How to Study the Bible - Week 1 Session 2

Are there any birthdays today? Any birthdays this week? Jennifer, when's your birthday? Saturday? Okay, here's a gift for you: a New American Standard Bible. Happy birthday! We will have other gifts along the way as we go through this.

As I was saying just before we wrapped up the first hour, this book that we study is a book of books. It was written over 1,500 years by 40 different authors across three different continents and in three different languages, encompassing different cultures and people groups. What is amazing is that there is a consistent storyline from Genesis to Revelation, which we would call the meta-narrative of the Bible—the overarching story of God in the Scriptures.

This meta-narrative comes in four different moves or acts: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. Creation, fall, redemption, restoration—that's the overarching storyline. What's remarkable is that throughout the Bible, we find smaller stories that fit within that meta-narrative as well. We see the creation and call of the people of Israel, their fall into sin or slavery, their redemption, and ultimately, a restoration.

It has been said that the Bible, these 66 books, are a hyper-linked text. When you study through the Scriptures, you find that this is very true, especially when you come to a book like Revelation. How many of you have tried to read the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, before? How many of you were confused in doing so?

You cannot understand the book of Revelation if you have not studied the Old Testament, because there are over a thousand direct allusions in the book of Revelation to the Old Testament. If you don't recognize what the Old Testament says, you will not understand the book of Revelation. Many people start their venture in the Bible thinking, "I'm going to read the prophetic books of Revelation," but it's likely they won't understand hardly anything.

However, it is an amazing hyper-linked text. I came across this graphic a number of years ago, which is awesome in the way that it portrays it. It just looks like a rainbow here, but what you have along the...

At the bottom are 66 different books represented in those gray lines. The very long one in the middle is the longest chapter in the Bible, which is Psalm 119, located right about the center of the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, across the bottom, you can see the colorful lines that represent the references from one book to the next. It is a hyperlinked text, and the Bible links to itself, referencing itself constantly throughout.

This was put together by a researcher at MIT who was a Christian. He compiled over thirty thousand biblical references from one book to the next and presented them in this graphic, where you can see everything linked together in an amazing way. The Bible is indeed a hyperlinked text, and all of it has this consistent story where God is revealing Himself to us and the work that He is doing—from creation, humanity's fall, redemption, and ultimate restoration.

We are currently in the segment of the story that pertains to redemption, and we are looking forward to the return of Christ and His establishment of His kingdom, where He makes all things new. That is the restoration we anticipate. This is a big part of the reason why we here at Cross-Connection Church say we want everything we do to be done with joy. We have an optimistic vision of the future. Our optimistic vision is that Christ will return one day and overcome the last foe, which is death. He will remove the sting of death and restore all things.

That's what we look forward to. Now, will there be some rough patches in between now and then? Yes, but we maintain an optimistic vision of the future when Christ comes and restores all things. This is the story that God has revealed to us in the pages of Scripture.

As we come into our next section, we will be getting into the book of Second Timothy. You can open your Bibles to the book of Second Timothy. If we have any questions from the last hour, please come up to the microphone. I know it can be a scary thing to speak on a microphone in front of others, but please give us your name and then your question.

Thank you. My name is Jay, and I was curious about how people studied the Bible before it was available in a common language. I thought it wasn't written in a common language until the 1500s.

At this point, there are still many languages that do not have the Scriptures translated for them. This raises a much bigger question: How does God reveal Himself to people apart from the written word of Scripture or the work of a missionary? The only way I think we can answer that question is by looking at how God has revealed Himself in times past.

Can God reveal Himself directly to individuals apart from the work of a missionary bringing them the written Scriptures? Based on what we see historically, the answer is yes; God can do that and has done that throughout history. He has revealed Himself to various people at various times in various ways, as He did with Abraham and others.

Primarily, we are still given a missionary call to go into all the world, preach the gospel, and make disciples, which involves us being a part of this work. However, can God reveal Himself apart from the work of a missionary? I think He probably can, but He has chosen to use us, which may seem crazy. In First Corinthians, Paul even says that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. He has even chosen a foolish method, which is called preaching, to bring the gospel to other peoples.

It is important and necessary that we have the word of God translated into every language. That work is still ongoing in a phenomenal way. There are translators that we, as a church, support and are connected to, whether through Wycliffe or New Tribes. In years past, we have actually helped fund some of these efforts. The goal is to try to get the word of God into the language of all peoples in all places.

God is still able to reveal Himself through General Revelation, and He does this in amazing ways. There are stories even today of missionaries who come across people among unreached people groups who have a revelation from God through a dream or a vision, which is absolutely phenomenal.

I was at a conference back in 2011, and there was a gentleman sharing who was a missionary in the Middle East. He was working in a number of places that they couldn't even mention on the recording because of the sensitive nature of his work. After he asked them to turn off the recording, he talked about how he had been with another Christian missionary going into Iran to take the gospel to people who do not have it. As they were bouncing along this dirt road, they needed to get gas, so they stopped at a gas station. When they pulled off and were getting ready to pump their gas,

This Iranian man, a Persian, came up to them and said, "I had a vision, a dream last night, and a bearded man told me that I would meet you here and you would show me the way to life." These kinds of visions and dreams, where God reveals Himself in an amazing way, still happen. So, recognize that. I don't know if that entirely answers the question, but we'll talk more about God revealing Himself in those ways.

Are there other questions? Does someone else want to step up to the microphone? Oh man, I explained it so perfectly that you have no questions. It's so good! I'm getting better at this.

Miss Sandra, my name is Sandy, and I was wondering why we do not have prophets like they had back in the Old Testament.

God, you know, the Scriptures say in the New Testament that all the prophets were until John the Baptist. According to His wisdom, God has chosen that we would not have the office of the prophet in the same way that we had in times past. We have something actually better than that: we have the written Word of God and the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit came upon certain individuals at certain times in the past, as you read in the Old Testament, where He would reveal Himself or strengthen individuals, giving them supernatural abilities, bringing healing, or performing miracles. But what we have now is the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit and God's revealed Word given to us.

The office of a prophet was a unique thing to the Old Testament times. We don't have the office of a prophet today. Paul talks about this in some of his letters, and we find it throughout the New Testament.

It strikes me when I meet someone who tells me, "I am a prophet; God has called me to be a prophet." I have some theological issues with that. I understand what that person might be saying; they believe they have the gift of prophecy, which is something different from the office of a prophet. But all the prophets, Jesus says, were until John. If we believe what Jesus said, then we have to believe that there are no more prophets in the way that there were in Old Testament times.

As Christians, we also believe that God's revelation is sealed in the sense that He is not revealing something new. There is no new revelation coming based on things like we read out of the Book of Revelation. We need to recognize that the revelation, as God has revealed it through holy men of God who were moved by the Spirit of God to write these things, is sealed and closed. But that doesn't mean that He does not...

God reveals Himself through other individuals as they pray for us and provide us with a word of knowledge. However, there is no new revelation. If someone shares something with you that is inconsistent with the Word of God, the Word of God becomes our measuring line for what is right and true. If they say, "God gave me a word," and it contradicts Scripture, we should immediately question it. We need to ask how that aligns with Scripture.

The office of the Prophet existed until John the Baptist, but Jesus indicates that they are no more.

Did you have a question?

I'm Cali. In the first part of your session, you made two statements that seemed to contradict each other. The first one was that Scripture has, in fact, gotten lost in translation over the years. Since it has, how would you adequately reconcile or explain the validity of Scripture, specifically to an unbeliever? I have peers in my own life who have asked me how we know that Scripture is infallible, and I find myself stumped.

That's a spectacular question. When I say that things are lost in translation, I am not suggesting that we cannot get close to what we believe is the original autographs. When you read from theology books about what we call biblical infallibility, you will find that we believe the Scriptures are infallible in their original manuscripts or autographs.

While we do not necessarily have the original autographs, we possess manuscript evidence of the Scriptures, especially the New Testament, that far surpasses any other work from antiquity. If you go back in time and examine this, we will discuss it in a future class, focusing on the manuscript evidence we have.

When I say things are lost in translation, I mean that when we read a word in the original Greek, there is what is called a semantic range for that word. This means that a single word can have multiple meanings—up to 40 different interpretations. Certain words in the Greek language, if you consult a Greek lexicon, will show not just a sentence about what that word means but a comprehensive range of meanings. We will talk more about the tools we use to study the Bible in a future class.

Pages about what that word means reveal what's called a semantic range. So, what does this word "Angelos," which is the Greek word from which we get our word "angel," mean? "Angelos" has a spectrum of meaning; it can signify a number of different things depending on its case in the Greek language. The Greek language is what's called an inflected language, much like German and some other languages, where there is a case system that includes nominative, genitive, dative, and so forth.

This may be totally outside of anything you've ever thought about because, although we know how to speak English, we're not very good at grammar. We don't really understand all the intricacies of grammar, even in our own language. Within a language like Greek, a whole different meaning is given depending on whether a word is in the nominative or the accusative case. This leads to what we call a spectrum analysis of what a word means.

This is where Bible translators come in. I think Bible translators are amazing. I've had some professors who are Bible translators and who translated the Christian Standard Bible and helped with the New American Standard Bible. Their grasp of the original languages is absolutely phenomenal. However, they will tell you that there are words we have that do not have a perfectly good correlate in English. Therefore, you have to try to determine what is being said in the text.

In the textbook you will have, the author goes into a lot of this. Some of it may seem incredibly technical, and he discusses a dozen different English translations of the Bible, explaining how one translates a word one way while another translates it differently. The question then becomes: what is the best meaning of the text?

As a Bible student, when I study the Bible, I normally have four or five different English translations in front of me. I have had the privilege of studying Greek and Hebrew. While I'm not great at it, I have Greek and Hebrew resources that I can consult to determine the best word for a particular context. This is where you get into real in-depth word studies, which we will learn how to do in this class. We will peel back the layers and see what's going on in the text.

When I say that something is lost in translation, I'm not claiming that we don't have good translations. I'm simply stating that the translations we have sometimes fall short of conveying the best meaning of certain words. This encourages us to be better students and to dig deeper into what is being said. In fact, we have a Spanish teacher here. What did you just share with me during our break about this? Oh, God!

I was talking to my students just now about how certain things you try to interpret into English, or vice versa, often just don't fit. You're trying to come to the closest thing you can. Even if you're fluent in another language, you sometimes encounter words and think, "I don't know how to explain that." We don't have a direct word in English for many of these terms, especially in Hebrew. The Hebrew we have for the Bible is ancient Hebrew, going back thousands of years—nearly three to four hundred years in some cases. The words do not have a direct translation, so you will come across passages where you read it in five different versions and find five different words. You might wonder what's going on here and how to understand this. This is where you get into word studies and deeper analysis, which we'll discuss as we go through the class.

The term "prophet" in the New Testament is not used in the same sense as it is for Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Obadiah. Jesus tells us that all the prophets were until John the Baptist, so we need to understand it in relation to the New Testament, which we'll explore when we talk about Ephesians chapter four.

Now, if you would open your Bibles to Second Timothy chapter three, verse 16. If you've been part of a Christian church for a while, you've probably heard this verse before. Second Timothy 3:16 says, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, so that the man or woman of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work."

This passage is one you will find in every theology book when discussing the topic of revelation or the Bible. It has been the belief of Christians for the last two thousand years of church history that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is useful or profitable. Inspiration here means, as you would find in the New Living Translation or maybe the New International Version, that it is God-breathed. Peter tells us in Second Peter chapter 1, verse 21, that prophecy came as God moved holy individuals to write these things down. We still have their language and culture reflected in the text, but we believe as Christians that these writings were inspired in some way by God through His holy individuals.

The Spirit has revealed to us what was needed to be said or what should be put down by the individuals who wrote Scripture. It is not as if God came into them and took over their bodies, making them write these things down. They were moved by the Holy Spirit to write these things, and we believe that Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Therefore, when we study the Scriptures, we approach them with the presupposition that these things are inspired.

Paul states that Scripture is useful for four different things. I have talked about this on Sunday mornings, so this may be a review for some of you who have been here in the past. First, Scripture is useful for doctrine. What is doctrine? Doctrine is how God reveals to us what is right and true. I always bring out my favorite little tool when discussing this, which you may have seen if you've been at Cross Connection for any length of time: a plumb bob. The Scriptures establish for us the true line; they reveal to us God's nature, what He is like, and His will—what He wants, what He likes, and what His purposes are. They show us what is straight, if you will.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is useful for doctrine, establishing the true line. But what does the true line do? What is the purpose of this tool? It reveals what is out of alignment; it reveals what is crooked. My dad worked in the construction industry for nearly sixty years and always kept a plumb bob in the door of his car. Even though they have very expensive laser levels and surveying equipment, he always had one of these with him. If you ask my dad, who is here on Sunday mornings, to tell you about plumbing a building, he will probably give you a fifty-minute dissertation on why this is an important tool and how you have to bring a building into plumb, or else it will fall down.

Similarly, our lives need to be in line; otherwise, they will come apart. Some of you have experienced a life that has come apart. The Word of God sets the true line; it establishes what is right and true doctrine. When it establishes what is right and true, notice that Paul mentions the second thing that the Scriptures are useful for: reproof.

Reproof is exposing what is out of alignment. I said earlier this evening that the Bible is living and powerful, and there are ways in which the Bible reads you as you read it. It reveals the thoughts and intents of the heart, as the author of the book of Hebrews says. It reveals to us the ways in which we are out of alignment; it reproves us.

Moving from there, not only is the Bible useful for doctrine and reproof, as the Scriptures say, but Psalm 119 also tells us, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." The Word of God reveals to us what is right, true, and good, and it exposes the areas where we are out of alignment. It reproves us, but it also has the ability to correct us and bring us back into alignment.

The Word of God, which is living and powerful, is able to sanctify and cleanse us by the washing of the water of the Word. God, by His Word and by the power of His Spirit, causes us to be transformed in mind and body. He changes us. If you've been a Christian for any length of time, you have experienced this transformation as the Word of God has gone into your heart and mind. It has transformed the way you think, speak, and live. Sometimes, this change is not as apparent to you as it is to others who knew you 10 or 15 years ago. When they see you again after a long time, they notice something different about you. There has been a transformation because the Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, and it is able to transform us.

God transforms us by the renewing of our minds so that we would display what is His good and perfect will in this world. The Word of God sets the true line of doctrine; it reproves us or exposes all the areas where we are out of alignment, and then it is able to bring us back into alignment. It corrects us somewhat similarly to the navigation systems that you probably all have used in your car. When you input a destination, it shows you that you're not on the line and then brings you back to the line, instructing you to turn right or left so you can stay on that little blue line. If you get out of the way, what does it do? It shows you how to get back into the way; it corrects you.

Thus, the Word of God is useful for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. It instructs us on how we ought to live in a right way. The psalmist in Psalm 119, verse 9, asks, "How..."

Can a young man cleanse his ways by taking heed according to Your word? With my whole heart, I have sought You. Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments. Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against You.

Psalm 1 states, "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he does meditate day and night." As a result, he shall be like a tree that is planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season. Whatever he does shall prosper; his leaf shall not wither.

The word of God is useful for doctrine. It shows us the right and true line, and as it does, it reproves us. It exposes all the ways that we are out of order. It corrects us, bringing us back into alignment, and then it trains us in righteousness. It teaches us how to walk in a way that is in line with God's nature—what He is like—and His will—what He likes. Ultimately, God's nature and His will are revealed in the Scriptures as He works those things out in us by His word and by His Spirit. This brings us into the experience of the abundant life.

What is the abundant life? It is living in line with the God who created you, how He created you to live out His purpose and to live out His plan. God has a purpose and a plan for which He made each one of us. Sin is really when we go outside of that purpose and outside of that plan, causing disruption, brokenness, and chaos in our lives and the lives of other people. But God wants to bring us back into alignment so that we would walk in righteousness. He trains us through the Scriptures in righteousness.

The next verse says that the man or woman of God would be thoroughly equipped for every good work. God has saved you and saved me for good works. "For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."

It is an ethical dimension that we should walk in those things. Well, how do we know how to walk in those good works? The only way we will know is by taking heed to the word of God. The word of God reveals the areas that we are out of alignment, corrects us, brings us back into alignment, and helps us to walk in righteousness so that we would be thoroughly equipped for every good work. That is what God has called us to; that is what He wants to do in my life and in yours. Why are we a part of it? A family.

Of Faith is a church like this so that we can connect with God through His Word and by His Spirit. We can connect with one another as He has created us to live in connection with Him, so that we can live out His purpose and His plan in our lives as a church, sharing the good news of who God is in this world. That's what He has called us to. This is just the basic thing that we have from the Scriptures and the Word of God. The Scriptures become essential for that. If we are going to know how to walk in a way that is pleasing to Him, we must do so through the Word.

The Word of God is useful for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, so that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. It makes sense that Paul would go on to say this in the very next words. Look at First Timothy, chapter 4, verse 1. I charge you therefore, because verses 16 and 17 are true. Therefore, this is one of the things you'll learn as we go through this class: anytime you come to the word "therefore" in the Bible, you need to figure out what it's there for.

So, you go back and look at the "therefore" of First Timothy, chapter 4, verses 1 and 2. A lot of times, the chapter and verse breaks in the Bible are not helpful because they were added later. This allows me to say, "Turn in your Bibles to Second Timothy, chapter 3, verse 16," and we can all be on the same page relatively quickly. However, the verse and chapter numbers are not inspired, and sometimes they break things up in a flow of thought that is not super helpful.

One of the things we'll talk about, and you'll read about in this book as well, is that sometimes it's very helpful to have a Bible that strips out the verses and chapters and just puts it in paragraphs. It's called a reader's Bible, and those are really helpful because then you just read through the text and see how things work together in paragraphs. Learning to read the Bible in paragraphs versus reading the Bible in verses is one of the things that opens up the Scriptures so you are able to see them.

We'll talk a lot more about that later, but here is one of these places where the transition from chapter 3 to chapter 4 is not very helpful. We have the "therefore" in chapter 4, verse 1: "I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom. Preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season." To do what? To convince, rebuke, and exhort with all long-suffering and teaching. This goes back to doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. Since the Word of God is useful for those things, then the Christian—not just the pastor, but every Christian—should be ready.

Even if it's just in a rudimentary way, it doesn't have to be at a seminarian academic level. It is important to explain the Scriptures in such a way that you can convince, rebuke, and exhort with all patience. Sometimes it takes a while in teaching. God has a call for us, and it's not just a pastoral call for those who are within the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers mentioned in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11.

This call is not limited to those who occupy the offices of leadership within the church; it is for all Christians. We should know the Scriptures well enough to look at our own lives through the lens of Scripture and to share that understanding patiently with others, with all long-suffering and teaching. Sometimes it takes time to help people understand these things. God has a charge not just for the pastor, but for every Christian, that we would know how to use the Scriptures in a way that helps us comprehend who God is, what He is like, and what His will is. This understanding enables us to walk out those truths and share them with others.

In the New Testament, particularly in the four Gospels and the book of Acts, we find the history of the New Testament commissions where Christ speaks to His disciples, commissioning them to a task. It is crucial to recognize that the commissions of the New Testament are given to disciples. What is a disciple? An obedient follower of Jesus. If you are a Christian today, I hope you are seeking to be an obedient follower of Jesus; therefore, you are a disciple.

The commissions in the New Testament are not just for the leadership within the church but for all Christians to live out. What are the commissions? Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20, contains what we commonly refer to as the Great Commission. Jesus speaks to His disciples, saying, "All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." This commission is for you. If you're a Christian, you are a disciple.

Says I have all authority, and I am now giving it to you for a purpose. Here is the purpose: go into all the world and make disciples. Share what you know of God with other people. You may feel like, "Well, I don't know a lot about God yet." Well, you get to know Him as you read the Scriptures on your own. What you know, you share. You share it with your kids, your grandkids, your neighbor, your co-worker, your family members, your friends—whoever it may be, whoever God may give to you.

I guarantee you, if you commit yourself to fulfill the commission, if you simply say, "God, I want to do what you want me to do," and you've told me this is what you want me to do, if you offer yourself like Isaiah did in Isaiah chapter 6 and said, "Here am I, send me," if you simply pray that prayer, I guarantee you God will send you somebody. He'll send you somebody that has a question. Now, that's scary. Some of you don't even want to pray that prayer now because you're thinking, "I don't want that to happen."

But here's the awesome thing: you never learn so much as when you are compelled to share something from the Scriptures with someone else. I did not know the Bible hardly at all until I started to step out and share things with other people. I started in the junior high classroom here at this church, and I was scared to death every single week because I had no idea if what I was saying was the right thing.

But God has given us His Holy Spirit, He’s given us His Word, and He’s given us other brothers and sisters who can teach us what the Scriptures say so that we can share those things with others. That’s when we grow the most. So, if you simply say, "God, I want to be used by You, and I want to do what You want me to do," He’s going to bring people to you that are going to ask you questions that you don’t know the answer to. That’s the best place to be.

It might already cause your blood pressure to increase, but that’s the best place to be. Don’t make up an answer; simply say, "I don’t know, but let me try and find out." Then you pray, "God, help me to find the answer to this," and you ask your pastor, Mark, or another friend who knows the Bible better than you. Maybe they don’t know the answer to your question, but then you begin to dig into the Scriptures. God, who inspired the Scriptures, I believe is able to lead us into the understanding of the Scriptures so that we can live these things out.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.

Know what God has commanded you in Jesus Christ? Have you begun to look at what the Scriptures say so that you know what He has commanded you? Next week, we're going to talk about this even more because we're going to get into the first area of studying the Bible, which we call devotional Bible study. In this study, we are looking for two things. This will be on the quiz next time—there won't be a quiz, I promise.

The two things we are looking for are things to believe and things to do. In the Bible, what you would call if you were taking a Greek class are indicatives and imperatives. Indicatives reveal truth, while imperatives reveal commands so that we might live those things out. Do you know what Jesus has commanded you as a follower of Jesus? The only way you'll know is if you open up the Bible and begin to read. You will find out what He has commanded you.

When you come to commands and think, "I don't know if I can do that," you can say, "God, would you, by Your Holy Spirit, help me to do this?" You will find that God is faithful to answer that prayer if we ask Him. Teaching them to observe all things that I command you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. Jesus says, "I'm with you; you're not doing this alone. I will not leave you without a helper." The Holy Spirit, your helper, will be with you, and He will guide you into all truth, as Jesus says in the Gospel of John.

The Holy Spirit can guide us into all truth. This will become really important when we get to our very last class, which is going to be a practicum. I know that might scare some of you, and you won't show up next week, but please come back.

Next, we look at the Great Commission in Mark chapter 16, verse 15. Jesus says to His disciples—not to a group of pastors, but to His disciples, His followers—"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Does that mean that you should preach to your dog? Well, if he's a bad dog, maybe. I don't know. But it is a global command that God has given to us: go into all the world and preach the gospel.

What is the gospel? We are declaring the good news. What is the good news? Christ came into the world to save sinners. Paul says, "of whom I am chief." Some of you might argue with Paul on that, but that's what the gospel encapsulates in a very brief sentence: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He says in First Corinthians chapter 15, "This is the gospel which we preach to you, which you also believed and in which you stand." As the Scriptures reveal, he says this: "Christ Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and He was seen by witnesses." This is the basis of the gospel: go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

In Luke's Gospel, chapter 24, Jesus said to His disciples, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer and rise from the dead the third day, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." Does that mean you should go to Jerusalem and start there? No, it just means you start where you're at and move out from there.

In Luke chapter 24, verses 46 and 47, it states that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in Christ's name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. In John chapter 20, verse 21, Jesus said to His disciples, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you." He was sending them out to make disciples, to preach the gospel, and to declare repentance and turning towards God for the removal of sins, or remission of sins.

Jesus had a conversation with Peter at the end of the Gospel of John. Peter had been fishing all night and didn't catch anything. He was really good at that; in fact, we experienced something similar on a fishing trip a couple of weeks ago when we fished all night and didn't catch anything. We identified with Peter in that moment.

The next day, Jesus has a conversation with Peter and asks him three times, "Do you love Me?" Each time, Peter responds, "Yes, Lord, You know I love You." There is a lot more going on in this exchange, which we will explore in depth in a few weeks when we discuss word studies in the Bible. Sometimes our translations fall short, and it is helpful to look at a concordance and a lexicon to see what is happening in the original language.

After Peter affirms his love for Jesus, Jesus tells him, "If you love Me, feed My sheep and tend My lambs." What do we feed others? We feed them the Word of God, which we will see more of as we move forward.

These are the commissions in the Gospels: Matthew chapter 28, verses 19 through 20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24, verses 46-47; and John's Gospel, chapter 21. Then, in Acts, Jesus has His last conversation with His disciples in chapter 1. He says to them, "Wait in Jerusalem until you receive power from on high, and then you are going to go into all the world."

In the world, we are called to be witnesses. Immediately after this, Jesus tells His disciples to wait, for He will empower them by His Holy Spirit. They then shift the conversation to end times, a topic that Christians often want to discuss. However, Jesus responds, "No, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses of Me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts." This starts where you are and moves outward from there.

Being faithful in the little things is essential. First, we must commit to reading through the Scriptures daily. This will be my challenge to you as we embark on this class: to be faithful in going through the Scriptures on a regular, habitual basis. As you do this, you will begin to internalize these teachings, and they will overflow from you. God will bring you people who have questions, and He will provide you with the words to share the good news with them. He is the one who empowers us to do so by His Holy Spirit.

My goal for this class is to help you become a disciple of Jesus and a student of His Word. I want you to get to know Him so that you can share Him with your kids, grandkids, neighbors, friends, co-workers, or anyone else God brings into your life. He is already bringing people to you, and often we find ourselves unsure of what to say, leading us to remain silent. I want to ask for a show of hands: how many of you have experienced this? I know it’s every single one of us, if we are honest. Even I have faced this challenge, where we keep our mouths shut because we don’t know how to respond. God wants to give us the words to say, but those words will come as we hide His Word in our hearts.

If you have questions, please come to the microphone. I know it can be intimidating, but you will overcome that fear quickly. Feel free to ask about anything we have covered so far.

One last verse I want to share with you is from 2 Timothy 2:2. Paul the Apostle writes to Timothy, one of his disciples in Christ, saying, "The things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." This verse highlights four generations of teaching and discipleship.

Paul says he is sharing with Timothy and all the witnesses who are with him so that they will commit these words to other faithful individuals who will teach others also. Christianity has spread organically for the last two thousand years to the point that today there are more than two billion people around the world who call themselves or identify as Christians. They may go to different kinds of churches than this, and they may believe slightly different things than we do about baptism, worship, and communion. But ultimately, they look back to Christ, who died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and on the third day rose again as their Redeemer and Savior. That is what they look back to, and that has spread throughout the whole world in this method.

The things which you have heard from me, Pastor Miles, among other witnesses, commit those things to faithful individuals who will teach others also. This is how Christianity spreads: one disciple at a time, from one place to the next throughout the entire world. This is how it will continue until Christ comes. He builds His church through His people. You are all, as Peter says, living stones being built together as a habitation for God.

Sarah, you have a question. Something that you mentioned just now is that the verse talks about starting with Israel. Contextually, we know that means it starts right here. However, over the course of the Bible, there are lots of things that it says that today we don't do, not just in the Old Testament but in the New Testament too. In light of what Garrett was preaching on Sunday, we have to look at the Bible contextually. How do you know when the Bible is saying something that you need to take contextually versus literally?

That's what this whole class is about, so I'm glad you're asking that question. Yes, that's exactly what we are going to be talking about. That's what you will see a lot as you go through this book. We talked about this book real quick again; we will have a copy for every single one of you. They are just not here yet; they are somewhere in some trucks or on a ship somewhere—who knows? This book, by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart, "How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth," is important. I understand that as you begin to read this book, there are going to be some things in it that you will go, "I don't understand what he's talking about." Some of the things are technical, but a lot of it is stuff that you will be able to grasp.

To grasp and understand, if you are a person who learns better by hearing, Audible.com has this as an audiobook. You can get it on your mobile device and listen to the whole book instead of reading through it. That's perfectly fine. My hope is that you will take the time to read through the book or listen to the whole book. Obviously, I'm not going to give a test at the end. There is a final, but it's not you writing something down like, "I read the whole book." I think if you read this book, it will open your understanding about answering that specific question, even in the first few chapters.

At Cross Connection Church, we approach the Scriptures trying to determine the original intent of the author who wrote it for the readers who received it 2,000 years ago or 2,500 years ago. We try to read it with the understanding that the Bible has different genres. For example, there is poetry in the Bible, and Hebrew poetry is different from English poetry. It doesn't rhyme words; it rhymes ideas. There is what's called synonymous parallelism and antithetical parallelism. There are all these different ideas where ideas rhyme and not words.

In addition to poetry, there is narrative, history, and Epistles, which are a different kind of writing unto themselves. There is also prophetic or apocalyptic literature. All of these things need to be read with a basic understanding of how to approach this kind of text. The way you approach something that is an epistle, which is a letter written by an apostle, is going to be different from how you read apocalyptic literature, which is a certain kind of prophetic literature.

There are certain lenses that we use when we look at the Scriptures so that we understand what is being written or talked about. Obviously, we understand this, but if you read Shakespeare, it's going to be different than if you read The New York Times, which probably none of you do. If you read a newspaper, it is going to be different from how you read poetry, a novel, or a letter. There are different ways that we approach the texts of the Bible.

This is where it is helpful to have a study Bible. We will talk a lot about that when we discuss tools for studying the Scriptures. A study Bible will help you understand what kind of language you are reading so that you can begin to uncover it. There are certain things you need to think about as you come to this. Some of you have probably heard before about commentaries.

Commentaries are where people who are more learned than you and I about the Scriptures, the original languages, and history write about what a passage probably meant at the time it was written. None of us lived two thousand years ago in Judea, and there are certain times when you come to a section of Scripture that contains a Jewish idiom, which to us means nothing because we don't have that special saying in our language. However, it meant something to them. Discovering the meaning of those things helps us open our eyes to see what it is.

A lot of times, you'll hear people within cross-connection type churches say, "We read the Bible literally; we take the Bible literally." Yes, we do, until we come to a figurative passage. For example, when Jesus says, "I am the door," we are not looking for a handle on Him, are we? No, we recognize He is speaking in figurative language. When He says, "If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out," I don't see too many one-eyed people here today, though I should, because you've probably lusted at some point in your life. But we don't take that literally; we take that figuratively.

There are certain rules that we follow when we come to the Scriptures. We read them in specific ways because we say, "Okay, this is non-literal language." Therefore, when it says God has feathers and broods over His people like a hen over her chicks, is that really what we should think about God being like a hen with her chickens? No, what He is saying is that He tends to and takes care of His people. When He talks about His people being sheep, He is saying something about who we are and who He is in relation to us.

We need to read and understand the different kinds of language, whether it's non-literal language, poetic language, or whatever genre it may be, so that we can grasp and understand these things. I get it; I'm pouring a whole bunch of information at you. We are going to systematically go through these things, and I think this book will be really helpful to you if you take the time to go through it.

I have dedicated the last 23 years of my life to studying this book that we have every single week, every single day. I am not an expert on this book; I probably know it better than most of you, but I am not an expert. I have friends who have far greater expertise on this book than I do, and they blow my mind, especially when I talk with friends who really understand the original languages and can give you all the different meanings behind the text. If you give your life to studying the Word of God, you will see your life transformed.

Transformed, you will see your life used as a light to other people as well. Will you understand everything the first time you open this up? Absolutely not. Will you understand everything 15 years from now after reading this every single day? No, you will not. But your life will be transformed, and you will be a bright shining light for Christ.

Other questions? Come on up to the microphone. Hi, my name is... I want to pick up about General Revelation, Special Revelation, and the last one is Personal Revelation. I wish you could speak more about Personal Revelation and how I can get it. I mean, I want to remove my heart, right? I come with reverence to God. I know it is very important to have faith.

I have another question. I don't want to misstep, but how do you present the truth of God to people who don't believe? They say the Scriptures are made by many men.

Okay, we'll talk more about how we got to the Scriptures that we have today. There are a lot of falsehoods being put forth by people that you'll find on the History Channel and so forth in our culture about how the Scriptures came to be, and it doesn't line up with history at all. However, most people don't really read and study history and understand all that sort of stuff.

How can we experience Personal Revelation? Well, Christ has revealed He is the fullness of the revelation of God. Therefore, I think it is essential that we start with the Gospels when we are getting to know the Scriptures. We begin with Jesus. If you've not read from Matthew chapter 1 to Matthew 28, or from Mark chapter 1 to Mark 16, or from Luke chapter 1 to Luke 24, or from John chapter 1 to John 21, I would highly recommend that you take however long it will take for you to do that. If it takes you one day to read through a Gospel, praise the Lord. If it takes you six weeks to get through a Gospel, praise the Lord.

Start and begin to read through the Gospels and get to know Christ. As you do, King David in the Psalms reveals to us an important prayer when approaching the Scriptures, which is something we're going to talk about a lot next week and the week after. We always begin our reading of the Scriptures by saying, "God..."

Open my eyes to behold wonders from Your word. That's what David prayed in the Psalms: "Open my eyes to behold wonders from Your word." Lord, would You reveal to me what this means and how You want to speak to me through Your word? Would You reveal Yourself through the pages of Scripture? I believe God will do that because God has given us His Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth and to teach us all things.

I do believe that God will guide and direct you. Now, that doesn't mean that as you start to read, everything you read is going to make total perfect sense. But God can direct you through your reading of the word, and He will also, I believe, direct you to have interactions and relationships with other people within the church, which is going to be part of our practicum. This will help you grow in your understanding of Scriptures.

Begin with the Gospels. I also recognize it is challenging for some people who are not the best readers. Most people throughout history, and even today, are not highly literate. In fact, the statistics are pretty challenging on this. It's something like a majority, and I don't remember the exact number, but it's above 50% of people who went to college never read another book after college. They just figure, "Well, I read plenty of them in college, and I'm done. I don't want to ever read another book."

So, a lot of people are just not readers, and many people in our culture are functionally illiterate. I understand that, so I created a tool. You can find two different ones on the internet. Write these down: thelisteningplan.com. You can go there and subscribe through email or through your podcast app to listen to a chapter a day, only on weekdays, through the New Testament. If you begin on the first weekday of the year and listen to one chapter a day, you will listen to the entire New Testament in one year.

It just so happens there are as many chapters in the New Testament as there are weekdays in a year. Isn't that great? So, it's perfect—just a weekday. Everyone averages about five minutes of listening to just one chapter a day. If you want to do the Old Testament, go to the Daily OT. You can register to listen to the whole of the Old Testament. It will take you three times as long because there are three times as many chapters in the Old Testament as there are in the New Testament. But you can pick it up from where it is right now.

In the Book of Daniel, I don't remember exactly where it's at, but you can just listen and go through it. When you get to Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, it will take you back to Genesis. You can go through every single day; it's not just every weekday. For three years, you can read through the Old Testament, but you can also do the same with the New Testament.

I'm sure that some of you here have tried to do the "read through the Bible in a year" challenge. You may have gotten all the way to Leviticus and then stopped because Leviticus is the speed bump of the Bible. After that, you might have beaten yourself up because you couldn't finish, or you got three days behind with 30 chapters to read and then gave up. Just listen to one chapter a day; that's all I'm asking you.

Here's the thing I have discovered: if you commit to doing that, you will begin to read more than that. I've seen it happen time and time again.

We have time for a couple more questions if there are any. Scott, I'm just thinking about language. I have some thoughts and questions. They may not have clear answers, but for instance, Adam and Eve had conversations with God; they talked, so they spoke a language. I'm assuming that was the original language up until the Tower of Babel when God confused everything.

Another thought is that creation could be a type of language. I think about angels; they spoke to people in the Old Testament, so I guess they spoke Hebrew then. When they spoke to Mary, they spoke in Greek. I know the Holy Spirit came to the disciples and started speaking in tongues, and everybody understood, so that was another kind of language that happened.

I also wonder, when we get to heaven, what language will we speak? Will we have the mind of Christ? Will we speak English in heaven because Americans won't learn another language? These are just things I've been writing down while thinking about language. I know we'll have the mind of Christ, so He'll speak to all of us in a different language. There will be a heavenly language that will be the same.

I know there aren't specific answers for that in Scripture, but if you go to Israel, they'll tell you that the language of heaven is Hebrew.

You covered a whole bunch of things, so I'll just quickly answer it this way. At Pentecost, in Acts chapter 2, when God poured out His Spirit upon the disciples gathered in Jerusalem, they spoke in various tongues, as the scripture says. There are differences of opinion among Christians about exactly what that means. Did they speak in angelic languages? Did they speak in earthly languages? What was going on there?

What's interesting is that the people who heard them said, "We hear them speaking the wonderful works of God in our languages." So, whatever language they spoke, there was a gift of hearing that allowed the listeners to understand the word of God being spoken in their own languages.

As for what language we will speak in heaven, the Bible doesn't specify. However, we will have understanding. The scriptures say in First Corinthians 13 that we shall know even as we are known. In the same way that God knows you, you will be given insight and understanding of all things when you come into His presence. So, we will know even as we are known.

I don't know what language we will speak. Maybe you'll speak English, and someone else will hear you in their language. I have no idea. But I will say that God desires to be worshiped by every tribe, tongue, and nation—by every language. In Revelation 5 and Revelation 7, it says that there were people singing the praises of God around the throne from every tribe and every tongue, every language. This seems to imply that our language is retained.

I don't know exactly what that means, but they were singing in heaven around the throne of God in different languages, praising God in a way that was discernible and understandable to all who were there. We can interpret that however we want, but it seems that language and culture are retained in heaven because those things show the glory of God in some way.

Now, one last question before we close tonight. Is there anyone else? Mr. Springfield, the microphone was really low for your wife, and now it seems to be really high for you.

Hi, I'm Noah. Earlier, you were talking about AI language models, and I'm a bit of a nerd. I was wondering if you were aware of any studies where they are using the Bible as a language set, like as a data set. You know, GPT-3 has its own little data set. Are you aware of anything like that?

There are some interesting things happening because the way AI models work is they feed in billions of data points into these models. These systems can compute data so fast that they can come to conclusions we could hardly reach in a million lifetimes. So, is there anybody taking the Scriptures and putting those into these data sets?

There are some people working on taking all of the written commentary about the Bible and feeding that into systems. This way, you could type a string of questions into the system, and it would give you back an answer from Charles Spurgeon or someone similar.

In a few weeks, I will show you a tool called Logos, which is a Bible study tool that I use regularly. Probably very few of you will be interested in using it because, if you've never done photography and you open up Adobe Photoshop, you will be lost. Similarly, if you've never used Logos and you open it up, you'll be lost. It's also kind of cost prohibitive; the software I have probably has six to ten thousand dollars invested in it. Most people are not going to use that, and I understand that.

However, the amazing things you can do with it are incredible. You can literally type a question, and boom, it gives you a whole topic index. I'll show you some of this stuff; it's pretty phenomenal the way it works. I will also show you some free tools. One of my favorites is called Blue Letter Bible. I am a board member for Blue Letter Bible, and you should all learn how to use it. By the end of this class, you'll know the basics of Blue Letter Bible because it's a very important and helpful tool for any student of the Scriptures.

Yes, there are people working on all those kinds of crazy things. The developments happening with huge data sets and artificial intelligence are phenomenal. We are reaching a point where, in the area of law, you could type in a request for a contract, and the computer will generate a contract that is perfectly legal. You won't need a contract writer.

Study on this whole thing, and boom, it spits out a Bible. I mean, it is that crazy how some of this stuff works. We live in a strange time. The Prophet Daniel prophesied that in the last days, knowledge would increase, and we're definitely seeing that take place.

There are so many things to think about as we close in just a moment. You do have homework this week, but it's very simple. I have a one-page front and back article that I just want you to read. I'm going to leave these up here, and you can come and grab them. I do have 25 or 26 books up here. If you came with your spouse, just take one book until the books are gone. I promise you we will have more books available within the next week or so, and we'll make those available at this class or you can pick them up on a Sunday morning to go through this book.

If you have any questions, I will stick around afterwards for as long as you want to stay. But let me pray, and then we'll close for tonight.

Father God, I pray that you would open our eyes to behold wonders from your Word and that you would give us a desire that maybe we never had before this day—a desire for Your Word. As newborn babes, may we desire the sincere milk of the Word that we may grow thereby. God, stir our hearts to want to know who You are and to want to read the Scriptures. Sometimes the desire to read the Scriptures wanes or goes away because we are confused or we don't know where to start.

I just pray that this class would help to open our eyes so that we would see the methodology, the approach, and the way that we can understand these things. This understanding will help us know You better and share that knowledge with others. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

God bless you guys! I hope you will come back next week. Next week, we're talking about devotional Bible study, and we'll be discussing very practical things about how to do what I'm talking about here today.