Biblical Literacy

Good morning, everyone. I recently did a television program for Beyond Today. The title of the program was The Bible's Challenge to You. The Bible's Challenge to You. And I read a book in preparation for that program entitled Religious Literacy. This recently came out in the spring, subtitled What Every American Needs to Know and Doesn't. Okay? And written by Stephen Prothero, who was a religious studies teacher at Boston University. This came out in the spring, got a little bit of press at the time, and like everything else in the news cycle, quickly evaporates. You don't hear anything more about it, but it was a book that Newsweek had highlighted, and it looked like it was a fascinating book. It talks about religious literacy, and it focuses specifically upon the Bible, and it could just as well be written Bible literacy, although the subject of the book is not just the Christian Bible. It does get into Islam, Buddhism, or whatever, and the whole world faith genre of various literacy. And the whole point is that most people don't know their Bibles, and Americans do not need to know their Bible. They don't know much about Christianity. They don't know much about world religions, especially Islam. And as a result of that, it creates a number of other conflicts and problems in the political sphere and the social arena of American life, written by a religious studies teacher. And I found it to be quite interesting.

As a book like this will have, it has all kinds of stats about how much people don't know about the Bible and how many Bibles are handed out and what is the state of biblical literacy in regard to American people. You've heard, and it is still true, that the Bible is the best selling book in America. Still is. More Bibles are sold every year than any other book that is on the market. And we all know there are a lot of books on the market. One interesting statistic I didn't realize was that every second of every day a Bible is given away by the group called the Gideons. Remember the Gideons? Haven't heard much about them. But when you stay at a hotel and you open that drawer next to your bed, there's a Bible in there placed by the Gideons. When I was in grade school many, many years ago, nearly a century ago now, it seems like, the Gideons were allowed into the school once a year to hand out these little New Testament and Psalms. And everybody got a brand new New Testament and Psalm. I don't know that that would even be allowed today. I don't know if they still do that or not. But it was, at least when I was a kid. But every second of every day the Gideons give away a Bible. So there's Bibles out there of all different stripes, various translations that have come up. But as this book brings out, nobody's reading it. This is like every, you know, we know that America is a, quote, religious nation. Nation of, quote, churchgoers, as it is said. But you compare those statements with statistics and hard data and there's always a discrepancy. In other words, people say they believe in God, they believe they say they are a member of a church, or they go to church. But you look at the hard statistics of church attendance and there's always a discrepancy. There's a big gulf there. They're either, they either think they go to church or they're lying, and they want to sound good to the surveyor. It is kind of what it boils down to because the attendance figures are always lower than the professed figures of church attendance or belonging to the church. And when it comes to knowing what the Bible says, this book here brings out some very interesting information. I want to give you a quiz up front here. And don't panic all of a sudden. You're not going to turn this in. But if you want to, if you've got your papers in front of you, if you want to write down some of the quick answers, and just to see, I'm not going to, we're not going to get too interactive here and lose control and turn this into a jumping and hollering session. No. But let me give you a quick number of questions. Either write it down real quick or just, you know, answer them in your mind. Name the four Gospels. List as many as you can. Name the four Gospels.

Number two. Where, according to the Bible, was Jesus born?

Where, according to the Bible, was Jesus born?

Number three, a little different. President George W. Bush spoke in his first inaugural address of the Jericho Road. What Bible story was he invoking? The Jericho Road. He spoke of the Jericho Road. What Bible story was he talking about? The Jericho Road.

Time's up. Okay, next one. What are the first five books of the Bible, the Old Testament, as we would call it? First five books of the Old Testament.

Next. And you can just paraphrase this real quick, first few words. What is the golden rule?

What is the golden rule? Next two are rather quick. Here's a phrase. God helps those who help themselves.

God helps those who helps themselves. Is this in the Bible? If so, where? God helps those who help themselves. Is it in the Bible? And if so, where?

Okay, next one. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Does this appear in the Bible? If so, where? Just general, you have a general answer. If so, where?

I'm going to assume you all know these answers. I'm not going to go back through every one of them.

How many of you said Nazareth for where Jesus was born? You're wrong.

That's where his parents lived, but he was born in Bethlehem. But I want to go to the one about George Bush and the Jericho row. What was the Bible story that he was invoking?

Good Samaritan. Okay, yeah. That was used as an example in this book. A television producer commented after that speech. This was in 2001. But he'd have to look that one up. He didn't know what he was talking about in that. And it's not uncommon. But that particular speech had a number of biblical allusions in the speech that you would have to know the Bible to understand that could make the connection. We could set up any number of quizzes. I assume that you know that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the first four Gospels. Or Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are the first five books of the Old Testament. And that Do Unto Others, as before they do unto you, is the golden rule. No, not strike that one from the recording.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The other golden rule is those who have the gold make the rules. You've heard of that one. But God helps those who help themselves as not in the Bible. But blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God is in the Bible, from the Sermon on the Mount. This book goes on and it really makes the case for teaching religion in the schools, in a class, along with the Islam or any of the world's faiths.

And from one point of view, it's a legitimate argument that he has that Americans need to know about religion, world religions. And they do. We all do. And he teaches religious studies at Boston University and he shows that many schools, public schools, despite all the public arguments about religion in the public place, 10 commandments being there, prayer in the schools and all, that many schools are instituting religious studies classes. And they teach the Bible. Now, they don't teach a doctrine. They don't teach a denominational aspect of the Bible. But they teach the Bible and they teach it essentially as a historical book or as a literary work on the same par as the Quran or the Book of Mormon in terms of the religious work. And in many cases, it would be presented as a great work of literature, just like any other world literature, of course, would be. That has its drawbacks. It has its pros and its cons. He's coming from a more of a secular point of view in one sense. One of the things I found interesting about this book was the chapter in here that talks about how Americans got away from Bible knowledge. And he goes further back than I even realized you would, because it's an area that really I need to bone up on in terms of studying and understanding the story of religion in American history. But he goes back to the 19th century in the very early part of the 19th century, the early 1800s, and an event called The Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, which was a major religious revival that took place in the early 1800s in America of religious fervor in this country. But he places the decline of religious literacy or Bible literacy in America that early. You and I, you know, we might have said, well, the 1950s or the 1960s, it all got worse. And prior to that, people were more holy, they were more righteous, they were more knowledgeable and not so. And he really lays the blame at the feet of religion. The Baptists, the evangelicals, the mainstream Methodists and evangelicals, for getting away from not just the Bible, but from their own denominational teachings. He talks about, he blames Catholics as well, because of a number of trends and currents in society that were taking place at that time. People stopped reading the Bible. They stopped knowing even what their denomination taught. And this, in spite of the fact that churches were being built, pews were being filled, Bibles were being distributed, and the Bible was being invoked and religion was being invoked as a social custom and an important part of society.

But they weren't reading it, is what it gets down to. They weren't even understanding what was in the Bible, much less understanding what a Presbyterian believed or what a Methodist believed or what made a Baptist a Baptist. He talks about the Catholics getting away from even teaching their own creeds in their churches and people not understanding the distinctions of their own religious point of view, much less getting away from the Bible. He makes a comment here that, it says, men and women valuing the Bible as revelation, purchasing and distributing it by the millions, but were yet apparently seldom reading it themselves. And this is an appropriate, I mean, this really reiterates a phrase that I grew up with in the church. Many of you have been around for a number of years. Remember the phrase, blow the dust off your Bible. Blow the dust off your Bible. The white-haired old man that used to kind of shake his jowls and talk about the need to do that and use that time and time and time again to get people's attention. This book essentially verifies that people needed to blow the dust off their Bible because even though they may have had a copy of it on their coffee table or several of them on their bookshelves, they weren't reading it.

And they didn't know what was in it. And beyond that, many of them didn't even know what their own Baptist, evangelical, Presbyterian, or Catholic church believed and what distinguished even them in terms of denominations.

He brings it into the modern world and he talks about some of the preachers of our own time, Norman Vincent Peale and Billy Graham, the evangelical icon. Icons here. And their works, Norman Vincent Peale wrote The Power of Positive Thinking in 1952, which was a precursor of Stephen Covey's Seven Habits and a lot of the other success literature in that day. In 1955, Billy Graham wrote a book called The Secret of Happiness. But he mentions and uses these two, Norman Vincent Peale and Billy Graham, as examples of many preachers who, quote, preached therapy more than theology, happiness rather than salvation.

In other words, their sermons and their teachings dealt more with just making you feel good rather than teaching the hard, basic teachings of the Bible, such as salvation, sin, judgment, and what the Bible says about these subjects. There's a very popular preacher today that I sometimes will stop and watch when I'm buzzing through the 500 television channels that I have available to me and nothing ever on in that regard.

But Joel Osteen is an evangelical preacher. And have you ever stopped and watched Joel Osteen? A few of you know the name. He's out of Houston and he fills him fills the bleachers every weekend, 15,000-18,000 people. And he's a compelling speaker, very interesting. But after 15, 20 minutes of listening to him, I continually say, what has he said? And by his own admission, he doesn't get into specifics of the Bible. I watched him on Larry King Live one night and he admits. He said, I don't get into those subjects about hardcore beliefs.

He knows that people don't want to hear those. It's one of the reasons. A standard of his popularity is he makes people feel good. But there is no hard biblical teaching of the basics out of him. And the same could be said for a number of other individuals. It's an interesting, very interesting book. And it got me to thinking about, obviously, the number one issue that is really at the heart of his thesis, and that is biblical literacy, knowing this book and how much I read this book and how much you read this book.

What exactly are we doing with this book? How much do we know about it? And you judge by just some of the answers you gave to the few questions that I put out here, how much you know. I could devise any type of questions for a test that would reveal all different types of things about our knowledge, even my own knowledge.

I don't claim to be able to know everything and all the ins and outs of this particular book and some things I would have to be reminded of as well. Quite frankly, I've had to realize in recent months, not just before this book came to my attention and the telecast that I did on it, but in just looking at a number of stories and realizing that there are times that I, in my preaching and every minister may be like this, but at least I've fallen into this trap, you get into certain ruts and you just preach in certain roads for a period of time. And then all of a sudden you'll read a story, an episode, and it's almost brand new to you.

And you say, I didn't remember that, or I didn't realize that. We're all subject to that because we have busy lives. We watch a lot of television and movies. We listen to a lot of music. We read a lot of other books, all of us. And to answer a question as to how much we may be reading this book and reflecting what it says and knowing what is in this book, every one of us in this room, myself included, might find some embarrassing moments if the particular question were put to each of us.

And so I'd like to encourage us through my sermon this morning to read the book. The title, the SPS, the main point to get from what I talk about here this morning is to read the book so that our literacy quotient rises. So that our understanding of the Bible, our knowledge just of what is in this book rises. And obviously a mark of a Christian living by this book is how much we live by this book. That's ultimately what's most important. Let's face it. But don't use that this morning, any of you, as a way to tune out and turn off what I'm saying. It's true what the most important test is how you live the principles of this book.

That's true. But if we don't know the book, if we don't really know it because we're feeding on it continually, and it's the number one book on our stack of things to read, things to occupy our time, we will all be subject to forgetting, being negligent. And most importantly, we can be negligent in our faith and in what we do live about this book. And as we find out, we found out a few years ago, we could even be subject to the temptation or the pulls and the tricks of heresy that can come about.

You know, I'm convinced that the reason people were convinced that there was no Sabbath, just to put it bluntly, 12 years ago, which was that was really the heart of the argument in 1995. There is no Sabbath. When it's all said and done, the dust settled. The teaching was there's no Sabbath. The reason so many fell for it is because they weren't reading the book and they didn't know what the book said about the Sabbath.

Just to zero in on that one point of the law. They didn't know a lot about other things as well, like grace and law. But they didn't know what the book said about the Sabbath.

And they fell for that argument. Had they known and then truly believed it, that argument would have been something that would have been just the tinkling sounding brass meant meaningless to them, as it was for some of you, because you know what the Bible says about that teaching. There's a lot of other teachings there that we have to be continually be reminded of and go deeper and deeper in. And just in terms of being in contact with God, tuned into the mind of God, which is the mind behind this book. You know, I did this program with Gary Antion, who teaches comparative religion and obviously had been a Bible teacher at the college and Ambassador Bible Center for a number of years. We were talking in the program about those who, you know, the whole history of the development of the Bible. And you can look at the men and women who died bringing us this book, preserving it, translating it, especially four, five, six hundred years ago in some of the religious wars that it took to even get a translation of the book. It's a fascinating story in history to look at how it was even put together within the story of Israel and the community of Israel and preserved by the Jews and then the New Testament preservation and writing out and understand that over a period of roughly fourteen hundred years, these books were written by different individuals in different languages at different times, but it all came together because of one mind. It's a fascinating book, and that knowledge is understood by a lot of people. But again, it has to go deeper in terms of living by this book.

And understanding, if people don't know when the President of the United States stands up and gives it an inaugural speech and he makes a reference to the road to Jericho and people can't immediately make a connection to, oh, he's talking about the Good Samaritan story, the story of the Good Samaritan. You know, he made another reference in that speech in 2001, and he mentioned the he mentioned the angel in the storm at the very end of his inaugural speech. There were a number of biblical allusions. How many of you would know what he was talking about with that statement? The angel in the storm. Anybody think they know? That was a reference to a one of the prophecies of Ezekiel, chapter 10. I'll leave it there. You can look it up later on. But that's what he was talking about. And, you know, it's interesting to realize that, of course, he is a born-again evangelical and very sincere religious man in this president. And it's not surprising that his speeches on those occasions would have many references to the Bible. But I think we realize that it goes beyond having a lot of book knowledge about this, although the surveys show that people just don't know the book. They don't know what's in it. They don't know the stories. One of the laughable stories in here is that many people think that Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. True. When asked one of his college classes, religious classes, he said it was one of his standard questions. Many of them think that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

And it's funny because, hopefully, you know, maybe you're just laughing because, oh yeah, I knew that, but maybe I don't know. But that basic knowledge about the Bible is just not there. We have a storehouse of wisdom available here in this book. And reading it, studying it, is very, very important in our lives. Why study it? Let me go through a few points here. Let's look and rehearse a few points about the benefits, the what's in it for me approach to this book and this need to study the Bible. First of all, the Bible study leads us to eternal life. And understanding this book is critical to our eternal life. Let's turn back to 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy chapter 3. 2 Timothy 3. And begin in verse 14 where Paul is writing to Timothy.

And he says, "...you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. And that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures, which were able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus." Now, as Paul wrote this to Timothy, keep in mind that this reference to the holy scriptures in verse 15 is referring to the Old Testament scriptures. Those are the only ones Timothy would have had as a young child with his Jewish mother and grandmother bringing him up in the knowledge of the scriptures. It is the Old Testament scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation. You can understand the knowledge of salvation just with the Old Testament scriptures. You can understand the gospel just with the Old Testament scriptures as we will see. That is what they had here. But they make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Keep in mind scripture that I've referred to a great deal recently, and again, just to make this connection, keep your finger here. But turn over to Revelation 12 in verse 17 where it talks here of the the church of God and a hallmark of the church of God in the time when the dragon is enraged with a woman and is persecuting the church and goes to make war with the rest of her offspring. Verse 17 of Revelation. And the two markers of the church of God in the time of the end to identify who they are are those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ, which is really another way of saying that the church of God will understand the Old Testament and the New and how they work together. The commandments, the law, and the gospel, that Christ brought the testimony of Jesus Christ, the gospel. That's represented by represents the New Testament. The church of God will always have the ability to know how they relate and they work together. And they are able to go back here then to connect us to the thought here in verse 15 of 2nd Timothy 3. They are able to make us wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. This is how we continue on the road to eternal life. This is how we stay active, stay engaged, stay on the straight and narrow, running down the center of the road, if you will, and not often one ditch or the other, left or right, running down the center of the road. I know you can argue that in particular analogy, and it's not the most perfect analogy, because as John Robinson used to tell me, the center of the road is where you find the dead armadillos.

And that's true. Squashed, flat. But for this purpose, we want to avoid the ditches and we want to be making the straight road, the straight and the narrow, so that it works, at least in understanding that.

They keep us on the road to salvation. I gave the sermon two weeks ago here on the subject of salvation, and just reviewing the scriptures on the subject and looking at what was important there. But again, you've got to go and understand those scriptures, and we have to be reading them, but they are able to make us wise unto salvation, and that in the end is really what we want. We want to have eternal life, and they show us the way, and they keep us tuned into this way of life that is so important to us. Secondly, the scriptures help us to avoid sin. Reading the Bible regularly, keeping it in the forefront of our mind, helps us to avoid sin.

And it's a tool in that direction. We're feeding on the mind of God. We're feeding on the thoughts of God. This book is inspired by God. Verse 16 here, 2 Timothy 3, it says, all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. All scripture is given by God's inspiration. That is the one mind that brings it all together. Again, you can leave the realm of criticism and all the sniping and carping about this book, and whether it's factual and the stories, and if it's something that can be lived, and you know, leave all of that world behind. There's a time, I don't know, that any of you spend a great deal of time or are influenced by the criticism of the Bible. There's plenty of it out there. But there comes a time when you prove this book, and then you move on.

You prove it to be what it says that it is, the word of God, inspired, and the holy book. And you prove it to be the one book that stands head and shoulders above all the other holy books of the world's religions. The Quran, the Book of Mormon, the various books of Buddhism and treatises there that speak of that way of life, and any other religious text. And you prove this to be the word of God, the final complete word of God in the inspired way. And you go through all of those matters in your mind, you may read a few books on it or study into it, and then you put that to rest. And then you begin to look at this book as the word of, as the mind of God.

And it as that guidebook, as that instruction book, but it as the way by which we keep in contact with the mind of God. And it is profitable to us for all of these things here, and it helps us to avoid the sin, which is that element that we don't want to be walking in and caught up in.

And that helps us to keep that hidden in our heart. In Psalm 119, Psalm 119, it's a very long Psalm. Let's look at verse 11.

Let's look, well, let's begin in verse nine. How can a young man cleanse his way?

By taking heed according to your word. It starts out directed specifically to a young person. It applies to obviously all of us, but how can you keep your way clean? How can you keep away from sin? By taking heed according to your word. With my whole heart I have sought you.

O, let me not wonder from your commandments. Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. The psalmist writes, the word of God is kept in our heart, our mind. It's kept tucked away like a special treasure, but it's a main force. It's the driving energy of our life.

It's what we think about at a time when we might be tempted, when we might be caught up in an attitude or lust, a temptation, some physical aspect of the flesh that could take us into sin and cause us to slip. And we remember and we think about a story, a teaching, thou shalt not commit adultery. And that may be enough right there.

Or it might be that we remember the story of David and what subsequent actions of lies and treachery and death and how far reaching the effect was through the generations of one man's family when he was tempted and committed adultery on one occasion. It took something that was not his. We remember those stories and we think it through. We think it might be a momentary pleasure, but I don't want to have to live with the thoughts, the fear, the uncertainty of the light of the next day. And we say no and we back away from such a possibility because it's there in our, it's been tucked away in our heart and it's what comes to our mind rather than the latest movie that we may have seen on the subject or the latest episode of Desperate Housewives. Or whatever else it might be that is so readily available to us that can take our 30 minutes of time or an hour or 120 minutes or the steamy novel or whatever it might be that caught our attention that entices us and gets us thinking in a different direction and dulls the our sensitivity to this way of life.

It can be very momentary to come into our life and to overcome us. One of the most gut-wrenching matters to deal with is the slippery slope of pornography that, especially for men, can be an enticement and a very quick slippery slope into a frame of mind that is very a frame of mind that is so addictive that it is as addictive as any other hardcore drug.

And some of the counselings that I've had to be involved with with individuals who have who have who made that one click on that one item that took them into a whole new world on the internet and destroyed their lives and their children's lives. It doesn't take much in some cases, but a steady walking in the way of life of God and drinking in of the Word of God, staying close to it, can keep us from sin. And it can be that light and a proper light show us in the way to live. Over in verse 105 here of this psalm, Psalm 119 verse 105, it says, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

A lamp to my feet and a light to my path. It can't be if we're not opening it and reading it and being led by it and being guided by it. The third point to remember is reading the book strengthens our faith. It strengthens our faith.

To remember how God intervened in the lives of people, healing them, leading them, delivering them, providing for them. All of those stories and lessons give us encouragement when we find ourselves in need of God. In Romans 10 verse 17, there's a point here as to how our faith is built.

We have to apply it through this concept of reading the book. Romans 10 and verse 17, it says, So then faith comes by hearing. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. We hear these words because we read these words, and that builds our faith. As we remember and are taught and throughout our lives, our daily lives, we are reminded of the examples of these individuals.

And it takes more than one day a week. The Sabbath is a very important day to do this. There's no question about that. And I might just say that all of us could use a little bit of probably brushing up on how we use this time on the Sabbath to spend time in just reading the Bible, in prayer, and the rest and all that takes place.

I said earlier that people were convinced there was no Sabbath because they weren't reading the scriptures about the Sabbath. Maybe point two on that little sub-lesson in this would be that people were so willing to give up the Sabbath because they weren't using the Sabbath to lead them to eternal life. And so they were convinced that it was dead or a burden and leading them to death. And it's always a constant lesson for us to remember. And in regard to this topic that I'm bringing out today, I would encourage all of us to use this time that God gives us, the Sabbath rest, to use it in spiritual pursuits, to use it in the pursuits that lead us to life. And to really examine how much is still crowding in toward our hours and the minutes on this day, that the things that we think of and do and reflect on the other six days, our own work. This is the day for God to do His work in us. And in order for that work to be done, we do have to clear a lot of the things that are in our minds and in our heart the other days of the week. And one of the ways to do that is to begin to just read the book and to let those words increase our faith on this day and flood into our mind and begin to set our hearts, to walk toward life on this day. Really, this is the day that God does His work in us. It's a spiritual work, and we have to prepare our minds for it. One of the ways to do it is by reading the book and taking the time, rather than using the time that we think we have the liberty for, to do a lot of other things that, quite frankly, wind up, cause us to wind up not using the day in the right way. And it doesn't really truly become the day that God intended in terms of building faith and a spiritual rest for us, as well as a physical rest. From time to time, we all need to think about that and be reminded because we have got to build our faith and use this day to let the word of God be a part of us. Services are only a fraction of that. There's a lot of other time and hours during the day for us to use, and regardless of whether it's daylight savings time or not, it's still 24 hours. No matter when the sun sets, it's still the same amount of time from sunset to sunset that we have to keep this day as it should be kept before God. And we all need to remember that and we need to think about it. Reading the book then strengthens our faith. Fourthly, reading the book brings God's blessings. When we are reading this book, we are reading the mind of God. We are reading the story of God and what He has given to us. This is how He has revealed His Word, the Word, His life. And when we put our mind here, when we study this, when we know this book and it's guiding our life, it pleases God. And things just seem to go better. There's a story from 2 Chronicles 17 that I think illustrates this. 2 Chronicles 17. It's the story of King Jehoshaphat, one of the righteous kings of Judah, succeeded his father, Asa, and he had to go through a period of rejuvenation, revival of the true faith within the land. It says in verse 3 that the Lord was with Jehoshaphat because He walked in the former ways of His father David. He did not seek the bales. He removed the idolatry.

And it says, He sought God, He sought the God of His Father and walked in His commandments and not according to the acts of Israel, the other nation there to the north. And so He sought God, walked in His commandments. It says in verse 5, therefore the Lord established the kingdom in His hand and all Judah gave presence to Jehoshaphat and He had riches and honor in abundance. And so a righteous reign began and it built and God honored Him. Verse 6, it says, His heart took delight in the ways of the Lord. He removed the high places and the wooden images from Judah. To apply it to you and I, do we take delight in the ways of God? Do we know the ways of God? Are they a part of our lexicon? Are we literate in the ways of God? Does our mind and our heart and our approach to our life really want to know more of what God is about, what He has in store for us, how we are to live, and to plumb the deep spiritual truths of God? Well, that's what was being said here of this period of time, guided by a righteous leader named Jehoshaphat. And it goes on in verse 7 to show how He translated this. He wasn't just sitting around reading the scrolls Himself, but He implemented an administration that took this from Jerusalem out to the other villages, cities of the country. In the third year of His reign, He sent His leaders, Ben-Hale, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nathanael, and Micaiah to teach in the cities of Judah. They restored a teaching, this is an educational effort that is being described, of the commandments and the way of God. And He also sent Levites, and He mentions the list of them here. At the end of verse 8, He sent with them the priests. And they taught in Judah and had the book of the law of the Lord with them. And they went throughout the cities of Judah and taught the people. Now, keep in mind, this is the same book of the law and is referring to the same scriptures that Paul said to Timothy, are the holy scriptures able to make you wise to salvation. It's the same set of books and writings that is being described. And Jehoshaphat set up a very detailed, in-depth educational effort that involved the priests, the Levites, and His administration to take this and have it taught administered throughout to all of the people. And so the people were schooled, and their literacy rate was raised. They had forgotten as well the stories. And this was not only the Bible, this was their own national history, and they had forgotten what it meant and the importance of it. And in verse 10 it says, the fear of the Lord fell on all the kingdoms of the lands that were around Judah so that they did not make war against Jehoshaphat. A valuable principle at many levels, that when you put God first, even your enemies are kept at bay. That when you put God first, when you study His Word, when you seek Him, He takes care of a lot of the other problems. When you put God first, if I can translate it to this topic today, when we are reading the Bible, living by it, seeking God, then a lot of the problems of our enemies, and we're not talking just always about some person, but the enemies can be the fears, the problems, and some of the other unexplained trials that we seem to have always about our life. They can disappear. They can be taken care of, because there's no more, you know, they weren't warring against Jehoshaphat. If you and I are involved in staying close to God, the result can be blessings. The result can be prosperity.

It can be peace of mind. It can be an absence of a lot of other trials that somehow we just can't seem to deal with ourselves. In our efforts, our words, what we try to do doesn't make it any better. But if we're seeking God and even taking those things to God, trusting in Him, letting Him take care of those things, then the problems around us seem to disappear, and they're not on our doorstep. This was a period of righteousness within the nation, and it bore fruit.

What about our own personal lives, if we are seeking God and seeking to have that knowledge as a part of our life? The story of Jehoshaphat goes on. I won't have the time, but to go on to chapter 18. He was a very strong witness here. He wanted to know what God said, and he even went to war on one occasion with the king of the Israel, Ahab. Ahab didn't want to listen to a servant of God, and Jehoshaphat did. He wanted to know what God said. That would seem to be a hallmark of his life. Again, we sometimes have to approach our Bible study and our reading of the Bible to find out what—and it's a good question to ask as you're reading through, what is God saying to me right here? And sometimes our Bible study does need to involve some effort on our part with a notebook at our side or stuck in a folded piece of paper in the pages of the Bible that we take some notes on and we write ourselves some questions. What's God saying here? We maybe make a two or three-point list of what we get from a particular passage of what God is teaching us.

It's an effective way to, again, bring more meaning out and ask the right questions.

But we have a spirit of Jehoshaphat there that we want to know what God is saying. We want to know what God is teaching. A fifth reason to study is to show God that we desire to be profitable servants. We want to be profitable servants. In Luke 17.10, we're told that only going partway or what the bare minimum may be is nothing profitable. Luke chapter 10. I'm sorry, Luke 17 and verse 10. I'm getting dyslexic here. Luke 17 and verse 10.

I'm talking here of our duty and being a profitable servant.

Luke 17.10, likewise you, when you've done all these things which you are commanded, say we are unprofitable servants, we have done what was our duty to do.

We can impose certain duties upon us. We can think five minutes or 15 minutes or 30 minutes of study or reading 30 minutes a week or something is enough for us. And the point of this story here in Luke 17 is that we have to always go above and beyond to be profitable. We can't just do what is expected. We just can't meet the bare minimum. We have to go above and beyond. And that's the way it is when it comes to reading the book. We have to go above and beyond. If we are to ever come to a point in our thinking where we move beyond some of the status quo of our own time. And to do that, our thinking has to come to the point where we study the Bible, we read the Bible out of the realization of a need, not of an obligation. Not of duty, but a need. Not a need, but a hunger.

Where we hunger and we thirst for the knowledge that is here, for the righteousness that is here. We hunger and thirst for it. God's spirit is the only thing that can lead us to that point where we look at it from that point of view. We get rid of the idea that Bible study is just something we put in and we log in on a daily or regular basis even. And it's like a regimen.

Now that may be where we need to start, but hopefully in our lives we would move beyond that to where this would be the book that we start picking up more often than some of the other things that we might pick up or the other things that we might click on or the other things that we feel that we have we want to do rather than need to do. And we put our heart, mind, and soul into reading this book and getting through it. There's a story in Acts chapter 18 of a man named Apollos. Acts the 18th chapter. That I want to refer to just one point here about the character of the man. Acts chapter 18 is a story of Apollos beginning in verse 23, or verse 24, I'm sorry. Where a certain Jew named Apollos, he was 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. They began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla, we were two members that were friends of Paul at this point, they took him after they heard him and they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. Apollos had only knowledge about the baptism of John, which was a baptism and that the teaching of John was a baptism of repentance. And it was not complete. He did not know the full story of Christ, his death and his resurrection and his teachings. And he came to that through Aquila and Priscilla, and he accepted it, and he came to know the way of God more accurately. And he came what went on to become a very powerful, eloquent preacher. We find his story here. We find him referred to in the book of 1 Corinthians. Apollos was an individual around whom many members in the church in Corinth rallied and kind of looked to him as their favorite, maybe because he gave such stirring sermons. And he was a charismatic type speaker, and they may have liked that. And Paul said, look, some of you are, you've got division. Some are of Apollo, some are of Peter, some are of Paul. And he said, you know, those divisions are wrong. We start to looking at individuals like that. But Apollos is an individual that we find even later on in the book of Titus is referred to who seems to still have been hanging on, preaching, and faithful, and doing his role. But what I want to bring out is what it says about him in verse 24.

That he was an eloquent man, and he was mighty in the scriptures.

How do you become mighty in the scriptures? Wouldn't you want to be called and referred to as someone who is mighty in the scriptures? By that I'm not talking about someone who can quote any verse. Turn to any verse in the Bible, or even make 100% on Darris McNeely's quizzes.

Because I know that for me and for many of them, Bible verses has never been a big thing of mine.

I remember the little scripture cards that when I think I bought some from the bookstore at Ambassador College, and from time to time you still see them popped up in little scripture memory cards where they'll have the scripture written out on one side and then the reference, like Acts 1824, on the other. And you can play the games with yourself or as a group and say, you know, Acts 1824. Quote it. Or you can read Acts 1824 and say, what verse is that? And you can do things like that. And I've always thought I never did well at those, so I didn't like them. If you don't like them, they're not any good. You know how reasoning goes like that. But it's important to be able to know obviously the scriptures. If you can't pass a quiz like I would give you or anyone else, or if you can't be a master of your stack of scripture cards, does that mean you're a deficient Christian? Does that mean you're not going to be in the kingdom or anything like that? No. And that doesn't mean that you are the paragon of righteousness either. I've seen people who can quote those things just like that. And when it comes to living this book, they don't do it. Because they're sharp. They've got maybe a photographic memory. They can memorize things. But to be able to spout things back or even to be able to turn to everything by itself doesn't mean anything. It's only when you take that knowledge translated into practical living and it changes your life and the fruits of the spirit are born that it really makes a difference.

And in that way, you can be mighty in the scriptures. Now, you may not be eloquent like Apollo's. I wouldn't claim that quality myself. But I would want to be mighty in the scriptures in the sense that these scriptures are my life. And though I may not be able to memorize every one of them or even five of them, I am reading this book and I know what it means.

Give me enough time and enough notes that I've taken over the 30, 40 years in church and church literature and now that the old strong concordances that operate as door stops in my house, because it's quicker to look it up on the internet now.

Given enough time, I can find what I need to find. And you can too. It may take hours, it may take weeks, but you can find it because you know it's in there and you've lived it and it's in your heart and you can get to it. You become mighty in the scriptures. How do you become mighty in the scriptures? To your description. To your life. To where it really does and is making a difference in your life. Very simple. Number one, read the book. Read the book. That's how you become mighty in scriptures.

Read it. And then read it again. And then don't think because you were schooled here or there or been in the church umpteen number of years, grew up in the church like I did or whatever, heard 15 million sermons, that you know it all. Begin at Genesis 1.1 all over again, or John 1.1. And read the book. And be reading the book. But read the book.

You know, depends on how you, you know, you can, there's all, I don't know, in the book of back of this particular Bible that I have. No, I don't have a Bible reading plan in this one. Some of you may have a version of the Bible that gives you a daily reading plan in the back of your Bible. You can find it on the internet. You can find those that dime a dozen. That might be one, one way to do it. And if that works for you, then do it, according to some of those. We, we had this Bible, we have this Bible reading program going in, in United right now. And to be honest, it's more of a commentary than it is a Bible reading program. And it may, and it, it is useful and helpful in its own right, but it's not really a Bible reading program. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from my instructors, any instructor at Ambassador College, was about this fact of reading the book. And he, he, he was a fourth-year Bible teacher. He gave this point one morning, and I remembered, he says, get you a Bible that is just your reading Bible.

Not one that you've marked up from sermon notes and study and whatever, but just a reading Bible. And it can be, I would say that it can be a modern translation that is faithful to the, to the meaning, but is more readable than perhaps even the New King James, but that is your reading Bible. And don't put any marks in it. Preferably, it's a book that doesn't have a lot of other comments. You can buy the Bibles now that's got commentary right, you know, not only in the center, but at the bottom, and they can be distracting. I mean, those are, can be useful and helpful, but if you want to read the book, get a Bible that you don't mark up and it's free of all the other comments, and just make that your reading Bible, if you have the luxury of doing so. And just, and read that and use that as your, as the, as your reading Bible. If you read, if you read just 10 minutes a day at roughly 200 words a minute, a standard rate, that's not speed reading, but 10 minutes a day you could read the Bible in a year. If you read 20 minutes a day, you could do it in six months. If you read, if you read it 30 minutes a day, you could read through the Bible in three months. You know, do the math as to how much you'd want to devote to it. You know, it can be broken down that way just at the idea of 200 words a minute. But read the book and skip the other commentaries. The commentaries have their place and the, the dictionaries and all the other helps, but sometimes they get in, they get in the way. And I have a whole, I have two shelves full of them in my, in my home, plus the internet is out there for me to go to. But if you want to just read the book, you have to get rid of all the clutter. And I would, I would say you want to be mighty in the scriptures, then read the book and be reading it daily is point number two. Read the book and read it every day. This is what the Bereans did in Acts 17. A group of members in the city of Berea that Paul preached to, maybe they were skeptical, maybe they'd been burned by other organized religion, other ministers, they were skeptical of men, organizations, whatever else, you know, you can speculate whatever it was.

But here was, here was a group of people that were likely, they were, they were just, they were hungry to know the word of God in the Bible. In Acts 17 and verse 10, brethren sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. This is out of Thessalonica. And they came to Berea and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. Now these were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica. They were willing to hear what he had to say. They were fair-minded in that they received the word with all readiness and searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Therefore, many of them believed and not a few of the Greeks, prominent women, as well as men. And so fruit was born here, but the characteristic of the Berean people here was that they searched the scriptures daily. And the point is this, if you're going to read the book, read some of it every day. Read a psalm every day. Read a proverb every day. And you may be reading along at the same time a section from the Gospels or reading through the Gospels or some of Paul's epistles or maybe one of the historical works. You can mix in what you do and however you do it, that's up to you. But read the book and read it every day. That's, to me, a no-brainer solution to becoming mighty in the scriptures. And it's not necessarily being mighty in the literature, mighty in the commentaries or anything else. All of those things are useful and have their place. The literature we write in the church, it has its use and its place. A commentary, a Bible dictionary, has a useful place as well. But there is no substitute for knowing the book and reading it. And reading it on our knees, reading it on our most comfortable chair, reading it on a break at work, on a park bench, as part of our life. And having a version and a type of Bible that may be easy to carry around for us or whatever is our choice. But we read the books to where we can say that we are literate in it. So that if we listen to a president give a speech and he makes a comment about the road to Jericho, we know that that's talking about an important story from one of the Gospels. Or if there's another reference or allusion made, or even if you are watching Superman, Star Wars, the Matrix trilogy, Babel, even, God forbid, Pope fiction. All of these are movies that play on biblical themes.

Maybe you knew that and maybe you didn't. What was Superman's dad's name? Jor-El. The last two letters of Jor-El was the name of God. And the whole story and the idea of the Father sending his son to save the people, it plays on a biblical theme. You can't even immerse yourself in popular culture today, is my point. And really understand what's being said and told in the story unless you know something about the Bible. That's the whole irony of our modern world, that doesn't know the book, doesn't read the book, claims to be religious, certainly is not doing what this book and its author said to do in terms of truth. And yet, on the other hand, our society and its popular culture in its most enduring forms of literature, movies, and themes draw off of the major stories and themes of this book. And unless you're just wanting to waste an hour and a half or two hours and watching some movie and focus on the violence or a man flying around in a tights and a cape, you don't understand that the whole story is based on a biblical theme.

And that's why in the long run, they are so perennially popular, is because they are based on these biblical themes, these eternal themes that we can't get away from as much as we try in our own modern world, and that's the irony of the whole story. Why not read the book and know more about it, what it really says, and then letting it be a guide to our life, a lamp to our feet, and making a difference, and in the end, making sure that we, the people of God, are mighty in Scripture and biblically literate.