeves of your shirt because you’re going to get some physical labor, but rolling up the sleeves of your mind because you’re going to be engaged in a mental exercise that’s going to require some work and maybe sometimes some hard work.

2. See the Need for Studying the Word of God

And so an undistracted mind needs to be prepared. And as we prepare for Bible study, we need to understand we need to have a definite purpose in our study. What am I hoping to accomplish in studying this passage or this topic? And so we prepare for Bible study, and I hope I don’t need to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway. We need to see the need. The need for studying the word of God. Why should the child of God be a student of the Word? I’ve placed these, and please understand, this is just my list. But I’ve placed these, I think, in order of importance. I need to see the need for studying the Word of God, for in studying the Word of God, I get a better sense of God.

That’s how I know who God is. Look with me in the book of 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, the apostle there is talking about the word of God and how it has been revealed and what it means to us. But look what he says in 1 Corinthians 2. Let’s start our reading in verse 10. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 10 says, But God has revealed them to us. The them there in the context are the things of God. God has revealed the things of God to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things. Yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of a man which is in him, even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, and yet himself is rightly judged by no one. For, he concludes, for who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him. But we have the mind of Christ. God through the Spirit has revealed to us the things of God.

And so the primary, in my mind at least, the primary reason that a child of God needs to be studying the word of God is because therein is God’s revelation of himself. I want to know more about him. I want to know him more intimately. There he is in his word.

I see the need for studying the word of God because God reveals himself to me in his word. And here is the way, the primary way that I build a stronger faith is through his word. Now there are other ways in which my faith can be built up, but they are second. They are second, third, and fourth to the primary way in which my faith is built up. My faith is made in the word of God. John, in explaining in the closing chapters of his epistle, of his gospel, excuse me, John in explaining the reason for writing that gospel, he says, these things were written that you might believe.

Do I need to remind you of the mantra of preachers that study and present lessons on Jesus facing temptation of Satan? That all three times he answered, it is written. It is written. Jesus, one of the reasons he was able to withstand that temptation is that he knew the word of God. And if you, we don’t take the time this morning, but if you go and look at that closely and look at what he quotes, what Old Testament passage he quotes to apply to that situation, all of them are from the book of Deuteronomy. All of them relate to the time when the children of Israel had been 40 years wandering in the wilderness. Jesus had been 40 days in the wilderness fasting and now facing his temptation.

Jesus was able to find a passage of scripture that connected and related to the situation that he was now in. Am I? When Satan shows his ugly face and tempts me, am I able through my study of the scripture to be able to say, this reminds me of Joseph and the time that he was committed, tempted to commit fornication? This reminds me of the time that Israel was tempted to go after other gods. This reminds me of, and to be able to make that application to my situation and to the sin that I am facing. And so I hope I see the need.

3. Bible Study Rules

And so I want to encourage you to study. To study the Bible at home. To make it a part of your life, of everyday life. To see the need for that, for your home to be built around the Word of God, and your time at home to be built around the Word of God. And in so doing, I want to share with you some what I’ve just simply called Bible study rules. When you open up the Word of God, here are some rules you need to engage in Bible study. Number one, remember that you’re reading the inspired word of God. Paul called it the inspired word. Literally, it means God breathed. That when you’re reading these words, you’re reading the words that God spoke from his mouth.

And they needed to be need to be treated with the reverence and the respect that they deserve.

That probably doesn’t surprise many of you. I got plenty of what we called whoopens. But some of the worst whoopings I ever got is if I mistreated my Bible. If I just came home after church and just threw my Bible on the floor. I remember one time I left it in the car in a hot Alabama day. And the covers of my non-leather Bible curled up and twisted. My parents were trying to teach me maybe two things. Number one is they paid good money for that. So take care of it, but I tend to think they were trying to teach me a deeper spiritual lesson. That’s to be respected. You can take the newspaper and throw it across the floor. You can mistreat other things, but this is the word of God.

It needs to be shown respect. That’s a lesson that we as adults need to learn. That when we open up the word of God, we’re reading just that.

Second Bible study rule is be fully prepared to change. Do you study the scriptures to defend a position that you’ve already taken? Or do you say to God in that prayer that ought to accompany Bible study, Lord, open my heart as I open your word. Be prepared to be moved. And for it to have an impact and for you to actually change when the Word of God is telling you to change. Here’s some other Bible study rules. Ask who is something that you need to do. We have the words of Satan, the words of Pharaoh, the words of Nebuchadnezzar, other wicked people. And so it might make sense to say, who’s talking here? Another one, I know you’ve heard this before. After you ask who is speaking, who’s being speaked spoken to.

Does this apply to me? Was this something that was said to the children of Israel under the old law? And I might gain some benefit from some morals or lessons from it, but it’s not a law that applies to me. And even in the New Testament, there are passages and things that were spoken specifically to the apostles that may not apply to me as a non-apostal Christian today. And so who is speaking and who’s being spoken to is important. Here’s maybe when it comes to just real Bible study, the most important thing. Read the context. Christendom has suffered by what we might call bumper sticker theology. I call it refrigerator magnet theology. And that is we find this verse that we really like, and we I started to say we cut it out, but we wouldn’t do that because our parents said, get on to us for doing that to the Bible.

But we type it out and we put that verse on the refrigerator under a magnet. And don’t misunderstand me, there’s nothing wrong with that. But can we see the potential danger in that? That here’s this verse, and I love this verse, and that’s my verse. Well, what we need to do is say, Well, there’s other verses. And maybe that verse can’t be understood without looking at all of what the Bible has to say on that subject, or what the entire chapter or book in which that verse is contained. And so it’s all right to have your favorite verses, but make sure that you read and understand those verses in the context. And most of the time, most always it is the case. If you have a question or a misunderstanding about a verse, that question will be answered.

The misunderstanding will evaporate if you’ll just back up and read a few verses before it and a few after it, and you’ll go, oh, that’s what he means. Read the context. And again, read all on any given subject. Maybe one verse about salvation. Well, that’s my refrigerator magnet verse. That’s what I’m going to do in order to be saved. Well, is that all that God said on that subject? And so the context in this point means the entirety of the Bible. And the last rule is to seek application in your life. This isn’t an academic exercise. I’m not just studying the scriptures so that I can know the scriptures, and that being the end. I’m not studying the scriptures just so I won’t be embarrassed in Bible class.

4. Questions to Ask When Studying

I’m not studying the scriptures just so I can win a religious argument with my neighbor. I’m studying the scriptures to see what I need. And how does this apply to my life? How can I make this to make me a better Christian? And so there’s some Bible study rules, and here’s some questions to ask. When you’re studying, and I’m encouraging to do better at that, when you’re studying, here’s some questions to ask. Number one is, is there an example to follow? In this passage that I’m reading, is there something that I need to be doing that they were doing with God’s approval? Is there a sin to avoid? Am I reading that again to trying to make that application in my life? Is there some sin that is condemned in this context that is a sin that I might be facing?

Is there a precept to accept or a promise to accept? Is there something that God has promised me in this passage that I need to be hanging my spiritual hat on that gives me the hope? Is there a prayer to repeat? Make your prayer life better? Study better. And read the prayers of God’s faithful people and learn from them how to pray. Is there a commandment to obey? Is there something that I need to be doing that maybe I’m not doing or not doing enough of? Is there a condition to meet? Is there something that God is requiring of me in order for me to be his child, his faithful child? Is there a verse to memorize? Understanding it in his context, but is there a verse that I need to memorize to put into my heart to help me to be a better Christian?

5. Come to Bible Class

And is there a challenge to face that I read in this passage that again applies to my life? And so I need to make Bible study a part of my home. And let us conclude with this. We study the Bible at home, and that should be our primary means of Bible study. But in the Alabama theme of just keeping things simple. Come to Bible class. Coming to Bible class does a lot of things. Number one, it encourages others to come and to participate in that Bible study. It enhances your Bible study. Now, I have to put an asterisk here. Please don’t make our Bible classes your only time that you study the Bible. But it will enhance your Bible study. Listening to a teacher who has prepared their lesson and what they want to present and listening to other Bible students in the class will open up avenues of study and open up ideas of what a passage truly means and how it connects to other passages on that topic that you alone may have never seen.

It’ll further encourage you to study yourself and at home. One studying at home, studying in Bible class becomes this kind of snowball effect that encourages you to do more of the other. It is a dangerous dangerous height of spiritual arrogance to say that I don’t need that. It’s a dangerous and selfish display of spiritual arrogance to say, my children don’t need that. And so study the Bible.

Conclusion

Will you listen? And so, as we would say at home, study the Bible and go to church. Or the devil will get you. Now I recognize this has been a very basic, simple lesson. But I hope you get, if you get nothing else, I hope you get one lesson from this. And that’s study the Bible. God is speaking. Will you hear? God is calling. Will you answer? It’s possible that you’re not a Christian this morning. You need to go to God’s word and say, God, what would you have me to do? Maybe you need to study it more. If you’re watching us online and want to study the Bible better and deeper and more, please reach out to us. We’ll do what we can to help you as we study together, to listen to God, to know what God wants us to know about Him and about ourselves and what we ought to be doing to get closer to Him.

Why not begin that journey this morning? Why not come to Him? Render obedience, believing, repenting, confessing, and being baptized. Why? Because that’s what we read in the Word of God. And then as Paul encouraged his apprentice Timothy, study. Be diligent to show yourself a worker approved to God. Can we help you this morning as you render obedience to the gospel? Can we help you in any way? Would you let it be known right now as together we stand? And as we