Marks of a Minister: Study of Scripture

Oh, this is free. Not part of the sermon. Psalm 119 is a bit of Hebrew, poetry. It's called an acrostic, and so it's really long, if you look it up in your Bible, is like the pages is like, you know, it's a song for the reason is so long. As the writer in the Hebrew writing made an acrostic poem out of his prayer. And what it is, is every letter of the Hebrew, alphabet from the beginning to the end, begins the verse. So like an eye in our language and be like a all people love to read God's word. Be the person who reads the Bible in the sea Comfort Comfort, is what I get. When I read the Bible, you get the idea. So each verse, extols the value and of God's word. What does that mean? Well, it means It means that the writer is saying everything, humanly possible that could ever be written in the language, is extolling this word of God. There is no breath, no word, nothing that we can do other than give, everything that we have of our breath of our being to honor and enjoy this word soap.

Happy are those whose way is blameless, whose walk in the law of the Lord. Happy are those who keep his decrees, who seek him with their whole Hearts. To also do no wrong, but walk in his ways, you have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. Oh, that my ways may be steadfast and keeping your statutes. Then I shall not be put to shame having my eyes fixed on all your commandment. I will praise you with an upright heart. When I learn your righteousness, ordinances

and from Paul second letter to Timothy, this is a seasoned Pastor, giving counsel to a young person who is moving on in their service, polish writing to Timothy first, 14 of chapter 3, 2nd, Timothy But as for you continue and what you have learned and firmly believe knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have known at the sacred writing that are able to instruct you for salvation with in Christ. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. So that everyone who belongs to God, may be proficient and equipped for every good work. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God, let us pray.

May the words of my mouth meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight. This day. Oh Lord our Rock and Redeemer.

Well, this is, this is part two of a three-part Series. So, let me let me remind us where we were last week. We're talking about marks of a minister now. Obviously these remarks that anyone should be concerned about him and applying to their lives with their, especially important for a leader of a congregation or Mission agency or nonprofit Christian organization. You have to have these marks, the three of them, I believe there's prayer. We talked about last week. We talked about the Primacy of prayer and how important it is for the congregation been organizations to let their leaders be in prayer and then nothing about the study of scripture and how that defines the lines. It would say that image of the equilateral triangle in the visible. Things we see preaching, we see teaching, we see Administration, you don't know whether I'm praying or not, you don't know whether I'm meditating on the scripture or not, but those are the key to make. Triangle Balor.

You can just have lines without the angle. I had a slide last week I think it's Elizabeth's got it for now. You can just do lunch. You don't have to have prayer and study of scripture. You don't have to have any that you can just preach. I can get it all on the internet and preach a sermon say this. And I mean, it tells you exactly what to say. You got it little other things to do the visible. Things that most of us are satisfied with. I bet you in six months, I could take any high school graduate and put them in any church in the United States. And they would do a satisfactory if not a very good job, as evaluators by most people sitting in the pew. That's sad. And that's where we need to change the mold. And that's what the sermon series is about prayer. Last week, I encouraged us to think deeply about prayer, The Minister's prayer life, praying for you, as a congregation, praying for this ministry praying that God will show that person away to lead this church and any Ministry. I'm at scripture, scripture, the importance and vitality of scripture. I talked about and I talk about myself a lot. I'm not just the egotistical person but maybe I am, I don't know. You tell me if I and my family in Africa, in Africa. You often often Came Upon the darndest thing walking in the bush. Of course, they were incredible challenges but a lot of Joys and God's natural beauty. What are the things that we felt like was very important, was the distribution of scripture and we did a lot of that we would collect funds, and we would buy Bibles and children's Bibles, and scripture portions in English and Swahili, and Massa language. And we would take them to the Villages where we were working would work with the local pastors to, to see what a proper charge would be. We wouldn't just give him out. we don't understand this in our culture but they are so poor if you give somebody a new book They're just going to go to the market and sell it so they can buy food.

So we work with the local pastors, if they show, how much can they pay for a book that would make it valuable to them? Okay, a dollar and what whatever it was just a number that they worked out so we were able to distribute lots and lots of scripture. Flashback 1987. Wrestling, our motoring across the rift valley, and going out, working at a new pioneering spot in the Owasso, kadang area of the, the dry scrub out there, and we've come across these little boys watching their animals. And they love come by. The car, is it went by and we always had either an apple or orange, or, or some, some sweet treat or something like that. And they would come over and we talked and got to know I'm a little bit one day, we were going out to a village olimpico out in and he waso. And we saw this little boy and we gave him a portion of the Gospel in the Gospel of John and his language. Now, that's cool. Boy, never been to school and of course he couldn't read but we gave it to me anyway. They took it and we kept doing that over. So over the years now, fast-forward, 20 years. That's why our teaching an evangelist seminar 7585 men and women come together from the Presbyterian Church of East Africa. I'm doing a training at teaching on things that they'll tell you they don't ever teaching seminary things that are like, like spiritual warfare that we kind of cringe when that demon possessions witchcraft, we don't get that in Princeton And we had that we had to find our way through all that. So we're teaching this course. And one of the things that I did was meet with each of those men and women to pray with them and hear about their Ministry. Take note, so I can be in prayer for them. One, young man came up and he said, hello Toyota. This my name? I'm Amos Amos. You don't remember me. I said, I'm sorry. I don't I don't I'm sorry. Who are you? He said 20 years ago, You in Nigerian specially drove by Maharaj many. Many times. You gave a book. And we read it in our village out loud at night around the fire. Our village Walks With Jesus now. And this man, he is. He's a very, very powerful evangelist free people. Now, I'll tell that we didn't do anything, this is that word, the word that is heard and not only the word that is heard, but the word that goes down. Deep inside a person, that that changes them and makes them. Somebody else makes them more attentive to God. The scriptures are that for us, the scriptures are the Living Word of God? Isaiah 40 says, the word of God is forever. Isaiah 45. 19 says the Lord, speak the truth. I the Lord speak the truth, Psalm 119, the song that we read a portion of Psalm 119 verse 11 says, I will hide your word in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Oh, Lord. Jesus Christ, himself said that word is truth. Your word is truth. This is important. This is important and will see that the Bible tells the story, the Bible is God's work of salvific history. Look at this chart from the beginning of time to the end of time from creation to the end of time, that is the story of the Bible and you can see how each of those indentations correlates to the other side of the before Christ and the Endo dominate of of Heaven and Earth. And then there's going to be the new creation of heaven and I go back and forth the center pivot of it. Of course, it's Jesus Christ, but this is the story of the Bible.

it is important because it impacts us now and for all eternity, The Bible in the Bible is a book that is incredibly important. It's a book of Promise. It's the most widely read book in the world. That's the number one bestseller. And every language on the, on the world. Wait, we don't even count it. When you see the New York Times bestseller list, the Bible is they don't throw it out, cuz it doesn't count. More bibles are bought every year in America than any other book. It's in every sin, the most languages of any published manuscript in the world. It's an amazing, an amazing book. It has the promise of Life. Jesus said I've come to give you life and life to the full and John and life eternal. The amazing book of promise but it's also a book of challenge. We moderns have a pretty rough time thinking about what life might be like in the ancient near East 34 thousand years ago. Doing that book. I read about a snake that talk. You read about it that floats in the river. You read about a hand hand writing on the wall, Street about a back talking donkey.

Sun standing still or room giant bodies of water parting? We, we are at a loss often as what to do with those things. So it becomes an enormous Challenge. And in that challenge, we have to ask ourselves a couple of questions. We have to ask two questions. One is the exegetical question, we have to listen as best we can and interpret that text as if we are the person who heard it or read it, or saw it for the very first time, what does that mean? What was it? A dressing in the culture at the time when that was presented? Only when we listen to the ancient word, can we speak the word to the modern world? We have to do that work. Pulling out extra doing. It's kind of like digging. The second question is another big word. Don't worry about it it's called hermeneutical. Question or hermeneutics is simply the the the practice of interpreting scripture. Get to what we normally put first. What does it mean to me wasn't mean. What's this thing me? We have to if we miss that first one, we're not going to come out in a really good second answer. Remember, some of you may remember the great Rabbi Abraham heschel. Heschel wrote the essay, he wrote Road and I wanted to share it with you because I think it's very meaningful. Rabbi heschel wrote. This indestructible, never Weary by time, the Bible wanders, Through the Ages giving itself with ease to all its feet. Every language, in every age, it benefits the Arts and does not compete with them. We all draw upon it, but it remains pure inexhaustible complete in 3,000 years, it has not aged a day. It is a book that cannot die Oblivion shuns its Pages. Its power is not subsiding. In fact, it's still at the very beginning of his career, the full meaning of its content having hardly touched the threshold of our mind like an ocean at the bottom of which countless pearls lie, waiting to be discovered its Spirit. Still to be unfolded, though. It's word, same plane. It's idiom translucent, unnoticed. Meaning undreamed of intimations break for Constantly more than 2,000 years of reading and research have not succeeded and exploring, its full. Meaning that is this book that we call the Bible when we study scripture, We are in Touring that Holy place and we dare to encounter God in our reading and study of scripture.

Have you ever done anything that had a goal and and it took a little bit to get there? Sure. You have you know there was a time I wanted a PhD and I said I'm going to get that thing and and I did and it was a lot of work and it was a pain in the ass. And I think everybody that was examining, you had gone through that h e, double L and they just wanted to put it back on those little candidates who are coming, cuz they didn't want them to get get through without being scared. I did it. I was happy at anything. We do. That's important. We have to put effort into, we have to put effort into. This is a nice little soft Bible cover. I mean, I suppose I could sleep on it but it wouldn't get in my head in my Heart by the morning. it doesn't come to me by osmosis It takes serious work effort and commitment to plumb some of the dips that God has for us in this book.

So it'd be great if we all could commit to further study of and then we've got a great Christian, education program starting in the fall for there's online or here on campus. You'll hear more about that for every age from from kids, to adults every stage in life. It's going to be a really good program an opportunity for us to dig a little bit deeper in God's word and learn what God has for us.

Play, Everybody's Got a hand, put your hand up. There are different ways of reading and interpreting scripture. I want you to think about these. Think about your hand. Next time you open that Bible First, there's the hearing that pinky think about hearing. You got to hear the word, we read it out loud. I mean we could just have you read it in the Pew but we read it out loud. That's important. I'm talking about a little bit more about that in a minute. We read it. That's a great thing. We read it, but there are other things. Thirdly, we study it. We pull out some resources, we ask some experts, we we dig down into it. That's what I was telling the children. We memorize it. We hide God's word in her heart. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by Satan, what was his reply to The Temptations that the devil put before him. It is written, it is written all three times, and then Satan left him When Trials, come with difficulties, the word in our heart is so important in that fifth one. This is interesting that phone can touch easily all the other areas when we meditate now, this isn't this isn't a bad word. This isn't something we can't do. This is pondering deeply taking time to listen to engage in prayer as we go through each as we do that, and touch on each one. It allows Dodge Spirit is Living spirit to come into us with a Living Word. Our sister today said all scripture is inspired by God. Inspired that word comes from Numa which came from ruach. We studied about that some years ago, some, some weeks ago ruoff. That's what God did at the beginning. God breathed life into humans. Breath in pneuma. God Spirit, we translated Spirit life breath. The word is breed. You could translate this perfectly. Well, as all scripture is god-breathed, that's a perfectly legitimate translation. It doesn't sound very good and work, very good. So they don't use it but it could be I think about that just for a moment. God is bringing his wife into us through this word. And so often, we we simply miss it and where it were we don't want one or a little encouragement for the day so we can pick something and go off. We go. I'm not saying this bad. Keep doing it. But don't only do that. Pastor Chuck. And I were talking yesterday about listening to God's word and Pastor Chuck to be leading a bible study this fall, and encourage you to try that out. But the whole concept is to give yourself time and space to listen, you know, reading And listening are two different things reading and listening or two different culture. The ancient. Listen. Remember Jesus. First at the Nazareth when he picked up the Isaiah scroll, did everybody have their little pocket Bible tour of the pull out and it was in a special place he read it out loud and said the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

Masha culture is a listening culture in a relationship. There are two or more of us. Reading is something that if I read, I'm in control, I can read, I can close the book. If I'm listening the speaker is in control because I'm in being attentive to that person and I'm relinquishing control. It's an amazing thing. If we can just give ourselves the moment to do those things as we work through our study of the Bible. To enable God to speak to us.

Don't limit. Let me pull this back to the mark of the minister. There are three things. I ministers like three.

I said last week that we've turned ourselves into a shop with shopkeepers, Instead of a church. And there's a couple of reasons. I want to propose that that has happened. And a couple of reasons that it's happened in the area of scriptural study. First member of Guttenberg. 1440. Something goodenberger invented. The movable type printing. Press changed the world got books. Awesome, wonderful. I mean so thankful but soak it enabled folks like John Wick. Cliff and others to translate the Bible so now have the scriptures and available to us so that we can read it.

Four, ancient, study years of Torah and the early scriptures. That would be a foreign concept because they listened to the word read and as they listened in a community, God moved. Just amazing thing bless Gutenberg on painful for my Bible but it's just an idea to think about the second thing I think is we have, we have Began to train people incorrectly. Track & racing. We went, we went through all this stuff and Seminary, and graduate school, and he got to go through the historical critical method and linguistic method and form, criticism, higher criticism. And you're just studying this Bible working so hard study in this Bible.

What we should be doing, is letting the Bible study me. And so what we have done, what we set up and our training in the west of clergy is the very thing. The very thing that we value the most we have turned into a stumbling block. Because now ministers and their busyness, they only have time to prepare sermon, so they're all that stuff. They learned in seminary to come up with a message. And I don't have time to do the five finger.

So the very life giving spirit that the Bible brings to us, we've almost put to the side That's the second thing. The third thing is, I alluded to last week, we, we've given ourselves over to a consumer culture. We become a shop and I'm the shopkeeper we want. We want to bring in customers, we want to give them what they want. And we want them to buy our product.

The church has to continue giving. What is the most important thing, regardless of culture? And that is the living breathing word of God is so important. And it's so important for a minister to have that time. So that that person Is your resident Theologian and we did finish the Elder Retreat yesterday. You have ruling elders. And then you have teaching Elders, your clergy are teaching Elders, we don't rule you, that's you elected a ruler. We are teaching elders. And in order to teach, we need to be instructed. And our instructor is God, and he instructs us to his word through prayer, through these marks marks that a minister has to have

That little boy Amos didn't picture him at that fire. And that Billy just was long before long before no cell phones or stuff like that, they had nothing. And they're sitting the whole village after the chores with that fire. They're telling stories, they're passing on their oral traditions and then the Gospel of John comes in and they read it in the next night. They say, read it again and read it again and hearing that word. Change that entire Village. about a year later since, when I went out there again and I baptized 62 people in that Village Because they'd come to Faith through hearing the word of God listening to God Speak.

So another thing I'd ask a potential candidate for a minister here is tell me about your engagement with the word of God.

Tell me about it.

I don't know whose idea this was. But please don't call the pastors place an office. I'm not a c e o. I'm not a CFO. I never wanted to be that. I never will be that a pastor, has a study and in that study that's where that Pastor pray and read scripture and gives Godly counsel to people who need it. The office. It's a study stop. If you want buy that Wing down that Corridor and you look in our studies. And you see us with eyes closed in my nice leather chair. Or if you see me, seemingly looking out the window with some Blank Stare on my face. Don't worry, don't worry, good stuff is happening. Good stuff is happening. God is speaking. God is working. And that's what you want your minister to do. And in that encouragement for quite a minister, doesn't want to encourage you, engage the word of God in your life, in every way you can, and you will be blessed. Call Mia.

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