How to Read the Bible | Wednesday Night Service

You know, Pastor Terry got us started and just talking a few weeks about how to read the Bible, how to study the Bible, and that's what we're gonna talk about. So if you didn't know that, there it is, that's what we're gonna do. I wanna set it up this way. I've used this example, so if this is not new to you, that's okay. I love doing it either way.

Got a letter not too long ago from my dad. And if that's all the information I told you about this letter, you would not be in trouble to not be that interested. How many of you got a letter sometime this week in the mail? Right. You may have just tossed it straight in the recycle bin.

Cause it may have been junk mail. So getting a letter is not that impressive. So it'd be okay if I said, how many of you are excited about me getting this letter and you weren't? That's fine. Okay.

You're not a bad person. What if I told you that this letter had sat dormant for three years and nobody knew it existed? Would that be interesting? How many more of you are interested in the letter? Okay.

How many if I told you that my mom passed away in 2019, but she wrote me this letter, and in 23 months before she passed away, and it was discovered just a few years ago. Now, how many people are interested in this letter? So I'm not gonna read this to you. It's too precious. But I'll read the first line because I like you people.

All right?

July 2, 2019. My mom went to heaven in October. October 14, 2019. July 2. My dearest Nathan, as I'm starting this letter to you, I'm remembering with a rush of memories the first letter I wrote you on your first birthday and sealed up for you to be read when you graduated from high school.

That's pretty amazing, right? How many of you are interested in that letter?

Because I like you. I brought it tonight. January 18, 1981. My mom wrote me a letter and she sealed it up and it sat in our family Bible. Anybody have a family Bible?

Growing up. Now, I don't mean. I mean a family Bible that you could hurt somebody with. Yes. I mean, that thing weighed about 80 pounds.

Yeah. Okay. That was family Bible. I grew up in South Alabama. Buckle belt of the Bible Belt.

And that thing would hurt you. Okay. But we had a giant holy Bible. White, cushy. What is that material?

It kind of. You know what I'm talking about. It's like, hard, but it's cushy. I don't know what that is. It's probably not healthy, but we had it.

And in that Bible, this letter sat. How many of y' all can see this little tear right here? Can y' all see that? That is nine year old Nathan trying to open this letter, literally. And I did get a whooping.

Okay? I just want you to know about it. Cause the Smith house believed in whoopings, so.

Amen. You're also from Alabama, though, too. Misylvania. So we got that in common. My mom wrote this to me when I was one year old.

And it's the most amazing thing. When I graduated high school, everybody was getting ready for their graduation trips and parties and whatever else. I wanted to go straight home. Guess why? My whole life, my entire life, this sat in our family Bible, which in the Smith house meant it was on the coffee table and open, tucked away somewhere.

And so I saw it all the time, and I was like, one day I'm gonna graduate high school and I'm gonna read that letter. So that's what I did. I drove home and I read the letter. And it's the most beautiful thing in the world. And it's awesome because in this letter that was discovered, my mom knew she was ending her battle with cancer.

And because you can tell the kind of person she is that would write a letter to me on my first birthday to read when I'm graduating high school, she knew she was ending her journey. And so at the end of her life and at the beginning of mine, I have my mom's words. What's amazing is if you read both of these letters, you would see how there's a lot of similarities. Because in both, she shares with me, hey, if I'm not here by the time you get this, I want you to know where I am and I want you to know why I'm there. Because it's what Jesus did for me.

She shares with me the plan of salvation. She tells me how much she respects my dad and what an awesome man he is that does something to the heart of a young man. When his mom talks, well about his dad, that's another message. But I just want to put that out there. That doesn't mean my dad's perfect, but that means it was a blessing.

Why do I share this with you? This letter was discovered because my mom knew she was coming to the end of her journey. And she just wanted to write some final thoughts to each of her kids and to her husband. My parents were married for almost 45 years before she went to heaven. And she was just content to write them and set them somewhere.

And whenever we found them, we found them. She never told anybody she wrote them. She didn't send them to anybody. This is the Smith way. We are just romantics at heart.

And just. Yeah, whenever. It'll be a good story, you know, we live for the story. Okay? So she.

She. I know when she got to heaven, she was like, that was a good one. I know. He's like. And so they had gotten set on a bookshelf.

Apparently, they kind of fell behind a desk, and they sat there for years, and none of us knew they existed. And then one day, my dad was cleaning the office, and he found a stack of letters. And as soon as he pulled it up, he saw the handwriting, and. Cause they knew each other so well, he knew exactly what it was. So he called each of us, and he was like, son, you're the one that lives the furthest away.

I am not mailing this. I'd be terrified. No shade to the postal workers. I'd be terrified if it didn't make it. So he held onto me.

I got it. It's powerful. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. Why do I tell you this?

Whatever. All of us get letters in the mail, and we can be like, whatever. If all I told you about this letter was that I got something and my dad gave it to me, you might be interested, but chances are you really don't care, and I'm not offended by that. When you understand who wrote it, when they wrote it, why they wrote it, and who they wrote it to, it becomes fascinating. This letter was not written to you.

Don't get your feelings hurt. If my mom would love to write you a letter, if she was here, she'd be happy to do it, right? It was written to me. But can I tell you something? If you read this, you would be tremendously blessed.

I'm telling you, you would. I read it again. Just. It's a blessing. Even though it wasn't written to you, you would be blessed by it.

Especially if you understood who, when, why, and to whom. You'd learn a lot about parenting. My parents aren't perfect, but they're pretty great folks. You can tell a lot about my mom already. The fact that she would do this.

You're probably already interested in more of her life just by me sharing these things, as you should be. It's amazing. The Bible is the same way. Many of us have a low level of interest in the Bible. And if that's you, I am not upset with you.

I love you. I'm so glad you're here on a Wednesday night in a fairly dim lit room listening to me go on about my family. I'm so grateful. Don't feel bad. If you don't have this burning passion and interest in the Bible, you're not a bad person.

I believe. We often don't know enough about it to engage our interest. Just like you may have not thought there was much to this little envelope unless I explained to you a few things about it. And what I want to talk about tonight is gonna read the Bible effectively so that we can engage it. So we can engage it.

I'm not gonna try to make you a Bible nerd. You, you do not have to leave here tonight being excited about everything I'm saying. I do want to give you some tools to help you get context. Because when you do, you will be fascinated and drawn into what God wants to show you. So I'm talking about how to read the Bible effectively.

And so many of the books of the Bible literally are letters and they weren't written to you, don't get your feelings hurt, but they were written to somebody and they were written on purpose by somebody for a reason at a time in history that affects how we understand and read it. The more you understand that, the more exciting it gets. So hopefully that example. Does that example connect for you? Hopefully you're seeing.

I want to make you hungry a little bit. That's my desire. So just want to talk about reading the Scriptures effectively. Three ideas. The first one is this.

If we're going to read the Bible effectively, we've got to appreciate its uniqueness. The Bible is unlike any book you've ever read. The Bible is constructed unlike any book you've ever owned. It is unique. It's unique in many ways.

But I'm gonna read 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 16 and 17. If you have your Bible, if you have a way to mark a verse, I wanna challenge you to either highlight, underline this, make a note, write it down, put a note in your phone to read later. All those things are good. But you would benefit more by having access to a few of these verses, even if it's just a reminder. 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17.

All scripture is inspired. Inspired means breathed into God, breathed by God, and is useful to teach us what is true, to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong. It teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

If you wanted a good verse in the Scripture to understand what the Bible is supposed to do for you, this is a great place to start. It's not the only one. It's a good one. And a lot of us remember John 3:16. We'll remember 16 and 3:16 and it'll get you there.

2 Timothy 3:16, 17. The Bible is unique. It's inspired by God that teaches us what is true. It convicts us of what is wrong. It corrects us, it instructs us in what is right.

It prepares us and equips us to do everything, do every good work. Not just to learn stuff, not just to sound smart, not just to win Bible quiz, to do the works that God talks about. The Scriptures are inspired by God to equip us to do these things. That makes it a unique book. That makes it extremely unique.

Dr. Gordon Fee says this. The Bible is the word of God given in human words in history. The Bible is the word of God given in human words in history. I love that definition because it gives you the three big ideas of how we relate to the Bible. It's the word of God that's unique.

It comes from him. It's given in human words. God used actual people to write these things down for us. It wasn't swirling in the angels and all of a sudden it magically showed up like some kind of Lord of the Rings thing on the paper and fire. No, a person had to put pen to paper or quill to papyrus or however you want.

They had to use their language to write things down. God used people and it was written in history, meaning at certain times by certain people in certain places. And he chose those times, people and places on purpose. So to understand the uniqueness of the Bible, it helps me to understand who those people were when they wrote those things, why they wrote them, who they were writing them to. Because all of that God orchestrated and that's all part of him giving us his word, divinely inspired by God, human words in history.

Those three pieces will help you understand the scriptures significantly better than just doing the kind of globe spin and picking a spot, you know, or all right, Lord, you know, kind of come on, 7 11. And just finding a book and saying, what do you want to say to me? God? Can God use that? Well, God's God.

He can do anything. I'm not going to limit him. It's unique way to relate to the scriptures. So it's unique. It's unlike any other book on the planet.

It's the only book that reads you while you read it.

The Word of God will read you while you're reading it because it's reflecting things in your heart and it's challenging some assumptions. And sometimes you're like, I don't even know what's going on right now as I'm reading this. And it doesn't make any sense to me. Anybody ever read the Bible? Didn't make sense?

Don't be a liar. It's just the worst when you lie at church. It's always bad to lie, but the church, come on. I have a degree in biblical and theological studies. There's lots of stuff that doesn't make any sense to me.

So if it makes sense to you, you're doing better than I am. Cause there's a lot of things that just don't make sense to me. So I can either be frustrated or think it's weird or move on. I would tell you a good Bible nerd is the person that the weirder it is, the more you want to study because it's there for a reason. Me not understanding doesn't say much other than the fact that I don't know a lot.

But if I'll be patient, there's a lot there for me. John 1:1 4. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him. Without him, not anything had been made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. John starts his gospel talking about Jesus and he calls him the Word.

And there's something powerful about that because I believe Jesus is everything God wanted to say.

We see it reflected in the written word of God because the Old Testament tells us the story of what how God created this thing and how we messed it up, and his plan to redeem us through it. And how things had to be laid out in a certain way so that Jesus could come to to redeem all of these things. It shows the plan from the beginning to the end and how he's going to make all things new. The Bible is unique and we have to appreciate it for its uniqueness. The Bible was written over 1500 years by 40 different authors in between six to nine different literary styles, depending on how you group them in three different languages.

The Bible is unique. There is no other book like that. It doesn't exist. It is a miracle that it exists at all. So if it's a lot or you don't Understand some things.

That makes sense because it's unique. 1500 years, 40 different authors, six to nine literary styles, three different languages. So give yourself a little grace. If you don't always understand everything or some things are hard for you, that doesn't mean you're a bad person, doesn't mean you don't love Jesus, doesn't mean you're not going to heaven. It means it's unique.

Okay. Do we feel good about that? We doing all right? All right, we're gonna keep moving. One of the biggest questions I get on Bible study and the uniqueness of the Scriptures is what translation is the best translation to read?

And depending on where you grew up and what you've heard, there's certain things coming to mind right now. But what I'm going to say is this. My answer is the best translation is lots of them. The best Bible translation is to have lots of them. There's a graphic.

Wes, I think. Look at Wes. We all give Wes a hand. That was just fantastic. The speed, the finesse.

I mean, it was amazing.

Let me say this quickly. This will sound kind of nerdy, but this will help you. Anybody in here. And this is not a. This is not like a.

Well, no disclaimers. Anybody speak more than one language fairly fluently in the room? More than one? Yeah, several of us. If you don't, don't feel weird, but there's several.

So if you talk to anybody that just raised their hand, whatever language it is that they speak, they'll help you understand. Translation is an art. It is not so easy to make one language say the same thing in the next language, because words don't work the same in every language. Grammar doesn't work the same in every language. So the best thing you can do when you're reading.

So the Bible was not written in English. I know that hurts your feelings, and I'm sorry. Maybe someone told you that it was. Maybe you heard that Jesus grew up quoting the King James. I'm just telling you, he never heard of it.

Okay? So the Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Unless you read those languages, you're going to rely on someone to translate that for you. That is not a bad thing. That doesn't make you less than.

The best translation is to have multiple translations that have different goals. This is a great graphic to help you understand that. Three big ideas. In Bible translation, there's a literal translation, which is more to the left, which would be more word for word translation. Okay.

The further extreme is what's called a paraphrase. In this case, they're saying thought for thought. In the middle, there's what's called a dynamic equivalency. It doesn't show up on my chart, but those are the three ideas. There is literal, which is word for word.

There's dynamic equivalency, which is how do I best say what they said? In a way that you would say it now and it mean the same thing. And then a thought for thought is more of a paraphrase. It's not trying to translate anything straight away. It's trying to give you the basic idea in a colorful way that's interesting.

All three of those are great to have all three of those. So some popular ones. An interlinear Bible is total nerd speak, and I love them. An interlinear Bible is every single word in the original language going straight to English and showing you how they parsed it out. Now you have to have a little bit of nerd city inside of you to enjoy an interlinear.

And I have lots of them and they're way fun. I don't know that you'll feel the same, but there are. I think so, but a new American Standard, the Amplified Bible, Revised Standard, the English Standard Version, esv. That's one that I use a lot. And it's more a word for word word.

Not exact, but more. Then you'll see towards the middle is more the dynamic equivalencies. This is trying to take the idea of the Bible they said saying and give it in a way that is pretty much what they said, but saying it in a way that you would understand it. Okay. Dynamic equivalency.

The NIV is one of the more popular ones in that camp all the way to the right. Thought for thought is the message. Bible would be an example of. I'm not trying to translate the Bible for you. I'm trying to give you the big idea concepts and putting in a language that's interesting or entertaining or helpful from a thought idea.

If you're doing Bible study and teaching people the Scriptures, the worst thing you can use is a thought for thought paraphrase because it's already been parsed out in this person's idea of how to communicate something. It doesn't mean they're bad or wrong, but they're not trying to translate the Bible completely directly. They're trying to give you their best idea that's interesting. They're not claiming to do anything other than that. Some people say, oh, that's the devil.

That's heresy. No, they're not even trying. And they're telling you that it's almost like a children's Bible. No one's saying, burn that thing at the, like, we need to kill these people. It's horrible.

Like they're trying to do something with the scriptures and we all understand what they're doing. So what I'm telling you is you do best to have a little bit of each of them to get an overall feel of what is the original author trying to say? That's about as nerdy as I'll get tonight. But hopefully that was helpful to you. So when anybody gets in that debate of, well, this is the best translation, well, that's bad.

You're not gonna make heaven because you read that translation of the Bible. That's a little bit of a. Mmm hmm. That's. I'd avoid that conversation. And I would just say, well, Nathan said I need all of them, so praise the Lord, you know, and then they can get mad at me.

Two big ideas when we're talking about Bible study. They're big words. It's not to sound impressive. Here's the concepts. The first one is exegesis.

E, X, E G E S I S. It has nothing to do with Jesus. We're not doing anything to hurt Jesus here. Okay, Exegesis. The idea is, when you're doing exegesis, what did it mean to the people it was written to, when it was written to them at the time in which they lived? That's what I'm trying to understand when I'm doing biblical exegesis.

I'm trying to go back to where they are. What would they understand? They didn't know the Internet existed. So they're not talking about the Internet. Right.

Well, I read this one verse and I think it's talking about the World Wide Web. They knew nothing about the World Wide Web. That is ridiculous. Okay, so. But what we have to do is realize what were they saying to the people at the time?

How would they have understood it? We understand this in the idea of like, even slang words that meant something when I was a little kid no longer mean that anymore. I'll let you be creative with some of those things. Right. But we all know the meaning of words changes, so it's helpful to me to recognize.

So what were they saying to those people when they said it? Not just how am I reading it right now? That's the work of exegesis. And there's some free tools I'm gonna tell you about. Just a second.

How to do that. The Other idea is hermeneutics. I know this is nerd speak. We're almost done with that. Hermeneutics.

Essentially, this. What does it mean to us today? If exegesis is. What did it mean to them when it was written? Hermeneutics is so now.

What does it mean to us today? And how do we parse that out in our society, culture and understanding? They need to match up. I don't get to just pick some things and decide. I have to be consistent.

Let me give you an example of why this would be important. If you got your Bible, turn to Matthew, chapter six, Matthew six. It's gonna be pretty teachy for a few minutes, but hang with me. I hope I don't lose you to sleep. If your neighbor starts to snore, don't be upset, but just a little elbow in the ribs and just praise the Lord, okay?

That's all you have to do. Praise the Lord. Just right there. Matthew, chapter six, verse 19.

I'm gonna read this to you in the ESV, which is one I read often. Do not lay up for yourselves, verse 19, Matthew 6. 19. Do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy.

Where? Where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. What is the theme word in this passage? Begins with a T. You missed that.

Treasure. That was great. You're doing so good. Okay, Treasure. If you missed that, it's all right.

We're all here together. Treasure. So Jesus is speaking, and he's using a financial metaphor to give them some teaching. Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in. Lay up for yourself treasures in heaven where neither moth or rust destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. I want you to skip down to verse 24. So we're skipping two verses. We're gonna come back to 24. No one can serve two masters.

For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he'll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Same idea. Monetary, financial metaphor. Talking about what's valuable to us.

We following that for the most part. Okay, so you're reading this in Matthew 6, but then there's two verses in the middle of the same paragraph, and it feels like Jesus hangs a left really weird. And so if you're reading this and you're like, I don't understand what's going on. This is why we stop for a minute and try to do some exegesis. What would this have meant to the people it was written to, when it was written?

Let's look at verse 22. This is right in the middle of what we just read. The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.

If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? Now, let's put this in context. We started about treasures in heaven, and then all of a sudden, Jesus starts talking about our eyes. And you're like, okay, I'm gonna be honest with you, Jesus. I didn't track with you on that one.

Because then he comes back to, you can't serve God in money. Now the good Christian little boy and girl inside of you wants to go, amen. That is good, right? Can I be honest? Chances are if you read that by yourself, you'd have no idea what's going on.

I don't know. Right there. Not that you think it's bad. You're just like, I don't know why we're talking about treasure. And then Jesus has something to do with your eyes, and it's dark.

But you can't serve God and money, you know, just. Right. Can we just. It's okay to laugh a little bit at the Bible and say, that doesn't seem to make a lot of congruent sense. You're not a bad person if you feel that way.

God's not offended or upset that you would think such a thing. It's a clue. I wonder if that meant something to the people it was written to, when it was written that I don't understand. Let me say it this way. If I said to you, bill, to be honest with you, I'm hungry, would you run and grab me a pizza?

Step on it. Okay. How many of you understand what I mean when I say that? How many of you know I do not want Pastor Bill to step on my pizza at all? Right?

I mean, what. Hurry. What does step on it literally mean? What am I talking about? Don't be weird.

Do what with my foot? Put it on the what? The gas pedal. Of what? Did I say any of those things?

No. I'm assuming you know what a car is. I'm assuming you know when you step on the pedal, it goes fast. I'm assuming you Know both of those things, and I want you to do it really quick. And you know, that's a phrase that we don't really use as much anymore, but step on it now.

What if you don't know any of those things and you just overhear me say, and you're from a different country? You're like those Americans. Gosh, first of all, they're bossy, okay? Second of all, people are stepping on their pizzas. And that just sounds ridiculous.

You know, can we just laugh at that for a minute? But can we also say, I get it. Like, if someone doesn't know what a car is now, let's go out in the jungle somewhere and they've never seen a car. Are you following me? We're not saying anyone's ignorant or stupid.

We're making assumptions that the people I'm talking to know what a car is. Know that when you step on a gas pedal, it goes fast, which means I want you to do something quickly. You get the point. We move on. But if you've never heard of a car, you have no clue what's going on right now.

So as goofy as that sounds, the Bible is full of these.

And you're like, well, man, who can understand the Bible? Then we should just give up now while we're ahead, I want to remind you something. How many of you have one of these shiny things right here? Okay, we live in the information age. Now, listen, I could say a lot about this, but Jesus is good and he's going to make me be a good boy.

We spend hours looking up all kinds of crap, okay? About all kinds of stuff. Some things you have no business looking up. Can we just be honest and love Jesus and tell the truth in the house of God? And we'll spend lots of time learning about all kinds of things, but we'll say, well, who knows what the Bible's all about?

It is crazy. Who can know? It's only, you gotta have a PhD. You have a shiny thing that will tell you where to go and what to do and will tell you what stuff means. If we want to spend a little time with the scriptures, there are so many tools available to you.

You live in the information age. You have unprecedented access to have a better understanding of the scriptures. What if we use the technology we have to build up our spirit rather than pollute our spirit? I love you. My name's Nathan.

I'm your friend, Smiles. Smiles. We like each other.

Let's use the tools we have. So since I brought this one up, I'm going to give you the punch line and then we're going to move on. If you read Bible commentary that scholars way smarter than me that have done this study, they help me understand. Ah, the eye. Having a good.

I was a Hebrew idiom for being a generous person.

If you had a bad eye, an ayin raah, you were a greedy or selfish person, especially as it related to your money. Jesus didn't change topics. Jesus is a 1st century Hebrew man speaking to Jewish people who understand Hebrew idioms.

He is saying, I'm hungry. Go grab me a pizza. Step on it. We are reading. Why does he want us to stand on his food?

We just need to take a little bit of time. And so when you see something and it feels like this doesn't fit, that's a moment. You circle that and you say, I bet there's more to the story as opposed to, yeah, that's weird. Well, praise God. And we move on.

You know, now if you do that, you're not a bad person. I love you. We're friends, right? Jesus isn't offended. He's not like, I can't believe they don't like my book.

You know, like. But can I just tell you, we're leaving a lot of meat on the bone to just go back and say, well, Lord, and this is beautiful because see, if you want to get to know somebody, take an interest in what they're interested in. Ask questions. Marcelo is one of the most gifted photographers, designers I've ever known. If you want to talk to Marcelo, Marcelo will talk to you.

He's like me. He'll talk to you, right? But if you want to get to know Marcelo, man, ask him about. He will just share. He's in the idea of branding and he will just share.

He's passionate about it and you'll get to know him really fast. The Lord loves his word and he loves his people to understand his word. And man, if you'll crawl up in his lap and say, lord, that makes no sense to me whatsoever. But I'd like to understand. First of all, you can ask the Holy Spirit and he'll speak to you.

Second, you have tools. Let me give you a few.

Logos. L O G O S. Logos is the Greek word for word. Logos.com has a myriad of resources. Some are free, some you pay for, but there's a ton there. Blue letter Bible.

It's three words, blue. The color. Letterbible.com is completely free. Lots of commentaries. Want to talk about that in a second before we finish?

And Bibleproject.com Bibleproject. I think Pastor Terry shared a Bible project video. If I don't run out of time, which I may, I may not get to share it.

These free resources. Bibleproject to me is a gift to the church. If you don't at some point access Bibleproject.com you are cheating yourself out of understanding so much about the scriptures. This is PhD level stuff put in cartoon form to help our pea brain minds. And I use it all the time, okay?

And I thank God for it and I would love for you to enjoy it as well. They have classes, masterclasses by theologians, and it's free. I'm telling you, like, literally, I had to pay a lot of money and spend a lot of time with a bunch of heavy books. You can get most of it@bibleproject.com for free if you'll just spend a little time and nerd out with it. You know, introductions to books of the Bible.

Who was it written to? Why? When was it written? What was going on at that time? How would that inform how we're gonna read this thing?

It was a letter. Why was it written? What? Who wrote it? Why did they write it to them?

Oh, they were acting crazy and he had to correct them. Well, that makes sense why he sounds a little bit angry. I thought Paul was just mean. No, he's trying to be pastoral and all of a sudden you're like, well, that makes sense. Listen, God gave you a brain he wants you to use is not wrong for the Bible to make sense to you, okay?

We get so weird. We're like, well, it's just, it's beyond. I'm like, I think we need to understand some of this stuff, you know? And so anyway, I could talk a lot about that second idea. Understand.

The Bible was written to help, you know, God and his story. The Bible wasn't written to make you smart. The Bible wasn't written to tell you everything you need to know about who you're supposed to marry. The Bible was to tell you about who God is and what his story is. That's what the Bible was Written for.

Isaiah 55, verse 10 and 11. Isaiah 55, verse 10 and11. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. That means God gave His Word for a purpose and it's supposed to accomplish something that he decided, not what I think I'm supposed to hijack and make it sound right for me.

He is trying to accomplish something by sending His Word and the meta idea of what he wants to accomplish. He wants you to know who he is and he wants you to know. Us only read the Bible. He is. A lot of us only read the Bible to try to figure out how it fits into our story.

Can I tell you something? It will frustrate you if you're constantly trying to figure out, well, what am I supposed to do and how am I supposed to do it? How about, let's get to know Him. Let's learn about him and his plan and what he's trying to accomplish. Because we are on this earth to fit into that.

If we will spend more time doing that, our story will start making a whole lot more sense than us trying to wrangle a certain scripture that says, I think that means I'm supposed to move to Africa. You know, it's like, well, maybe, but I think the Lord wants to reveal Himself to you. And through that you may learn about what you're supposed to do with those certain things. But it's about his story and how we fit into it. We see God's character revealed and we see his purpose for creating us and how he wants to use us.

Dr. Michael Heiser is a personal favorite of mine. He went to be with the Lord a couple years ago. He said this. You'll never appreciate God's story if your story. Solving your problems is what you focus on when you study Scripture.

Comprehending God's story can go a long way towards addressing your problems. The reverse will never be true. The Bible will help you with all kinds. I'm not saying the Bible won't help you with challenges. What I'm telling you is the purpose of the scripture is to help you know Him.

Let me tell you something. The greatest thing you can do for any challenge you have is to know God better. Cause if you know him better and you're walking with him closer, any challenge you have will get better. If you draw close to Him. He's revealed his heart through the Word.

Finally. Spend time. Number three, spend time reading it regularly and slowly. God is not handing out any bonus points for reading the Bible lots of times and reading it super fast.

Is it good to read the Bible in any way you can? Absolutely. But can I tell you something you'd rather read Five verses and chew on them and question them and try to figure out what is it supposed to mean? What's God trying to reveal? You'd rather meditate on those five verses and really spend some time trying to understand where it's coming and connect with who God is than read a whole book and not really know what's going on.

I'm not trying to be offensive. I want you to understand there's no bonus point. Let's get the word in us and grapple with it and ask some questions and say lord. That sounds really weird to me. I don't understand why there's a dragon and there's stars.

I don't know what's going on. That's okay. You're not a bad person. But there is a reason and it does mean something, you know? So we humble ourselves and we go slow and we chew on it.

I'm gonna make a recommendation. I have several books up here for any of my book nerds that want to get some ideas. But even if you're not a book nerd, these are the books for you. This is for my non book nerd people. And you're like, nathan, how is that true?

And you're gonna show me three of them. There's no way. This is not so. I love these little books. Guess how long the chapters are in these books.

I'm so glad you asked. Two pages. Okay. You do not have to read them in order. You can pick and choose.

That's why I like it so much. Anybody remember the choose your own adventure books when we were kids? And I say we because we're not all the same age, but I'm in my mid-40s and I remember having a choose your own adventure book. It was like, Sally went to the train station. Is she supposed to get on the train or should she go back home?

Turn to page 47 if she gets on the train. Turn to page 55 if she gets right. It was. I thought it was amazing. What I love about this is you can pick and choose where you go in it.

These are called the 62nd Scholar Series books. Dr. Michael Heiser. I'll have all of them up here for you. They are fascinating brief insights on mastering the Bible. Every chapter is two pages long.

I'm just telling you, if you're not a reader, this will bless your spirit. Okay? But here's why there's so many. They pose so many questions that are so fun that you're like, ah, that would be so helpful.

God was present in human form in The Old Testament. What? Show me where. Ah, there's two pages on that. That's about all I had attention span for anyway.

And that helps me, but it plants a seed. And you're like, I've never thought about that before. Do you mean the angel of the Lord may have actually been. And then you can kind of go down a little bit of a study. Oh, that shows up in the book of second Kings.

Let's read some of that. Right? Just enough to make you interested. Brief insights on mastering Bible doctrine. Now, you pull this one out and people are like, you're smart.

Okay? You have that. You don't have to be smart. This is like, why do people argue about all kinds of different things? And you will be really encouraged and blessed by the two pages that talk scholar without making you feel like you have to become a scholar.

Finally, brief insights on mastering Bible study. How am I supposed to read the Bible? How do I do this? Tonight I just want to whet your appetite, appreciate that it's unique. And if you don't understand everything, you're not a bad person.

You don't do anything wrong. But let's just don't stop there and say, yeah, I don't get it. I pray, get out of my face. You know, it's like, well, okay, I think we can do a little better than that. I mean, come on, saints.

I think we do a little better. But if you've been there, I love you, we're friends, but let these books. One of these would be excellent next step for you after a message like this to say, you know what? I do need to spend a little more time. I do want to understand a little better the whole exegesis, hermeneutic thing.

Maybe it is important. The pizza thing helped me, okay, there's stuff that maybe I'm missing. That's all I want to do, is whet your appetite. Last idea. As we spend time reading it regularly and slowly draw closer to him.

Psalm chapter one. If you want a good Bible passage to memorize, man, memorize Psalm chapter one. Sounds awesome that you memorize a chapter, right? That sounds like, ooh, I'm really holy, you know? But it's only a few verses, but I'm going to read part of it to you.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law he meditates day and night. He's Like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season, his leaf does not wither. In all he does, he prospers.

That's four verses. If we read it slow, we chew on it, we go back, we can glean a ton. First of all, someone could read that and say, see, man, I want to be blessed. And it says, blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked. God tells us we're blessed.

Actually, he qualifies those who are blessed. Well, I want to be blessed, Pastor Nathan. Well, good. Well, let's do the stuff that it says. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked.

Well, what in the world does that mean? I don't know if he's talking about taking a walk. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel. This person is blessed of the wicked. This person is blessed.

If they don't have advisors around them that do wicked things and you do those things that they're talking about, there's a blessing in staying away from that. Okay, first thing. Nor stand in the way of sinners. Now, does he mean like standing in their way? Like they can't get around me in the aisle in Target?

Don't think so. Blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners. You ever met somebody and their way was just kind of difficult for you? I don't like their way.

We don't stand in the way if we don't behave in the same way that sinners are behaving. There's a blessing. Okay, we've learned two things. Careful who I let counsel me because there's a blessing if I stay away from bad counsel. What's the opposite of that?

If I accept bad counsel, is there a blessing? Makes sense to me to say there's not. Okay, so now we're talking about conditional things. We gotta read this thing slow. Nor sit in the seat of scoffers.

I don't think it means sitting in a certain seat somewhere, but rest amongst people that scoff at the things of God. What is scoffing? That murmur, that grumble, that criticize, that tear down. Probably shouldn't spend a lot of time there because it's gonna rob me of the blessing. That's good to know.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord. So the person who's blessed delights in the law of the Lord. There's a blessing in delighting in the law of the Lord and on his Law. He meditates day and night. Well, Nathan, I don't want to read the laws.

The laws seem boring. Isn't that in Leviticus? Isn't that, ah, maybe we should look up what the word law is. Torah. The teaching doesn't necessarily mean just the legals do this and don't all the teaching, law, Torah.

Okay, wait a minute. That means if I delight in the teaching of the Lord, what is the teaching? It's the scriptures. If I delight in the scriptures, there's a blessing for me. If I meditate on them, there's a blessing for me.

We hadn't even gotten through four verses. All you have to do is go slow, question it. God is not offended by you questioning the Bible. Some people say, oh my God, I could never do. Well, no, God, he's not offended.

He wants you to understand. So just go slow. And if you don't understand, you say, jesus, I do not understand. You're not bad. Holy Spirit, would you come and would you show me?

And would you use some of these free resources and tools online to do it? He absolutely will. Can he give you a revelation? Can he give you a dream? He absolutely can.

And he can say, go to www.clickclickclick or whatever and read some things. And it also can help you. Don't overcomplicate it. Let's let the Lord teach us his word. There's a delight, there's a blessing in it.

Here's my challenge to you tonight as we finish. You guys made it this far. I'm so proud of each of you. Nobody left, at least didn't leave angry. So that was good tools you need for studying the scriptures.

You need a good translation. I think it's good to have several to pit things against. Showed you that idea earlier. A good Bible dictionary, all those websites that I gave you, you can pull up because you're going to read about places that you have no idea where it is. A lot of times we just cruise past that.

Can I tell you, kind of get your Sherlock Holmes on just a little bit and be like, well, where is that?

You'll find there's lots of places in the scriptures that are modern day cities right now and things that are happening like in Iran, which is Persia, will blow your mind when you start paying attention to, wait a minute. Stuff like this has been happening for a long time and the Bible talks a lot about the kingdom of Persia and how much they don't like the Jewish people. And you will read, oh, that's what the entire book of Esther is about. And you start reading, wait a minute. Some of this is happening on my TV screen right now.

It's the same thing. Yes, because it's controlled by spiritual forces. The Bible says a lot about that, too. And if we all of a sudden realize, wait a minute. I feel like I have a sense that God has been doing something and we're part of a story.

That's the whole point. And you're gonna realize, man, it's interesting, exciting, helpful, encouraging, nourishing to read the word of God. Here's my challenge for you. I didn't have time for my video, but Wes was ready. I saw you.

I appreciate you so much. I want to challenge you. Two ways to do this. Bibleproject.com is the website. They have a great app, Bibleproject.

But how many of you are not familiar with the YouVersion Bible app that you can have on your phone? Never heard of youversion. So I want to challenge you. If you have a smartphone, you can do this on your computer as well. YouVersion, the word u y o u version life church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, changed the world.

I believe that with all of my heart. When back, and I want to say it was 2006, they created a free app that is the Bible on your device for free. In just about any translation that's ever been created in almost every language on the planet, it is free. It's for you. Not only is the Bible there, and you can go through all these different versions, there's reading plans, there's verses of the day, there's things that will help you on the reading plans, if you know what I'm talking about.

Bibleproject has a ton of reading plans on the YouVersion Bible app. You can go to Bibleproject.com, do it there. But if you already use the YouVersion Bible app, I want to give you a challenge. And if you don't do this, we're still friends, but I wanna give you a challenge. There is a study, there's a plan on there called how to read the Bible by the Bible project.

It is a daily reading plan that shows you scriptures like the ones I've talked about, but it has a little video attached that's kind of cartoonish. What a blessing. And so I'm giving you permission to watch cartoons while you study. It will explain to you what in the world it will explain to you what in the world is narrative writing in the scriptures. What is apocalyptic writing?

Why do they do it that way? Why was the Bible written? How did they Come up with those 66 books. There are little videos that are done incredibly well that explain everything I'm telling you. And you can literally go one a day and just read a portion of Scripture and then learn a little bit more about how to study your Bible.

You cannot get a better tool to help you go further in this. I'm still excited about my little books that you're not going to get, but I really think that the Bible project will help you. The jokes are for my benefit, guys. It blesses me. It's entertainment for me.

So I appreciate your grace. Let's stand together. If you are interested in some of these books, I'm going to leave them on the front row. You can check them out, meaning you can look at them. You cannot take them because I am very mean and selfish with my books.

But I definitely think you'd benefit from them. Look, I shared my mom's letters with you. Things become more intriguing when we realize why they were written, when they were written, who they were written to. And it will bless you. I just want to pray for each of us that we would have a hunger for God's word.

Can we at least agree on that? Whether you do any of my little tips and tricks and tools, it's totally fine. Read the Bible. Read it slowly. Don't be offended.

Don't think God's mad at you. If you don't understand something, it's okay. It's actually very mature to say that makes no sense to me whatsoever. God, would you help me? Father, I thank you for every person in this room.

I thank you that we could take a few minutes on a Wednesday night and just talk about the truth of your word. Talk about how unique it is. Talk about how we can approach it. Talk about, Father, how there's a story that's being told and it's supposed to draw us into knowing you better. God, thank you that we can read your word slowly.

We're not trying to win a prize. God, you want us to understand your Word. And God, you gave it to people in history on purpose when you did. And so, Lord, I can take a little bit of time and use the incredible tools of technology that you've given to us in this modern age to help me in my Bible study. Lord, I just pray that for those that you have an invitation to meet them in a more powerful way in scriptures, that they would take action steps on some of these things, even tonight before they go to sleep.

God, I pray for those that need to get into that study on how to study the Bible and to read those different things that are provided by the Bible Project. I pray you put them on that track. And God, for the one that feels overwhelmed by all of this, but just maybe says, I do want to make an effort and I do want to go slow. God, I pray that you would meet us in your word. Lord, I pray that we would invite you to sit with us.

We literally can sit with the author every time we open the Scriptures. There's no other book on the planet that you can do that with. God, I pray that we would spend time with you and let you teach us. Let us be sensitive to your voice. Holy Spirit, draw us to your word.

Pray these things in Jesus holy name. Amen.