The Sword

It was the last day of my very first hunting season. We had spent an entire week trying to get a deer, and about a half hour before sunset on the very last day, we finally got one.

And my parents had told me to go into the kitchen and unload the weapon, and clean it.

And I think they had gone out into the garage freezer to get ice cream or something to celebrate.

And this particular rifle, the way in which you removed the bolt to clean it, you had to release the little box magazine.

Cycle the bolt, and extract any rounds from the chamber. Close the bolt.

And then you had to press and hold the trigger, and slide the bolt back out of the rifle so you could clean the barrel.

So I went into the kitchen, released the magazine, cycled the bolt to extract a round from the chamber, closed the bolt, pressed down on the trigger and BOOM.

the extractor that is supposed to grab on to the rim of the cartridge and pull the round out, had failed.

and so even though I had cycled the bolt, there was still a live round in the chamber.

And I got to learn the hard way to double and triple check the chamber

And the round went in to the floor, it was concrete underneath the carpet, nothing got broken, no one got hurt.

And the thing that really kept that incident from being a total disaster was the fact that I had been taught the firearm saety rules. anybody know them?

Be aware of your target and what’s behind it

Never point the weapon at anything you don’t wish to destroy

Treat every weapon as if it were loaded.

Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot

Those rules are put in place to save lives.

If I had been pointing the weapon up, it very easily could have gone into one of hte upstairs bedrooms

If I would have been pointing it out toward the window, it could have hit one of the animals, or a neighbor, or a vehicle

But I always treated it like it was loaded, and kept the weapon pointed down and away, and because of that, nobody got hurt. I got embarrased, but other than that everyone was fine.

I say all that to tell you this, We’re going to start a new series that will continue on into the new year that I’m calling “the sword”

There are several places in scripture where the word of God is described as a “sword” Hebrews 4, Ephesians 6, The book of Revelation.

And much like a firearm, the word of God is as the book of hebrews says, a double edged sword.

God’s word is an incredible tool that can cut through sin, destroy darkness, provide comfort, cut down bad ideas and evil thoughts

And yet…in untrained hands God’s word can be a dangerous thing if it’s misused and abused.

There was a young lady, we’ll just call her stephany for the sake of our conversation, who refused to go to her father’s funeral. Refused to be around her family, and be there for them in their time of mourning and comfort. And caused a huge riff between her and the rest of her family. Because she would not be there for her father’s funeral. And when she was asked why she said

The Bible says “let the dead bury their dead” So I couldn’t go.

And it broke my heart, because if she would have just taken some time to learn how to properly read the bible, how to handle this sword properly, and walk through a passage and learn what the Bible is saying

She would have seen within minutes, that’s not what that passage is about. That’s not a passage about not going to funerals, or separating yourself from your family, because some of them might be non-christians.

But because she didn’t take the time to read the Bible in context, and delve into the actual meaning of the text, that sword ended up cutting a wedge between her and her sisters and her mother. And she caused wounds that are going to take a long time to heal.

And now more than ever, we as the church, the big C church, need training on how to read and understand the bible properly.

My hope is that this series will be a good start on that.

So for today, All I want to do is lay out the tools, and the methods, and the ground rules we are going to use throughout this series.

My goal here is two fold. 1) it’s is to equip you with the ability to take any passage in scripture. From genesis to revelation, and to give you a method for reading and understanding scripture across the board.

A set of steps you can take, questions you can ask, principles and rules you can apply that you will be able to take with you wherever you go.

And my second goal is for you to then take this knowledge—and I know a lot of you are very savvy when it comes to reading the Bible and understanding it—and I want you to take the knowledge you do have, and the principles that we talk about in this series, and use them to teach other people how to walk through scripture.

Here’s the passage we’re going to work on.

Luke 1:46-55

Luke 1:46–55 NET 2nd ed.

And Mary said, “My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has begun to rejoice in God my Savior, because he has looked upon the humble state of his servant. For from now on all generations will call me blessed, because he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name; from generation to generation he is merciful to those who fear him. He has demonstrated power with his arm; he has scattered those whose pride wells up from the sheer arrogance of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up those of lowly position; he has filled the hungry with good things, and has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, as he promised to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Rules

Be aware of your surroundings

The bible is what we call occasional. Every single word in the Bible had an original audience, an original purpose for being written.

Our job as modern readers is to first ask “what did this passage mean originally, in ancient israel, or during the first century

What is the big picture principle that I can draw out of it

And then how does that principle apply to my life specifically.

In order to do that, you have to know what was going on when this passage was written. You have to get a little bit of history, you have to get a little bit of cultural background

Be aware of your surroundings

Don’t assume you already know the answer

this one is critical.

Whether we realize it or not, we bring our assumptions to the Bible. This is one that plagues mature christians more often than it does new Christians

You have an entire network of understanding that you have accumulated over the years about what the Bible says, and what the Bible means

It comes from Sermons. I know a lot of you in this church have gone through several preacher. Each one of them brings a little bit of a different angle or a bias to the text. I have my own biases and blindspots that I bring to the text.

We get it from songs, we get it from art, we get it from culture

And what happens is this whole network of understanding that you have accumulated over the years starts to shape the way you read the text.

And you will approach the text with a pre-conceived notion of what the Bible says and means

Some of those pre-conceived notions will be correct ones. They will be pre-formed understandings that are perfectly in line with the Bible

Others may be flawed. They might be flat out wrong. They might be almost correct, but need to be adjusted in just this one little way

And you don’t really know which is which until you study the scripture

Your goal then is to identify those places where you think you already know something

Ask yourself “how do I know that?” Did I hear it in a sermon? Is it from a passage in scripture? Did I read it in a book? Be aware of where those things come from.

And then you need to go through the process of re-asking yourself questions that you might already know

Example: This church teaches, and we hold that the Bible teaches, that Baptism is a neecesary part of becoming a Christian, and being saved.

That’s controversial. Not every church teaches that

I hold to that conviction very strongly

I still ask myself the question “is this true”

Not because I don’t believe it. Not because I’m trying to find Bible verses that support it and ignore ones that don’t

But because I believe that if it’s a good belief it will stand up to the test of scripture.

And if a belief doesn’t stand up to the test of Scripture, I will modify what I believe, to make it more in line with what the Bible teaches.

Be aware of your surroundings, and what the Bible teaches, Don’t assume you know the answer.

Don’t come to a conclusion until you’ve gathered all the facts.

This one again, I think more often than not comes from assuming you already know the answer. And as soon as you find something you like, you highlight it, close up your Bible, and say “Welp, that settles it, done for the day”

Let me give you a prime example. I hope I don’t ruffle any feathers on this one. If I do, sorry

Let’s suppose I wanted to know what the Bible says about women in ministry.

Here’s the wrong way to go about it.

I pull out my Bible, flip flip flip,

1 Corinthians 14:34 NET 2nd ed.

the women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak. Rather, let them be in submission, as in fact the law says.

Well I guess that’s all there is to say about that.

You would not believe how many people. How many elders and preachers do this.

They will find one verse, usually out of context, so they’ve already broken rule 1. Usually it’s something they already believe and they are hunting for something to prove themselves right, so they’ve already broken rule 2. And they have failed to gather all the facts about what the Bible says about women.

So they’ve completely ignored earlier in 1 corinthians when Paul specifically gives instructions about women prophesying —hint that means preaching—in church.

They’ve completely ignored sections in Romans where Paul lists several prominent women and then describes them as ministers, as deacons, one even as an apostle.

They’ve completely ignored the emphasis Jesus places on women in his ministry

They’ve completely ignored the women in the Old testament who were prophets and judges.

Don’t do that. Be open minded.

If you come across something in scripture, always test it with the rest of scripture

Let the Bible interpret the Bible.

Those are our three rules. Be aware of your surroundings, don’t think you know the answer, and don’t make a decision until you’ve gathered all the facts.

Now I want us to move into actually putting some Bible reading principles in action.

The goal of this is to give you a template, a method to study any passage of scripture. A uniform way to look at any part of the Bible and study it with confidence, knowing that you’re asking the right questions, and noticing the right thing.

A lot of you who have been here a while might have heard me talk about lenses. What lenses are we wearing when we read the Bible.

Are we zoomed out at the binocular level, and looking at a whole chapter? Are we zoomed in to the microscope level and looking at an individual verse.

Today my goal is to take all of those lenses and put them together into one comprehensive way to look at the bible.

Here’s the metaphor I want you to imagine. You are an astronaut on a space ship, flying toward earth, and you have been tasked with studying a blade of Grass in western Nebraska.

As you’re flying toward earth you are going to make observations about everything you see along the way

You’re going to take note of the planet, and where it’s situated amongst the other planets, where it is in relation to the sun

You’re going to notice that this planet has a moon orbiting around it that effects the tides of the earth

As you zoom closer you’re going to notice that the atmosphere causes the clouds and the rain to move in certain patterns

You’re going to notice the different continents, and how they work together

You’re going to notice that on any given continent there’s different ecosystems. Some deserts, some jungles, some tundras, some rain forests, they all grow grass differently

You’re going to notice the particular pasture this blade of grass is in. Does it have cows in it? Is there a fence around it

You’re going to go all the way in and notice, what type of grass is this, what is the soil like in this exact location? are there insects nearby.

That’s how we approach the Bible. From the big picture, all the way in to the tiniest detail.

And if you use this method, every time you study scripture deeply, in theory, you should get back in your space ship, fly all the way out. Get the big picture, and then make your way back to the next blade of grass. This time it’s in south africa somewhere.

The particular blade of Grass we’re going to study today comes from luke chapter 1. verses 46-55.

This is a passage surrounding the birth of Jesus, as we go into the Christmas season.

Let’s hop in our space ship. and zoom out, and make our way to this passage.

Big Picture

Planetary level, let’s start asking some questions

Where does this passage fit in the Grand narrative of the Bible.

Big picture

And how do we know that?

In a perfect world, you have already read the entire Bible, from cover to cover, and you know where this passage fits in the grand

But what if you haven’t?

This is a big Book. lot of people haven’t read the entire thing

And if you have, maybe it’s been several years ago, and you might want a refresher. There’s a lot of stuff to remember.

And it would be entirely impractical for me to say “you can’t read this one section until you’ve read the entire bible.”

Here are some tools

In no particular order

Chronological Bible.

I've shared this one before. Chronological Bible is great, because it’s a full bible that is reorganized in chronological order

So it puts the Psalms that david wrote right next the events of Davids life

It puts the prophets right next to the historical kings they were prophesying to

It puts Paul’s letters right next to where Paul was in the Book of Acts when he wrote it.

You can buy a chronological Bible, or you can use a reading plan on the Bible app.

An easy to read Bible Translation

NLT, CEB, NIrV

These are all translations that are easier to read a lot of bible all at one time.

They don’t use complicated words, the sentences are structured more simply

And they allow you to ingest a lot of “big picture” bible all at once

The Story

This is a Bible summary that uses real bible text in some parts, and summarizes other parts, that’s the length of a novel—about a third the length of the actual bible

and it’s meant for you to be able to get the whole picture in your back pocket

It’s not a replacement for reading the whole Bible, but it’s a tool to get the wavetops of the grand story in your mind so that you can continue to study more deeply

Video and audio resources

The Bible project is a great

There’s a site calledthe “Ten Minute Bible Hour” where a former pastor goes through a ten minute summary of every book in the Bible

If you go to our church website “alliancechristian.church” and click on “Bible Tools” we have a whole host of free resources for you to use.

In our passage today, Luke, 1, we need to know that this is coming at the end of the Old testament. Before Jesus’s birth.

Mary is living in a world in which the Jewish people are waiting for their messiah

They are living in a world in which God has made promises to the jewish peoplethrough his covennants, and a lot of those promises are still hanging out there, unfulfilled

They are living in a time in which the Jewish peopel are subjected under Roman rule, and are patiently awaiting God’s promise to restore the kingdom of Israel.

Genre

Now let’s zoom in even more, and look at genre. Style. What is it that we are reading?

—Looking at genre is a lot like trying to figure out what ecosystem your grass is in

Because just like plants in the desert have different adaptations than ones in the rainforest

The book of Luke as a whole is a Gospel. What is a gospel?

A gospel is a historical account of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, written to persuade a specif group of people about Jesus.

That last part’s important. Because each author, matthew, mark, luke, and john, tell about the same jesus, and more or less the same events. But they phrase things in such a way , and organize the details in such a way, as to convince their specific audience.

That’s why Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus looks different than Matthew’s.

That’s why John and Mark don’t even include the birth of Jesus.

We also have to look at genre within a genre. The section we’re reading today is poetry inside of a gospel.

Why does luke include it? why doesn’t he just say “then mary praised the lord”

No he includes the whole song, the whole poem. Why?

What are some of the features of poetry?

Poetry uses tools like parallelism, where to lines say the same thing in two different ways

It uses contrasting statements where two lines are opposites of each other

It uses Metaphors, and figures of speech

It uses personification where God is given human features to paint a picture—an example of this is when God’s power is talked about, it’s like “god’s mighty right hand”

It uses book ending, where a word or concept is repeated at the beginning, and also at the end of a poem.

So we know that luke is writing a Gospel, but in the Middle of the gospel we are reading poetry. That should shape how we understand it.

Let’s keep zooming in, now were at the Book level. Specifically the gospel of Luke, as opposed to matthew Mark, and john.

Book

Keeping with our metaphor, now you’re looking at the continent level.

Now we’re saying it’s not just a desert, it’s a specific desert in north america.

Here’s the level where you probably want to start writing some things down.

Before you jump in to your passage, take a sheet of paper, and just jot down some notes.

Who is the author? Who is it written to?

When was it written? why was it written?

Is there a single author like here in luke? or are there multiple authors like in the psalms? If there’s multiple, who compiled it, and why?

What other books did the author write? We might want to consult those other books to get a better picture.

So before you ju

If you want to understand the way Paul expalains something in romans, you might want to look at how Paul explains it in his other letters.

What are some of the things this particular book or author emphasizes? What are some of their favorite techniques or themes?

So for our passage today, we’re reading Luke, who was a companion of Paul. He was not one of the disciples, but he carefully gathered information from the people closest to Jesus.

He also wrote the book of Acts.

If we read through Luke we notice that Luke more than the other three puts a heavy emphasis on the poor. He puts a heavy emphasis on women. He puts a heavier emphasis on people who were considered lower class in that culture.

We also might notice that Luke likes to pair stories about men and stories about women to make a point

He’ll have Jesus’ parable about the man who lost the sheep, and a parable about a woman who lost a coin.

He’ll have the healing of a centurions slave, and then the healing of a widows child

sometimes they are parallell, and they make the same point, sometimes they contrast, and show a good example and a bad example.

All of these things are questions we should be writing down, and finding the answer to, before we even start to read the passage.

GET KIDS.

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And now, finally, finally, after all of that, we can dive in and read scripture.

Next week, we’re going to zoom in and look at the landscape, and zoom in even further, at the microscope level

And if you’re thinking, wow, that was an entire sermon full of stuff just to get started reading the Bible.

There’s no way I’m doing all that.

There’s no way, we just spent half an hour talking about reading the Bible, and not even reading it.

I want to encourage you

First I want to say, in a lot of ways it take longer to explain how to do it than to actually do it.

If you want to know the background to the book of luke, a lot of times your bible might even have a little paragraph at the beginning that tells you that kind of information.

More importantly, though I want to encourage you by saying It’s important.

Imagine for a moment, as you’re driving home, and the skies split open, and the glory of the heavens shine upon you, and God himself gives you a message. Stew Remember these words…and then he tells you whatever he’s going to tell you.

And then the heavens close up, and poof, he’s gone.

I don’t know about you, but if that happened to me, I would obsess over every single detail about that message for the rest of my life.

I would play it back in my head, why did he say it this way? Why at that time? What was i doing that day that prompted God to speak to me.

Did anybody else hear it? Was it just for me? or was it for other people too.

Did it have to do with that waitress I talked to at lunch?

did it have to do with the song that was playing on the radio?

I would spend my entire life making sure that whatever it was god said to me that day I took seriously. I would put a lot of effort into understanding that message from God on that day.

Why wouldn’t we put just as much effort into this message from God.

Mary received a message from God that the savior of the world would be born through her. That she would name him Jesus.

He would be great, that he would sit on the throne of David, and reign over the house of jacob, and that his kingdom would never end.

that the holy spirit would come upon her, and the power of the most high would overshadow her

The child would be holy, that he would be called the son of God.

And she ran immediately to tell her cousin Elizabeth, and Elizabeth said Blessed is she who believed that what was spoken to her by the lord would be fulfilled.

Luke 1:46-55

Luke 1:46–55 NET 2nd ed.

When I come back in a couple of weeks we’re going to spend some time in this passage,

picking apart the language, understanding the context, looking at tools we can use to draw the meaning out of scripture.

But for now I want to leave you with this.

I believe that this book is the word of God.

I believe that this book has the power to change lives.

And because of that, I believe it is worth taking seriously, and reading properly.

Pray.

Earn an accredited degree from Redemption Seminary with Logos.