Dr. Ralph Levy
Sermon Transcript
September 15, 2001
Study the Word
There's been a lot of interest from
different church areas including some overseas. We can see from that that there
is quite a lot of interest in the church, and I think, even in society in general
in the subject of the bible and that's the subject that I'd like to talk about
this afternoon. I told Mr. Pinelli that they'll be no heresy this afternoon
because we're just talking about studying the bible. Let me give you a few quotes
about the bible, you've probably got Haley's Bible Handbook on your shelf
at home. A few quotes about the bible. Abraham Lincoln said, "I believe
the bible is the best gift God has ever given to man, all the good from the
Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book." George
Washington is quoted as saying, "It is impossible to rightly govern
the world without God and the bible." And I must say it's been good
to hear the President at least mention the name of God in the crisis that this
country has been through over the last month or so, let's hope the people take
heed. John Ruskin said, "Whatever merit there is in anything that I
have written is simply due to the fact that when I was a child, my mother daily
read me a part of the bible and daily made me learn a part of it by heart."
An interesting quote, he memorized scriptures. Andrew Jackson, "That
book sir, is the rock on which our Republic rests." That's a telling
comment isn't it? The rock on which our Republic rests. Lord Tennyson, "Bible
reading is an education in itself."
And so one of the interesting things that we can see as we look into the history
of this country and even other countries that we think of as being much more
secular than the United States of America, is how deeply woven in to the cultural
fabric of the country is the bible. People are interested in learning about
the bible, we had a number of hits on our website suddenly skyrocketed after
the terrorists attacks in New York on September 11. People recognize there's
something in the bible. Now you and I study the bible on a regular basis and
what I'd like to do in the split sermon today is just simply give us all a reminder
about studying the bible. Title of the split sermon is, Study the Book. And
I'd like you to open with me please to John 5:39, where Jesus gave His
disciples a reminder of this very subject. We need to remember of course that
when Jesus said this, the only scriptures available were the Hebrew scriptures,
the Old Testament scriptures.
John 5:39 - Jesus said -
You search the scriptures…referring to what we term the Old Testament…for
in them you think you have eternal life and these are they which testify of
Me.
The Old Testament scriptures testify
of Jesus Christ and then of course Jesus Christ is the way to life, it's through
Christ that we're to be given eternal life. So we should do that as well. We
should search the scriptures, we should study the scriptures. I want to give
a few practical points for us concerning bible study as we go through this.
We make time for things. Sometimes
our lives get invaded by time wasters. I'm amazed at how much time wasting "stuff"
there is in all the technology and all the communications. Internets, oh boy,
there's a time waster. Spend time in front of your computer screen looking for
different subjects and doing searches for this and that and it goes on endlessly.
Somebody said recently that 12% of internet users are addicted. Can you imagine?
They simply can't stop staring at that computer screen. Cable TV, for that matter,
network TV, what a lot of time wasted watching network TV and watching all those
endless commercials and the rather poor quality programs. Interruptions, lots
of interruptions through our day. We shouldn't allow bible study to get pushed
out of our schedule. What time of the day works best for you? Are you a morning
person? Are you an evening person? And what time of the day does your bible
study fit? It works differently for different people.
Do you know which is one of the
widely read documents in the United States of America? I'll tell you something
that gets the most wide reading, breakfast cereal boxes. It's true! If you want
somebody to read a message, put it on a breakfast cereal box. Why? Because people
sit down to breakfast, they grab the box, they put the box on the breakfast
table and what is there to read? The cereal box! And so they read about everything
that is being offered and they read the ingredients and the number of vitamins
and so on. The suggestion then is obvious, what about putting a bible on the
breakfast table? If you're sitting down you probably do a hurried breakfast
as most of us do, but even if it's only fifteen minutes, why not put your bible
on the breakfast table? Why not put the church literature on the breakfast table?
Why not put a booklet or something else there to study? The Church now has,
I believe I've got the number correct, 28 booklets. Is that about right? I think
it's 28, maybe just a little bit up from that. 28 booklets. In my mailbox when
I got back from the Feast of Tabernacles, I had this one, Who is God
and I must say that this booklet that has just arrived in your mailbox would
probably provide sufficient bible study for about a week. You could leave that
on the breakfast table and that would keep you going for quite a while, although
it probably requires a deeper study than something to be done over the breakfast
table. But something else you could put there on your breakfast table is the
Good News or World News and Prophecy.
But if you're not a morning person
as many of us are not, you need to be studying the bible in the evenings, you
need to make time and get away from the TV and make sure we're studying on a
regular basis. We need to cover for one another in families. Mom and dad can
cover for one another. I've seen this in families that I've visited, you know
mom or dad wants to go away and do a little bit of private study and a little
bit of private prayer and asks the other one, Please take care of the children
for a little bit of time, cover for one another. We don't have to study by the
clock, it can be more than 30 minutes if we really get into our bible study
and you find something that's of interest and has captured your interest, you're
curious about it, keep on going, keep on studying, you don't have to check your
watch. But the point being, it needs to be planned out, it shouldn't be haphazard.
As we come into these much cooler
darker days following the Feast of Tabernacles, it's sometimes a little hard
to keep our bible study habit going, the clocks are going to be going back in
about three weeks from today and we mustn't allow ourselves to get into the
spiritual doldrums. We mustn't allow ourselves to have bible study pushed aside.
So make time is the first point.
II Tim. 3:15 - Paul write
to him, that…from childhood you have known the holy scriptures which
are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
That's quite a thought. The holy scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures, plus
the faith of Jesus Christ were able to make Timothy wise for salvation. Then
he goes on to say:
V. 16 - All scripture
is given by inspiration of God…this is the famous text that talks about
the inspiration of the bible and it means breathed, it means God breathed
His spirit into the scripture. So all scripture, Old Testament and New
Testament is God breathed…and is profitable for…what?
Let's read these items…for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness.
Paul gives four purposes for bible
study and only one out of the four has to do with, how shall we put it? The
brain, rather than the heart. The first one, doctrine, learning about doctrine
in a more dispassionate way. The other three all have to do with being guided
and being corrected. Reproof - you're headed in the wrong direction, you've
got a wrong concept and the scripture corrects it. For correction - you're doing
something wrong and you've got to make a change. For instruction in righteousness
- maybe you're doing something right but you've got to do it a little more insistently.
So three out of four here have to do with correction and only one is a more
general term, this term of doctrine or teaching. Sometimes people in the church
get things turned around, sometimes if we're not careful we get into technical
things and we forget that the main reason we study the bible is to ask a very
simple question - how should I live? What am I suppose to do? How should I direct
my life? That's the number one reason we study the bible - what must I do?
On the Day of Pentecost they asked
the right question. Acts 2:37. Here's the question we should be asking,
the number one question before we get into little things. Peter had preached
this very strong, very inspiring sermon and it moved them and it made them feel
guilty, rightly so.
Acts 2:37 - Now when they
heard this they were cut to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of
the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"
That's the right question, what
are we to do, how should we live? If we study for knowledge only we may get
our lives out of balance. Have you ever met anybody who has lots and lots of
knowledge but doesn't really behave as a terribly good Christian? In certain
Christian fundamentals that person may be way off, you've probably known people
like that from time to time. I Corinthians 8:1, Paul explains that and
cautions us. The context is meat offered to idols but Paul gives a very important
principle here, he says:
I Cor. 8:1 - Now concerning
things offered to idols, we know that we have all knowledge…O.K., we
know all kinds of things and we know that idol meat is no big deal. Mr. Elliott
gave a message on this not so long ago, very interesting message about idol
meat being all over the place in the Greek world. But then Paul gives a very
important principle…knowledge puffs up but love edifies.
Oh yeah, you can get all kinds of
technical knowledge and different things and study geography and history and
biblical languages and forget that the bible is there to help you to practice
the way of life, the Christian way of life. In the Church today there are a
lot of people who feel they know what the doctrines ought to be, if you doubt
that come and see some of the letters and e-mails that come into the office.
We get a lot of letters and e-mails from people who are convinced that they
know what this doctrine ought to be and what that doctrine ought to be and sometimes
I think some of those people have things a little bit out of balance. People
these days dig their heels in on their pet doctrine and very often it's a secondary
or a very small matter and they overlook the fact that we're to be united, that
we're to be a body of God's people and we're to live a way of life, which when
you really get down to the basics, is not all that hard to understand. That's
the number one reason why God called us. O.K., let's move on to point number
three here and I'd like to talk a little bit about method of bible study because
I think this is a problem. Very often, I think we've all experienced this, O.K.?
3. I want to set goals for myself
in bible study and I don't quite know which way to head. What method should
we use in bible study?
Here are a few methods we don't
want to use. One, take your bible, two, let it drop open. Opps, II Chronicles
again. All I ever study is II Chronicles, can't I ever get away from II Chronicles?
That's what been referred to as the dynamic drop method. Dynamic drop is not
recommended. You may become the worlds expert at II Chronicles but not know
about anything else. I don't recommend dynamic drop. Here's another method that's
not recommended. The mystical meandering method, an aimless wander through giant
thickets of words. Did you ever hear about the man who took on this method of
bible study and his bible drop came open to this particular phrase: "He
went out and hanged himself." Next one - "Go and do thou likewise."
Third one, "What thou doest, do quickly." Doesn't work very
well. Mystical meandering, not recommended! The third one I've termed Noah's
Ark. The Noah's Ark method of bible study is characterized by lots and lots
of notes. Sermon notes all over the place, notes, notes, and lots of notes,
like Noah and the animals - you pack away the notes for a rainy day.
Now there's nothing wrong with taking
notes at church services, so those of you who are doing that, I'm not telling
you to stop, O.K., that's not what I'm saying. However there's something, there's
a mistake that is all too often made in taking notes on sermons and sermonettes
and that is that people will very often, you see people in services and as soon
as the first scripture is mentioned, then the pen comes out and very often the
notes are a list of scriptures and really it's much more fruitful and much more
helpful if in taking notes on sermons and bible studies, you write down the
ideas. You might do scriptures as well, but very often you can find the scriptures
yourself with the use of a concordance. Our study needs to go beyond just a
list of scriptures gleaned from sermons and bible studies. So get the ideas
down when you're taking notes on sermons and bible studies but we need more
than that don't we? We need to stimulate our own bible study above and beyond
what we're hearing in church services.
I'd like to give you a few other
methods that I hope might be helpful to you. Method #1 that might work
well for you is studying by subject. Take a subject and follow it through,
what do you want to know about, what subject is not complete in your mind? Build
your own bible study. Examples - What about the term "first-born"
maybe you're curious about that particular term, what does it mean? What does
it mean in the Old Testament and the New Testament? Pull out your concordance,
Strong's Concordance is a very very helpful aid to bible study, very
well done, it's amazing how much work James Strong put into that extensive volume.
Nave's Topical Bible, also quite helpful in that regard, got to watch
out for certain doctrinal perspectives there but nevertheless quite helpful.
We might want to study areas of personal weakness and be corrected by that.
The bible is described as a sharp, two-edged sword, so as we select subjects
we need to look for areas where we want to come to understand something, where
we know we may have a weakness and we need to follow it through.
Something else we might want
to use as an organizational method is studying an entire book. I personally
find that much more satisfying than taking one scripture here, one verse here
and one verse there. Study a book all the way through, study a book of one of
the Old Testament prophets, do your own study on one of the minor prophets or
take on one of the major prophets, now there's a project that will last you
quite a while! Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel, or work your way through one of
the New Testament epistles or collection of epistles. An idea that comes to
mind is the pastoral epistles, there's an enormous amount of information in
the pastoral epistles - I and II Timothy and Titus about how the church is to
be organized, lot of very interesting principles. But one of the things that
you want to do as you're studying a book of the bible is look at a little bit
of background first, you want some historical background. Who wrote it, to whom
was it written? What was the historical circumstance? A little bit of basic
introduction. It's very helpful to do a chapter outline. I've found that in
studying some of the big books of the bible that's it's helped me a great deal,
you know when you go to a book like Isaiah with 66 chapters or Jeremiah with
52 chapters, it just seems like a mass of words unless you begin to look for
where the divisions are, where the literary divisions, where one section ends
and another section begins. You might want to do a chapter outline, you might
want to isolate themes.
Very often, usually, there is a
consistency in theme as you go through one book. The writer may shift from one
subject to another, but usually he exhausts the subject before before there's
a shift. So consistency and theme is very important. One of the things that's
brought out in this booklet, I was reading it just over the last couple of days,
Who is God, is the point about context. Context is very important, very often
when we can't understand one phrase or one verse, looking at the overall context
helps us to understand what's going on. Context will often solve the problem
for you.
You might want to look at the
life of one of the prophets or the life of one of the biblical writers,
the life of the apostle Paul, the life of Jeremiah, something I've found really
fascinating. Historical background, the personality of the prophet or of the
writer. You might want to go through the New Testament, look in the book of
Acts, the evangelistic tours, the three evangelistic tours and pull out some
kind of bible aid with a map and see where they're going because you've read
the book of Acts before but you may not have read it together with a geography
to see where they're going and which parts of the Greco-Roman world Paul and
Luke and the others were traveling through. You might want to take one of the
general epistles, the epistle of James with his beautiful rich language and
direct clear Christian living teaching. Study a book.
Another suggestion that might help
you a great deal is study your curiosities. What are you curious about?
It's much easier to study the bible in an area of curiosity than an area that
you're familiar with and you might want to sit down at this stage, right after
the Feast of Tabernacles and make a quick list. What areas do you want to know
about? Where are there things that you don't fully understand. Many themes you
might want to follow through and again, I'll give a few suggestions. The dietary
laws, clean and unclean, in the Old Testament and the New Testament, mentioned
only briefly, hardly at all in the New Testament, you might want to look at
some of the scriptures that some of the other religions claim supposedly do
away with the dietary laws in the New Testament and study them and evaluate
the authenticity or the lack of authenticity of some of those arguments.
Elijah. Elijah was a historical
figure, great prophet of God, but he's prophesied to come again and so we have
the prophetic aspect to Elijah and we have the historical aspect to Elijah partly
fulfilled in John the Baptist. But it would be surprising to see how many references
there are to Elijah in the New Testament and then to stop and consider that
that Elijah prophecy in the book of Malachi possibly has more than one fulfillment,
it's maybe fulfilled on more than one occasion, once in the life of John the
Baptist, once later on in the last days and then if you look in the book of
Revelation and you'll see the two witnesses, one of them looks surprisingly
like the prophet Elijah.
You might want to look at a doctrinal
point, a basic doctrine such as tithing, justification, the festivals, what
do you want to know? What's of interest to you? Write it down, cultivate your
curiosity, make your bible study interesting.
What about bible aids? Again,
this is right after the Feast of Tabernacles and you might have a little bit
of festival tithe left over and wish to invest some of that in a few bible aids.
I would suggest if you want to do that, number one priority would be a few good
modern translations of the bible and probably most of us here have a few, more
than one, but some may not. The one that most of us have today in church services
is probably the New King James Version, which is I think is probably
the best translation that we have available. In the New Testament it's based
on the Byzantine Text, which seems to be the text that is doctrinally most accurate.
I would mention the one that I've got here with me today, this is very good,
there are several study bibles of the New King James Version available.
The Nelson Study Bible published by Thomas Nelson, New King James Version
and I did check yesterday and it's still available. It's price has gone up but
it's still available and there are several other new study bibles that use the
New King James Version text. So if you don't have a study bible and you
could go ahead and maybe choose one, a study bible for the New King James
Version. With any study bible I think of course we all understand that there
are going to be certain doctrinal essays and certain doctrinal points there
that are going to be wrong, but nevertheless, a study bible can be very helpful.
The New International Version
I'm not a fan of, we use it occasionally, but it's a much looser translations,
it certainly has it's role, but it's not nearly as literal and will not serve
you well for close study of a particular subject. I'd recommend a couple other
translations if you don't have these - the New Revised Standard Version
is a good translation, it draws on different Greek texts from the New King
James Version but it's very helpful and will shed light for you on certain
passages that may otherwise be hard to understand. And one other translation
that I very much like is the Jewish Translation of the Tanakh. It's the
Old Testament only, obviously, but it's a beautiful translation and it has some
wonderful renderings there. So the three that I would suggest is the New
King James Version, the New Revised Standard Version and the Tanakh.
But you might want to take a look at some of the others available as well.
What about studying Greek, Hebrew
and Aramaic? Should we do that? Answer - probably not. There's probably not
very much to be gained from that. At ABC we did a little bit of Greek and Hebrew
and we would joke about the fact that we all became conversant enough with Greek
and Hebrew to be dangerous and unfortunately that's often the case if you do
just a little bit, although taking a little bit of Greek and Hebrew so you can
use a Greek or Hebrew lexicon can be helpful. The fact that we have good translations
and we do have many good modern translations probably makes studying Greek,
Hebrew and Aramaic a waste of time for many people and studying a biblical language
is very hard by the way. If you get into it you need to dedicate a great deal
of time and most people don't have that kind of time available.
In the area of bible aids, after
your translations there's something else that I would suggest, if you don't
have this on your shelf, you need a good Old Testament Introduction and a good
New Testament Introduction. I would recommend that before you begin investing
in commentaries.
Commentaries are of questionable value, but a good Old Testament Introduction,
there are two that we recommended at ABC, R.K. Harrison's Introduction to
the Old Testament, it's old, written I think back in the 1960's, but very
very good and easily available still and Old Testament Survey I think
is the title by LaSor, Hubbard and Bush, also very good, very readable, probably
a little easier to read than R. K. Harrison's Introduction. In the New Testament,
and I'm not familiar with all of the New Testament Introductions, but Donald
Guthrie's New Testament Introduction is quite good, others may be able
to give you a recommendation for a New Testament Introduction. But you need
that to see the historical background primarily, historical background and some
word studies and so on, before you jump in on commentaries.
One volume commentaries can
be an exercise in frustration because often they're going to give you the information
that you already know and the bit of information that you don't know isn't there.
It's simply too short for them to have included that little bit of information
where you got stuck on a particular point, but if you're going to go ahead and
invest in one volume bible commentaries, probably the best one is the New
Bible Commentary, Revised, that's also not so new these days, but it's probably
the best. For those who want to collect multi-volume bible commentaries, the
two complete collections that we've got in the ABC library are one, Expositor's
Bible Commentary - and multi-volume commentaries unfortunately are expensive,
the second one that we have there is the Word Biblical Commentary which is not
as conservative as Expositor's. Expositors would probably be the number one
choice for us in the church. There are lots of other's available. One that I
would mention that I think some of you may have is William Barclay's Commentaries,
especially in the New Testament, William Barclay has some very nice word studies
and some very colorful word commentary, especially in the general epistles,
Barclay in the general epistles is very good and many other commentaries, you
can invest a great deal of money if you want to go ahead and do that, but Barclay
would probably be very helpful.
Something else that is useful to
stimulate bible study is word studies, there are lots and lots of books
available now, published by Evangelical scholars, mostly on word studies, word
studies in the Old Testament, word studies in the New Testament, Zodhiates
Word Studies in the New Testament, I think these are all still available.
Also Vines Expository Dictionary of Old Testament and New Testament Words,
Vines will add quite a little bit of flavor to your bible study. So the Word
Studies are probably going to be quite helpful and I think more helpful than
building up a big collection of multi-volume commentaries.
But brethren, this is right after
the Feast of Tabernacles and we do need to begin to think seriously about keeping
our own spiritual lives going and alive and hopefully fruitful, interesting,
as we head into these darker colder months of the winter with about six months
before the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread.
Turn with me if you would for a
couple of last scriptures to Acts 17. This is our goal, Acts 17:10-11.
Interesting comments that are made as Paul and Luke and the others go traveling
around and preaching the gospel and discovering groups of people.
Acts 17:10 - Then the
brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived,
they went into the synagogue of the Jews. They've already been to Thessalonica
and now they end up in Berea.
V. 11 - These were more
fair-minded than those in Thessalonica…and this is where the old King
James Version uses the word "noble" - they were more noble or fair-minded…in
that they received the word with all readiness…so they received it,
they did two things now, they received the word of God…and
they searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.
So that's how we've got to do -
we've got to be receptive to the word of God and we've got to be searching,
to deepen our knowledge and to get to know God better and to understand the
teachings of the Church. Acts 18:24-28, another very positive example
for us.
Acts 18:24-25 - Now a
certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in
the scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man had been instructed in the way of
the Lord and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things
of the Lord though he knew only the baptism of John. We heard about that
in the first split sermon didn't we? He didn't know about the baptism of Christ,
he didn't know apparently about the laying on of hands.
V. 26-28 - So he began
to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they
took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when
he desired to cross to Achaia, the brethren wrote exhorting the disciples to
receive him; and when he arrived he greatly helped those who believed through
grace; for he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly, showing from the scripture
that Jesus is the Christ.
This man knew his scriptures, this
man was able to go back to the Old Testament and rebut the false arguments that
Jesus Christ was not the Messiah. How many of us could that? How many of us
could go through all the Old Testament prophecies and prove that Jesus is the
Christ? You know we're getting to the end of the sermon, but I want to pose
a question. Some of us, we've speculated about what happened in the Church in
the 1990's and why there aren't more people here with us today and I have to
at least pose the question for all of us to consider, whether something happened
in that God's people really lost the firm knowledge of the scriptures that once
was there, the real in-depth knowledge, the time when people would sit down
in their homes and dig into the scriptures, I think perhaps some of the preaching
was at fault as well, some of the preaching was not biblical enough, there wasn't
a deep enough knowledge of the scriptures, so when a false idea came into the
Church, people didn't feel equipped to reject it. This man, Apollos was not
like that, he understood the scriptures, he knew how to rebut false ideas and
so that's another reason why we really need to dig in, to know what we're founded
on.
As we come beyond the Feast of Tabernacles and begin planning out our lives for the next few months, let's really get to know the book.