Prepare to Teach the Word

There are certain places when I read through the Bible that just, well, especially fascinate me. I mean, it's all, it's all, it's hard to beat great material. But there's a story told in Acts, chapter 7, and we don't even need to turn there. It's called Stephen's Defense.

And you know the story early on? The church began, and it began growing in numbers, and the apostles needed to be able to focus on preaching the Word of God, so seven deacons were ordained. And one of the deacons was named Stephen. In a short order, he got himself called in before the local authorities, the religious authorities. And he was asked a question, and what an answer they got. And you read Acts 7, and he began with Abraham, and moved briefly through Isaac and Jacob, and on to Joseph's story, and how the children of Israel ended up in Egypt. And then he moved to Moses, and God bringing them out, and refers to the prophecy of how God would raise up another prophet like unto Moses. And the Jews, just Moses was way higher up there on a pedestal. And he goes all the way through, and he leads them to the point of this just one who has come, and you killed him. And that's when they went berserk. But I read that story, and I realize he couldn't have had any notes he was working off of. You know, those of us who speak in church, we probably are too dependent on our notes. I often think I am. He didn't have a teleprompter like our presidents have used for decades. You know, there's this teleprompter, and if it's not working, you know, they're in trouble, because it's not coming from the heart.

Stephen didn't need that, because his answer came from the heart. It was the embodiment of everything he was. He'd been drinking in of the Word of God, and it was a part of him. Every so often, we need to go back and hit some of the basics. And one of the most basic topics is that of Bible study.

Now, many of us remember many decades back. I can't tell you the date, but at Ambassador College in Pasadena, there was this Ambassador Hall, and there was a concrete wall poured outside, and Mr. Herbert Armstrong had words that were either in the forms or engraved.

Nine words. The Word of God is the foundation of knowledge. And years later, outside the redwood in the library building of Big Sandy, Texas, there was a large stone with a bronze plaque. The Word of God is the foundation of knowledge. And you and I in the Church of God for decades have cut our teeth on that philosophy that we come from Sabbath to Sabbath, and we are not here playing church. We're not here just going through the motions. We're here, yes, obeying God, because he's the one who said this is a command and assembly. But we're here, and we have our Bibles, and we have our notebooks, and we really do have our Bibles here. That was something that stunned me in speaking to the little group in Hong Kong on the first Holy Day. One person and myself, two of us, had a Bible. The others had smartphones and small tablets, these little gadgets. Now, they were following along with me, but you know Asia, these little gadgets, electronics, everywhere. But the Word of God. And again, we probably remember while Herbert Armstrong still lived that he gave the Church certain mandates not that long before he died, and one of them was, prepare to teach. So today's sermon is simply called, prepare to teach the Word.

Prepare to teach the Word, and we cannot teach what is not in us, and we cannot teach from the heart what we're not living and drinking in of every day. Let's go to Matthew 13, because what a beautiful thing is said here is Jesus began teaching, and He spoke in parables, and the disciples asked Him about why He was telling these stories, and He made it clear that some were given understanding, and for some it wasn't their time. Matthew 13 must begin in verse 10. And the disciples came and said to Him, Why do you speak to them in parables?

He answered and said to them, Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it has not been given. And how humbling should that be for us to realize we are among the modern-day group that He referred to as you. We are the disciples, and God has given us understanding that we didn't earn, we don't deserve, but He looked down and of seven billion people He called a few here, a few there, and has imparted understanding to us. For whoever has to Him will be given, and He will have abundance, but whoever does not have even what He has will be taken away. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And he quotes from back in Isaiah about how years are going to be hard of hearing, and eyes will be closed. But verse 16, Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear. For assuredly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

When I read that, I always think of Daniel, one of those great men of God of old, and when he wrote down those prophecies in that book, and he wanted to understand more. Sometimes he was given a little understanding. He asked about the two goats, and he was given a little understanding. But at the end, he wanted to understand everything, and he was told, no, that is closed. It is sealed until the time of the end. And yet we live here in the day of the time of the end. The ends of the ages are upon us, and we watch it from day to day. So as we look at the topic of Bible study, let's ask two simple questions. Why and how. Why and how. We'll focus on why study the Bible first. And the answer has many dimensions. This morning, in Gadsden, I watched someone cutting a pie. And when it was cut, you got the whole pie. But then it wasn't long after church that pieces, I'm sure, started disappearing. And there was not much of a pie left, but there might have been six or eight or even 12 slices to a pie. One part of our answer here, one slice of the pie, is to be fed. We need to be fed. And we got up this morning, and I've been trying to learn the lesson that I need to get up. And within an hour, I need to have a good breakfast. Too many times through the years, I've wanted to just grab just a little and cup of coffee and go on with my day. But the years are saying, no, you're not going to do that anymore.

And so I'm making myself have a good, solid breakfast. And then I can cut back later in the day.

But we start the day that way, and then everybody's bodily system is different. Maybe we need a number of snacks, smaller meals. Hopefully we listen to our bodies, but then we'll have maybe a lunch and then an evening, a dinner. Or when I grew up, of course, back in the farm, we used to call it dinner and then supper. Dinner at noon was the big meal because you came in from the fields, and you needed packing a lot because you had more hours to go back out there.

So we have to be eating physically, and should it not make sense that we have to eat and eat and partake of spiritually, or we're going to die. Now, let's go to the book of John, John chapter 5.

John 5, and just notice verse 39.

Breaking in on the story here, but in verse 39, Christ said, "...you search the Scriptures," and He says that to us today as well, "...for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of Me." Now, the story goes on in the next chapter of the feeding of the 5,000, and the teaching continued. Let's go to John 6. Just notice verse 63.

This is after His teaching of, whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood will inherit eternal life. In verse 63, the latter half, it says, "...the words that I speak to you are Spirit, and they are life." And so if we're going to have life in a spiritual sense, we have to be fed. We have to renew that life. We have to partake of. We have to drink in and eat of the Word of God.

And if we truly take them in, they can lead down that path toward eternal life.

Romans 8, in verses 5 and 6. Romans 8 verses 5 and 6. And here it talks about, it draws a contrast between those who live according to the flesh, and they set their mind on the things of the flesh, and then those who live according to the Spirit. Their minds are on the things of the Spirit. But in verse 6, "...to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." So to be focused on the things of the Spirit leads to life. Now, another aspect of the answer to why, the question why, another aspect is just simply to prepare. To prepare for what lies ahead. Now, a study of the Word of God has great value in this life. It is, as the psalmist wrote, a lamp unto our feet. The Word of God will show us where we should walk in life. It will illuminate some of the landmines that we might step on, and we tend to do that as human beings. Let's turn back to Deuteronomy 17.

We have a little section here at the end of Deuteronomy 17, where it is as though it was foreseen the way Israel would go. Somewhere down the line, Israel would say, we want a king to be like the world around us. And so, God gave certain guidance as far as when you ask for that king, here's what he has to do. Here's who he should be and what he should do. So, at the end of Deuteronomy 17, notice verse 14, when you come to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and possess it, and dwell in it, and say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me. And it's amazing how close the wording is to the story in 1 Samuel chapter 8, when they went to Samuel, and they wanted a king to be like the world around them. And Samuel tried to warn them, he's going to tax you. Thank you, ancient Israel. It wants taxed, always taxed. He's going to conscript your children. He's going to take the best of what you have. Well, they wanted a king anyhow. Verse 15, you will surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses. You look early on, God chose Saul, but Saul was different earlier on. Later, through Samuel, God told him, when you were little in your own eyes, I made you king, but he changed, not for the good. And when he was disqualified, that's where Samuel said God's words, that I'll find a man after my own heart who will do my will, as it's added when Paul, when Peter quotes it in Acts. A man after my own heart who will do all my will. So, one whom the Lord your God chooses, one from among your brethren, you shall set as king over you. You may not set a foreigner over you who is not your brother, for he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses. For the Lord has said, you shall not return that way again, neither shall he multiply wives for himself. Well, we have the story there in 1 Kings 11 of Solomon, and he went down that path, lest his heart turn away. And that's exactly what happened to Solomon.

Nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. You know, it was interesting in that first Sabbath writing with some of the Filipino members up to that little congregation of San Carlos City. And we're going north from Manila, and we've been that way most years because we go that way to go up to Baguio, the northern feast site. And there was a brand new highway. All of a sudden, we're on this nice highway that would rival one of ours here.

And I said, where did this come from? They said, oh, it opened up X number of months ago. And they said, of course, it just so happened to go up right up through the property that is owned by the Aquino family. You know, you may remember the political family, the Aquinos, have been in power quite a bit. And it just so happened. I said, you know, it's amazing. Politics is the same everywhere. In America, we have people who go off to be a congressman the first time, and they don't have a thing. And 18 or 36 years later, they come home, and they are wealthy people. Somehow, they have multiplied gold and silver to themselves. Well, the important part here is verses 18 to 20. Also, it shall be, when He sits on the throne of His kingdom, that He shall write for Himself a copy of this law in a book from the one before the priests, the Levites. And we have to remember, they had one copy then. And the Levites and the priests were in charge of it. The king had to go to where that copy of the Word of God was and write out his own copy. How many of you, once upon a time, took the old 58 lesson Bible correspondence course? I started that when I was 15 years old. And it always said, write out these questions, write out your answers, write out these scriptures, because there's something in the process when you engage the mind, the eye, various senses that intensifies in draining it into us. So this king was to go and you think about that. Even if that book that he had at that time was only Genesis through Deuteronomy, that would be quite an undertaking, to write out your own copy. But it didn't stop there. That he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes.

So there's something about reading the Word of God that would humble him, that would maintain a certain pliability to his spirit, that he would fear to step outside of what God's Word said. That his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel. So if the ancient king was to do that, and since the Word of God tells us in Revelation, you will be kings and priests and reign on the earth, should we not also be pouring over the Scriptures and going to it daily to guide our steps and to lead our lives? Why study the Bible? Another aspect is to grow, to grow spiritually.

In Hebrews, it speaks about some who were still years later still on the milk of the Word, and they were told, you should have been on the meat. They should have been growing. 2 Peter ends with that statement, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Look at the world around us. Try being gone for nearly a month from this country, and come back, and the world is green. But I think of what I missed. I missed the redbuds. I missed the daffodils that started. I almost totally missed the dogwoods.

I think we missed the forcythias. The forcythias have surely been at bloom by now. I missed those. Totally missed them. But I got home, I poured four inches out of the gauge, and since then there have been about three and a half more. So with that kind of rain, the world has turned green, and it's beautiful. But everything out there is growing, and God ordained that with us as well. Through our years of pouring over the Word of God, we should grow in our depth of understanding as we apply it in our own life. We should enhance our ability to teach others with some of our successes and our failures because we all miss the mark, and we have to get back up and go forward. Another aspect of why is in order to please God. Let's go to 2 Timothy 2. And we have a very familiar Scripture here. Study to show yourself approved. 2 Timothy 2 verse 15. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God. What does the old King James say? Study to show yourself approved to God. A worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth. Now, we'll come back to that last phrase later. But we are to be diligent. We are to study to present ourselves before God. We have to be able to speak the language of God. And God is pleased when we pour over His Word and read it for what we can learn, rather than read it to see what kind of interpretation we can force into what He inspired to be written. But we all want ultimately to hear those words from Jesus Christ. Well done, good and faithful servant. Now, let's go to chapter 3. We have some powerful Scriptures here at the end of 2 Timothy 3. In verse 15, Paul writing, Timothy, and then from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures. Now, from childhood, that tells us somebody was teaching that young man, that man, well, I say young man, he may have been 40, but what if he was only 30? From the time, maybe 20 years earlier, and of course, other place in the book, it refers to his mother and his grandmother. They had been teaching him, and hopefully we have done that with our children, sowing those seeds, even though we may watch them reach an age of accountability and walk out that door. But we continue sowing seeds because we know God's not through with them yet. God's not through with them. God never is. Then it says, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Then it says, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.

Now, I didn't write the Greek word down there, but there's one Greek word that's translated inspiration of God. That's the only place it appears in the Greek New Testament. Something like, no, I better not even try. But it paints a word picture that harkens back to Genesis 2, when God formed Adam out of the elements of the ground. And then God breathed into him the breath of life, and he became a living soul. This is a similar word picture, although it is God breathing life spiritually into us. And it comes from the Word of God, from the Scripture. Then notice, and it gives us four reasons, and is profitable for doctrine. Now, the Greek word there, daschalia, something close to that, it means teaching, instruction, precepts, that which is taught. So a doctrine is a teaching. And we have referred to this body of doctrines of the Church of God as the truth. And in meeting someone, we might say, well, when did God call you to the truth? And we know what we mean. That's kind of our in-house church speak, but we know what it means. When did God open your eyes so that you could see what you may have looked at for decades, but you couldn't see the truth. The Word of God is profitable for doctrine.

Now, then it says, for reproof. For reproof. And the Greek word that's translated as reproof means that by which a thing is proved or tested. And it says it also means a conviction.

Now, maybe we can even read that as conviction. The Word of God is given to us for conviction.

As we study the Word of God, we are convicted. That by which a thing is proved or tested. The Scriptures were not given to us so we can find fault in other people.

The Scriptures were given to us so we can look into them. Well, James 1, he refers to it as being this mirror. And the man who goes and beholds what he sees in that mirror and cautions us to being a forgetful doer. But we need to learn as we look into this Word and then change accordingly. And remember and make that a lasting change. Then it says for correction.

For correction. Now, here again there's a Greek word translated, epinorthosis. And it's the only place in the Bible that disappears.

But this Greek word that's translated correction means a restoration to an upright or right state. It is correction. It is improvement of life and character. And it literally means a straightening up again. So that which was bent over out of shape is then straightened back upright once again. And the Word of God is that which works that in our lives. For 6,000 years, humans have had all kinds of ideas, all kinds of theories, all kinds of religious teachings that they've tried to foster on others. But every time we have to go back to that classic scripture of Isaiah. It's Isaiah 8, verse 20. To the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to your Word, it's because there's no light in them. And the Word of God is given to us for correction. And the one who looks into and heeds what God's Word says is helped to stand up straight again. And we must always have the attitude to let God's Word teach us and change us and set us straight. There was a scripture where Paul was writing about the marriage state there in Ephesians 5, and he referred to the washing by the water of the Word. The Word of God has a has an aspect or there's an aspect there of washing us clean. Okay, then it says, for instruction in righteousness. And we were very familiar with that statement back in Psalm 119. All of your commandments are righteousness. Psalm 119, verse 172. The Word of God teaches us, it shows us the path to walk in order to be found righteous before God. It lists, it expounds, and it magnifies the law of God so that we can understand how to obey them in the spiritual intent of the law.

You know, that's what Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon, or the Ten Commandments, are marvelous, but there's so much more above and beyond the actual letter of the law. And Christ did that. You have heard of old, it says, you shall not murder. But then He went on and said, you know, if you have hatred in your mind toward someone, you have broken that spiritual intent of murder. If you look on another to lust, you have committed adultery in your heart already. So He expanded that. But any appliance, any automobile, anything we buy, generally will come with an instruction packet. And this is God's instruction manual for us on how to live, how to walk our life. And that is, these are a part of the answer of why we should study the Scriptures, but we need to shift on over to how. How should we study the Bible? Now, first point in the sermon, that's the same point that I'll have, and that is to have a plan.

You've heard the old saying, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. We need to have a plan. Bible study should not be just for when we feel like it, because, you know, there are times we don't feel like it. Romans tells us that the carnal mind is an enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. And there is something within all of us, this carnal nature, that will fight against the study of God's Word. There will always be something better to do.

And so we have to have a plan. It's not for just when we're in the mood. We may need to prod ourselves. Let's go to Acts 17. Acts 17. And notice what we see about this group at the city of Berea. The Bereans were just a marvelous people, and the attitude that they had.

Paul and Silas, we read here in verse 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. That was Paul's practice. There would at least be Sabbath keepers there. And he would try the Jew first, and then oftentimes he turned to the Gentile because the door to the Jews' mind was often closed. Verse 11. These were more fair-minded. marginal note says these were more noble than those in Thessalonica. In that they received the Word with all readiness. So there was a fertile ground in their minds there already. They were ready to receive. When we study the Word of God, are we eager to receive?

You know, a lot of us have been at it for 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 years in some cases. We've been at it a long time. But the beauty of how the Bible is written is that we go along and there's something that strikes us a little differently. And we think, you know, hey, there's something there. I've been reading that for 50 years and I never saw that. This man just read a scripture. I was sitting there that one in Philippians 3, and there's one little phrase. I thought, you know, I need to ponder that a little bit more. But they received the Word with all readiness and searched the scriptures daily. Now, there's something to learn from that as well. We're talking about spiritual life. Well, physical life.

We can skip eating one day and the second day, and we're going to have a body trying to get our attention to say, find some food and feed me. We can go for a long time. But spiritually, sometimes, you know, we can get down if you... any of us, if we would chart our Christian life on a graph, we have our ups and our downs. We have probably all had time and worse or low. We had to stand on our tiptoes and see over the tops of our shoes. And there are times when we have been so excited to be a part of the calling of God. And hopefully, we're always excited about that. And remember that time when God opened our eyes. But they searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. And so, let Bible study be that type of habit for us, and let our attitude be the same. Everybody's schedule is different, and everyone's body clock is different. There are some that wake up at 4.30 or 5 every morning, and they're wide awake. And that's probably their ideal time to have prayer and Bible study. There are others who wake up, and they're really not awake. They're still in the fog two hours later. Well, you know, the Word of God deserves our attention. So, for that person, though, they might be a night owl, and at 9 o'clock at night, they are sharp as can be, and that's their time. So, it's whatever works for you. But we need to have a plan. Set aside maybe a definite place. Most of mine is done right there at the desk in front of my computer. And I have Bible open, and I've got, you know, who knows what open on the computer as far as Bible helps. I can go easily on the computer and check what the Hebrew or the Greek word is. Follow a link to what it means. And I can turn one way, and I can grab Smith Bible dictionaries, the four-volume, if I want them. Or I can turn the other way, and that's where I can really focus. Now, I'd like to go on the back porch.

I really like to go out there with my Bible early in the morning.

But then a hummingbird flies to the feeder, and I'm gone. I'm watching that beautiful little hummingbird. And there's a benefit to that. And then I see the purple martens have taken over our bluebird houses, and that's just fine with me because they eat lots of mosquitoes.

And the pond behind several of our houses in the back of that subdivision, there's a pond, and the geese there, and the dove fly in. And I'm always looking around, and yes, I'm looking at God's creation. But then I look back down at my Bible, and I don't remember where I was reading.

And there's time for all of that, and that's the beautiful thing. We need those times to get out there into the beauty of God's world. But then there are times we need to find a way to focus, to get rid of all the clutter, the mind clutter.

Better to sit there and focus 30 minutes than to sit there an hour and a half with the news on, but you've got it on mute. Because if I do that, I'm looking at there's this scroll at the bottom, you know, thunderstorm moving into, you know, X County. And then I realize, notice what was I reading? Oh, oh, Job, yes. So we need to have a plan. All right. Then I think another part of how is to motivate yourself. The beatitude. Christ said, we're to hunger and thirst for righteousness. And again, remember, human nature will resist studying the Scriptures daily. It will fight against that. So we have to have a plan, and then we have to add to that motivation. And sometimes, frankly, we may have to just ask God to forgive us for allowing ourselves to get a little laxant. It may be a lot laxant, lethargic.

And just ask Him for help to rekindle a love for the study of His Word. If we need to do that, then by all means, do it. And you may have to prod yourself to pray and to study. And in time, it has a way of regenerating, and there's this love. What did David say in Psalm 51? Restore to me the joy of your salvation. And I think that speaks to that process that we've probably all gone down. There are times in Bible study we should just open up on page one and start reading. And go to page last, Genesis to Revelation. I'm not implying you do that one day.

That's your faster reader than I am. But there are, I have read that there are 1189 chapters as man has arranged them in the Bible. 1189. Now, if you want to read the Bible in a year, you only have to read about three and a quarter chapters every day. Now, I realize all chapters are not created equally. You have Psalm 119, you have Psalm 117. Two verses versus 176. But as an average, about three, three and a half chapters a day, and at the end of the year, you've been through it. You've gone through it. I know a man once who said that it's a part of his. It's important to him to read the Bible through every year. So he may read it through in the King James, and the next year he picks up the New International and he reads it through. The third year, maybe he gets the New Revised Standard or the New Living Translation and just kind of mixes it up a little like that. Now, we also will have times we may want to focus on sections of the Bible.

Probably as we came up toward Passover, most of us focused on some of those key chapters at the end of the synoptic Gospels and then the last half of John. Because it all focused on that Passover night and the teaching that Christ gave to them that night and then the events that followed. So seasonally, we might focus on certain areas. Or we might have our personal study, and it's on general epistles. And then we may go to minor prophets. And then we may go to palsy epistles. But whatever it works for you, we need a prod, we need a motivation. We may have subjects that we follow through. I think another part of the how is learn to concentrate. Concentration is a part of personal self-discipline. It's necessary for anything in life. If you're running a piece of equipment at work and you fall asleep, or you're mind... well, metaphorically, fall asleep, your mind is somewhere else and the machine starts messing up and you're in trouble. You're going to be called in on the carpet for that. So when we're doing something, we need to focus on it. If we're studying the Bible, let us study the Bible. If we're listening to what God has to say, let's listen to what God has to say. Let us read the Bible like we read no other book.

Isaiah 66 verse 2, the end there, talks about those that tremble at my word. Let us be among those who tremble at God's word because we realize these are the words of life. So concentration, and of course the statement in Ecclesiastes 9 verse 10, you're familiar with it. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. So do it with your might. Give your all to studying the Bible and strive to blot out all the extraneous actions and noise and movements and clutter and all the things that would distract us.

The Bible study With Bible study, I think another aspect is to mark your Bible. Don't be afraid to mark your Bible. Now, my old Bible, my old Cambridge, New Testament, or not New Testament, my old Cambridge wide margin Bible that I used for so long, I don't bring at the church anymore. The cover's falling off of it. That's kind of a nice thing. You look at it and you think, you know, somebody's used this thing. When my mother died in 1980, I wish I had her Bible because that thing was so worn to a frazzle.

It was taped up. She had almost underlined every verse in that Bible. That was just the way she did it. It's not right or wrong. It's just we're all different. But that thing was worn to pieces. And you know, that's a nice thought. Now I've come and I have this Bible and I like it.

But it looks brand new. And it's not that old, but it's my favorite version because it's the giant print. I don't bring the Cambridge because it's that little font and I wrote with that permanent ink and it is so tiny. I don't want to have it and have a magnifying glass. I have enough trouble just speaking as it is, but it has a lot of memories in it. A lot of study, a lot of notes, but it's nice to have one of a large enough font where I can read it.

So what was I talking about? Oh, Marking Your Bible. And in that one, I had color coding that somebody had suggested, Dean Blackwell at college years ago suggested. So everything about Sabbath's seventh day is kind of highlighted in red and everything about Satan in yellow. And I always wondered what it was not reversed and you know, the great red dragon is the one in red. But anyhow, it already started so you can't change once you've done that.

And examples of healings and you've got highlighted in green or maybe a little green along the border, just that that one is about a healing. So whatever works for you, don't be afraid to write on it and chain reference different scriptures so that if you start a study of, say, the Sabbath, the seventh day, you know, go back to Genesis 2 and maybe you have a note to the next place it talks about.

It is Exodus 16 with the manna. And then you have a note to Exodus 20 with the commandments and then you can follow it on through the Bible. So mark your Bible, underline, chain reference, whatever works for you. And then another aspect here is to use Bible study aids because we read that verse a while ago and it said, rightly dividing the word of truth, which tells us there's a way to wrongly divide.

In fact, we have a Christian world around us that wrongly divides. They do not take the Bible at face value, but we know why. The God of this world has blinded the minds of those that believe not less the light of the glorious gospel should shine unto them. Bible study aids are valuable. More and more mine are computer-based.

I have 27 volumes of Albert Barnes' commentary on the Bible, or I have it right there on the screen in front of me with a couple of clicks. And I can read what he says faster than if I'd go find the volume on Romans, pull it out to see what he says.

I would recommend go for quality Bible study help versus quantity. I'm trying to downsize. There are cases of books that I've moved from Memphis to Lubbock to California to Kingsport, Tennessee to Huntsville. And if I haven't opened it in a decade, why did I move that thing around? So, anyhow, there's thankfully so much online. I've got a page here. I think Larry Walker, one of our pastors, put together online Bible reference works.

You can go online. You know, the old classic 11th edition Encyclopedia Britannica. You don't have to buy those huge old volumes. You've got it right online. You can research anything you want. You have Bollinger's Companion Bible online.

You have, I don't know if you're familiar with Alfred Edersheim. He wrote the Temple, Life and Times of Jesus and Messiah. All of Edersheim's works are online in the public domain. You have Jewish Encyclopedia online, complete works of Josephus online, two Babylon's online. All kinds of material out there. There are various Bible versions on my smartphone over there. I've got the olive tree. I've got that on a Kindle. I have it on the computer. And every so often, they'll offer a free translation of the Bible. So I got the New Living Translation downloaded on it while I was in the Philippines. And what little I've looked at is, you know, it's pretty decent. I still want to go back to your basic word-for-word translations like the King James, New King James. New Revised Standard is pretty good too. But when you get into the word-for-word, then I hope our warnings flags go up a lot. You read the NIV in some places in Paul's epistles, and I hope the warning flag goes up a lot for you because we have to be careful. Anyhow, let's look at Psalm 119 just briefly. That's a beautiful Psalm. I mentioned the companion Bible by Bollinger, and to me, the value of Bollinger is that in the back you have 150-some appendices. Number 73 of the companion Bible is the 10 words of Psalm 119. And throughout Psalm 119, there are 10 different Hebrew words that are translated either as way, testimony, precept, commandment, word, judgment. Over and over and over, whoever the author was is praising and glorifying God for His law, His word, His commandments. And I love to go back to that. I read that from a hospital bed Sunday morning. It was good reading, you know? You read through that and you think, well, life doesn't stink as much as I thought it did. But just a beautiful Psalm. Sadly, so much of the poetic beauty is lost because we don't speak Hebrew. And you'll see Psalm 119, there it has that funny-looking little letter that says, "'Olef.'" That's the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And the next eight verses all start with "'Olef.'" And then it says, "'Beth," or in the Hebrew, the H is silent, the bet. And you've got eight verses that start with bet, gimel, dollop, hei-vav, right on through 22 letters. And we lose the poetic beauty, but we don't lose the fact that the author is, like verse 12, "'Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes.'" And later in Psalm 105, verse 105, "'Your word is a lamp to my feet.'" So over and over, those words are used. And David or whoever put this together, what a marvelous piece of work it is.

And Psalm 119, verse 111, verse 111, it says, "'Your testimonies I have taken as my heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart.'" Do we view God's Word that way? That this is my heritage forever. Well, the Word of God is the foundation of knowledge.

The Church of God in the 20th century was founded on that premise, and it's a good one. Let that be our motto. These words are just as true today as they were the day they were placed at the campus in Pasadena. But as we look to the Word of God as the foundation for life, it will reveal the path we should walk. And as we do, we prepare to teach the Word today and in the world to come.