Why Study?

 

My folks were told that I would not live past sixteen. As a result, they protected me rather than teaching me how to live. As a young adult, I felt uninformed and unable to deal with many of life’s situations. After becoming a Christian, this ignorance didn’t seem to be a handicap because it drove me to the Bible to find out how and turned out to be a good thing.

However, Bible study has its challenges. One is hinted at in this verse:

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)

Rightly handling the Word of truth means abandoning personal ideas and I-wants, never twisting Scripture  to mean what I want it to mean. Right study knows that the Holy Spirit will aid in the process, but I cannot rely on whatever I think He is putting into my head without seeking confirmation from God’s Word. That takes a lifetime of reading and remembering.

The Bible is God’s “user manual” for the people He created. After studying it for more than fifty years, I realize that it covers all things and presents them in fresh ways. Doing the math, that means the Lord has presented truth to me in more than 17,000 days and certain is my guide for life.

When MacArthur asks if Bible study is necessary at all, I almost laugh at the absurdity of the question. He goes on to say that some believers think that the Holy Spirit teaches us everything so study is not important. This idea seems to stem from these verses:

Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him. (1 John 2:24–27)

This passage is more about protection from false teachers who deny Christ and try to deceive believers than it is an excuse not to study. Some lies and false teaching sound good, yet our inner ‘lie detector’ gives discernment to shield us from false doctrine. Not only that, even if we are tempted by their arguments, He keeps us from drifting away. The Bible even says that those who do drift away were not Christians in the first place:

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. (1 John 2:19)

The Holy Spirit does protect us, yet God still tells me to study the Word diligently and to handle it accurately. He also tells me the attitude I should have toward it and that its truths need to have a priority in my mind: “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.” (Psalm 119:97)

Feeling ‘blank’ about a lot of things motivates me to seek out the way God wants me to think, but that does not eliminate the reality of Satan’s lies, the world’s pull, or the desires of the flesh. Life is a battle against sin. I cannot claim ignorance as an excuse for failure or not knowing what to do. God spells out truth and direction in His Word so I can know both — as well as have the ability to fight sin and obey God.

PRAY: Jesus, I am so thankful for the Bible, and for You and the Holy Spirit. You make clear how I am to think and live as I read what You say. Your Word is precious and vital. You tell me: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” (Joshua 1:8) and have proven this to me over and over. Thank You. Give me an even deeper love for Your Word!

PONDER: Consider the opportunities God gives to convey spiritual truth to others. Can I do this better by rightly handling His Word? What skills do I need? How can I improve?

 

 

Post-Christianity is . . .

 

A video banned from social media asks a simple question, “What is a woman?” and the answers so far, particularly from those who are doctors, psychiatrists, university professors and so on, are not answers. Most of them try to explain the current ideas about gender and sexuality but their worldview eliminates this definition because worldviews have radically changed, even since the devotional I am reading was published.

Worldviews affect how Christianity is defined. Currently, people are not using honorable deeds so they look like Christians or to earn their way to heaven. Good is relative and heaven does not exist. Reality is not defined objectively. If a person believes something, then that something is true for them, even if they think they are a turtle or a sheepdog.

My mother often said that nice people must be Christians. Her way of evaluation may have been based on Scripture like this:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14–17)

That way of defining Christians needs to include more than being nice. Faith must be in the equation because without it, no one can please God (Hebrews 11:6). Faith is about trusting Him, not our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5ff) and biblical faith is  the source of doing good. This means good works are not initiated by human effort but by the Lord through a changed life, a life that follows God’s leading and obeys Him.

Dead faith is contrary to that. No one can produce the work that God wants because godly goodness depends on Holy Spirit power. Dead faith is self-motivated and for personal gain. In contrast, Jesus said, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

The Christian way of thinking is limited in today’s world by current philosophies and definitions of reality. Many people think there is no God (atheism) or that God (if there is a God) is not involved in this world. The concern to please God is replaced by whatever pleases self, and faith is replaced by “truth is relative” which negates objectivity and renders the Bible obsolete and passages like this one:

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. (Romans 2:6–8)

Christianity is thought to be repressive — and it is — because it considers sin as bondage, and relying on self and doing our own thing is sin. It tells us to put off that kind of life. From a Christian perspective, the current world view is no different than it was when Christ lived, died, and rose again, except for its extent and for the damage that is done by those who decide what is true for themselves. People no longer want to be rid of sin, but to have it declared okay, even good. This thinking was predicted by this warning: “Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.” (2 Peter 3:3) It began with rules concerning marriage and food . . .

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth . . . . (1 Timothy 4:1–5)

It continues by turning away from biblical teaching:

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:3–4)

It comes down to what I’m hearing from the so-called wise of this world: “ . . . Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.” (1 Timothy 6:20–21)

PRAY: Lord, only You can open blind eyes and change hearts. Only You can change those “insatiable for sin” into those who are hungry for truth and to know You. You say, “Do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart . . .” (1 Corinthians 4:5). In the meantime, people will “suffer wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing” and people will “count it pleasure to revel in the daytime” and continue to “devote themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” — unless You speak to their hearts. My challenge is to manifest truth with faith that produced a goodness that can be explained by ‘only God.’ Enable me to be totally obedient to You.

PONDER: John 15:1–8. What is my need concerning this slide of many into unbelief? What can I do to make a difference?