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Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
Starting Today… throughout all of 2022… Churchwide intitiative to study and read through the Bible.
As followers of the Lord Jesus, however, we should be motivated to study the Bible “READ THE BOOK” in order to continue growing in the things we have learned.
We need to deepen our understanding of the backgrounds and contexts of Scripture in order to better understand and apply to our lives the truths they contain.
BIBLE READING PLAN… FOUNDATIONAL PASSAGES THAT ALL CHRISTIANS NEED TO BE FAMILIAR WITH.
BIBLE READING PLAN DOES NOT COVER EVERY VERSE IN THE BIBLE...
IN DUE TIME… I WANT ALL TO READ THROUGH SCRIPTURE… IN THE MEANTIME, I WANT YOU TO START SOMEWHERE…
WHY SHOULD WE STUDY THE BIBLE?
The PURPOSE of Studying God’s Word - to PLEASE God
The PURPOSE of Studying God’s Word - to PLEASE God
It may seem an odd question to ask—Why study the Bible?
But too often we do things simply for the sake of doing them.
There is certainly nothing sacred about the first day of a year, but it is as good a time as any to refresh ourselves why we do what we do.
there are 2 common excuses for not studying Scripture.
1. The first usually offered is that the Bible is too difficult to understand.
“Only highly skilled theologians with technical training are equipped for the task.”
I don’t need to worry about all of that small stuff.
It doesn’t matter. That’s just stuff that the Preacher needs to know.
This, however, is too often what we want to hear in order to quiet our consciences for neglecting our duty of studying the Scriptures.
The sixteenth-century Reformers answered this excuse by advocating the perspicuity of Scripture, meaning the Scripture's clarity. They maintained not that all parts of Scripture are equally clear, but that the Bible is necessarily clear in its basic message. This means that if we can read, we can, with the Spirit's illumination, grasp the essentials.
2. The second excuse is that the Bible is too boring.
How many times have you tried reading through the bible and only made it to Leviticus?
We complain that we need someone to "make the Bible come alive" for us, but it is alive, and its words make us come alive.
There is nothing dull about the drama, passion, pathos, crime, devotion, and real life depicted in Scripture.
The ancient settings may seem foreign to us, but the struggles and issues biblical characters faced are the same ones we also face.
WHY SHOULD WE STUDY THE BIBLE? TO PLEASE GOD!
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
“Do your Best” “Study” “Be Diligent”
carries the idea of having zealous persistence to accomplish a particular objective.
The diligent believer… gives maximum effort to understand God’s truth as completely, as clearly, and as unambiguously as possible.
He gives unreserved commitment to excellence in highlighting, explaining, applying, and responding to God’s Word.
“to Present yourself”
The supreme purpose of the diligent and selfless student of God’s Word is to please God.
For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Every Christian should be able to say...
but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.
Their Greatest desire should be for Jesus to say...
His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’
THE PURPOSE OF HANDLING GOD’S WORD - TO PLEASE GOD
HOWEVER, There are some who mishandle and refuse to handle God’s word at all...
The IMPLICATIONS of Wrongly Handling God’s Word - SHAME before God
The IMPLICATIONS of Wrongly Handling God’s Word - SHAME before God
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
“no need to be ashamed”
What would the need to be ashamed come from?
Wrongly handling, or lacking study altogether.
2 Timothy (Exposition)
[The Bible] is like a sword, and it was not meant to be played with.
Illus… SWORD
Swords are meant to cut and hack and wound and kill with, and the word of truth is for pricking men in the heart and killing their sins.
The word of God is not given to God’s people to amuse themselves with its glitter, nor to charm them with the jewels in its hilt, but to conquer their souls for Jesus.
2 clear pictures of mishandling God’s word in our day.
1) intentionally twisting to suit one’s own passion
2) ignoring God’s word out of lack of desire.
There are so many who profess a love for God but know Him very little if not at all...
It is extremely difficult to fall in love with something or someone you know very little about…
It is extremely difficult to fall deeper in love with someone you care little to get to know…
Illus. Relationship with Katherine… Fundamental wants & needs
“Spouses Change” not as much as you think...
ADVANTAGE - God DOESN’T CHANGE… GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW HIM AND LOVE HIM
BUT WE DON’T…We’ve not been discipled to believe that is necessary, and in turn, we’re not discipling the next generation to believe getting to KNOW God is necessary and beneficial...
70% of students are dropping out of church once they get to college… It’s not real to them… because it wasn’t real to their parents… not exampled in the home
too many don’t even feel shame for not spending time with the Lord…
that those who have the most reason to be ashamed are the most shameless.
These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted;
wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
there are so many sitting on church pews this morning that are bound for hell… because they know about God in the mind, but don’t know him at all in the heart...
How do you know him in the heart? Spend time with Him… IN THE WORD
The FRUIT of Rightly Handling God’s Word - Approval Before God
The FRUIT of Rightly Handling God’s Word - Approval Before God
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
The mark of a faithful teacher or preacher is his handling accurately the word of truth.
Handling accurately translates a participle of orthotomeō, which means literally to cut straight.
It was used of a craftsman cutting a straight line, of a farmer plowing a straight furrow, of a mason setting a straight line of bricks, or of workmen building a straight road.
Metaphorically, it was used of carefully performing any task.
Because Paul was a tentmaker by trade (Acts 18:3), he may have had in mind the careful, straight cutting and sewing of the many pieces of leather or cloth necessary to make a tent.
Sometimes in the New Testament, the phrase word of truth, or message of truth, refers specifically to the gospel.
Paul reminded believers in Ephesus,
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
James speaks of the Father’s exercising...
Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Many other references to God’s truth refer to the full revelation of His Word in Scripture.
Jesus doubtless had this broad meaning in mind when He prayed to His Father on our behalf
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
Every aspect of God’s truth is to be handled accurately, as a sacred trust by those who teach it and by those who hear it.
The Christians extremely careful in the way he interprets and pieces together the many individual truths found in Scripture.
The first and most important principle is that of basing doctrine and standards of living on Scripture alone (sola scriptura), a key watchword of the Protestant Reformation.
Because the Bible is God’s inerrant, authoritative, sufficient, and sole source of His divine word of truth, every other truth rests on that truth.
It is not that the inerrancy of Scripture is a more important truth than, say, the deity of Christ or the Trinity.
But it is only from the truth of Scripture that we can know all other truths.
God’s word of truth in Scripture is the source and measure not only of all spiritual and moral truth but of all truth of any sort on which it speaks.
HOW??
H.E.A.R. Method
H - Highlight
H - Highlight
E - Explain
E - Explain
A - Apply
A - Apply
R - Respond
R - Respond