Bible Intake 2

Let's start out with this video clip. I think it may help our discussion.

Tell me what you thought of it. Is it accurate? Is it useful?

Let's read Matthew 14:22-end. Does this say anything about Peter losing faith in itself? Anywhere? Now 16:26:31-35. Does Peter not have enough faith in himself? Or is it too much faith in himself?

And God has faith in us? Where is that in the Bible? Jesus had the disciple go, yes but only after this: Luke 24:45-49 so that what? That's right, Acts 2:1-4. The whole thing destroys what the Bible tells us through the Law and through the sacrifice of Jesus that we celebrate this past week: We can't save ourselves. We need a hero.

Why do this? Well, it illustrates a point that I want to make before we get too far. If we don't know what is true and what is not, we will be swayed by whatever new and hip thing that sounds good and tickles our ear. I told you last week that we have to be careful of a few things, like correctly reading the Bible, not just picking and choosing our magic verses. We can't ignore the type of literature that each book has. We can't remove the context. We can't assume that every passage relates directly to us. We have to try not to read things into the Bible, but read it as it is. We have to read the Bible as if God is the hero. This, I think, is key. Our goal is to better know God, not to be better or to earn anything. We just have this gift and we want to know the person who gave it. Like if you got a surprise Christmas goose when you thought you would go hungry, you would want to know who gave it to you, what they were like. You would want to thank them. I said last time that all we have to do is believe. That, I think, is true. I just think that believing carries some responsibilities with it. If you believe that Christ died for you, really, that you really can't do life on your own, that you need a Savior, when you find one you will want to know Him, to thank Him, to do what He said because, really, you WANT to. If you are reading your Bible, praying, living your life in a way that puts you as the hero, you've missed it. If you aren't doing this thing that you should be doing or you continue in a sin that deep down you know is wrong because God still loves you, because grace says you can like some kind of get out of jail free card, then you have missed it. You can't go to the cross and come back the same. You just can't. If somebody gave that much for you, you want to do that much for them. Not just inconvenience yourself, not just pray when you need something, but to take up your cross and follow. Will you still sin? Sure, but it's disgusting now, it's that pool of decomposed bodies that you are trying not to drown in. We want to know Christ, to be with Him because we love Him because He loves us. That's how relationships work, you want to please Him and He is altogether pleasing to you.

So we want to know the Bible, the story of God, our Hero. It always has to start with the Bible. If you know the Bible, then it's easy to spot a counterfeit, even if you are not sure why.

The discipline of Bible intake: the reading, studying, memorization of, and meditation on the Bible. Let's read 2 Timothy 3:16,17 again, just to review. What did we say that meant? Why is Bible intake important?

Now, on to the specific parts of this discipline.

First, there is hearing and reading the Bible. Why? What good is that? Why is it necessary? This is the easy one. Reading or listening to the Bible is the least demanding of the parts of Bible intake, but also the foundation. In Matthew 4:4 Jesus counters Satan by saying that man doesn't live on food, but on God's word. To simply read the words doesn't necessarily change your life, bring you closer to God, but without it you cannot continue the discipline.

What about study? Why is it important? Why can't we simply read and be done with it? It's the 2 Timothy 3:16. It's useful so that we may be equipped for every good work. We have to discern the type of literature that we are reading, who wrote it, to whom, when and where. We have to then compare it to other scriptures, to tradition, experience, and reason. We need to be able to extract the principles that lie within the Word. In short, we have to understand what it is that we are reading, work through the chart, there. This is obvious, you would think, but many people stop at going to church and hearing the word or at reading it.

What about memorization? Why is this an important part? Can't we just study it? Read Psalm 119:11. Now, this is a poem, not a promise, but the idea rings true. What is in your heart, what you know is what comes to mind in times of trouble. You know how some people (myself at one time) don't usually swear, but once they hit themselves with a hammer all bets are off? That is what is in their heart. That is what they know. When you have hidden God's word in your heart and trouble times come along what comes out are the truths you have memorized. Once you have read it and understood it and memorized it, the Word of God lives within you.

And meditation? Isn't that just some new age mumbo-jumbo? What good is meditation? Read Psalm 1.

There is a practice called lectio divina, or spiritual reading. This is how it has been described:

“Reading, as it were, puts the solid food into our mouths, meditation chews it and breaks it down, prayer obtains the flavor of it and contemplation is the very sweetness which makes us glad and refreshes us.”

From European monk Guigo II in reference to the practice of lectio divina or spiritual reading.1 In his intro to The Message Remix, Eugene Peterson words it this way: Read, Think, Pray, Live. This is meditating on God's Word. You know it, know what it means, the context and have hidden it in your heart. Now you must apply it to your life. You must begin to live out what you know. The meditation is the rolling over the the truth in your mind, asking how it applies to you, struggling through the difficult things. It's like a dog chewing on a bone, licking off all the flavor, sniffing it, carrying it around, burying it, and digging it up.2

The Bible is God's Word. We need to read it, to know it, to understand it, to treasure it, and to live it. We want to know God. God reveals himself in his word. John 8:31-32 says,
“31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, 'If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.'”3 You are my disciples, you will know the truth. I am the way , the truth, and the life. You will know me and I will set you free. The bible is the story of God. He is the hero and to better know the Hero and his story we have to practice the discipline of Bible intake.

Next week we will look at prayer and fasting and how these things can bring us closer to God, closer to knowing Christ. In the spirit of Bible intake, I have homework for you. Read Matthew 6: 1-24. Find out who is speaking, to whom, what type of writing it is and what it means for us today. Memorize verse 6. Meditate on the passage, think it over, apply it to your everyday life. See you next week.1Eat This Book Eugene H. Peterson – Eerdman's 2006

2Eat This Book Eugene H. Peterson – Eerdman's 2006

3 New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995. LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.