How to Study the Bible - Week 2 Session 2

As you guys are coming back in for our next bit tonight, let's look at the questions here. How do you study the boring passages of the Bible? Are there boring passages in the Bible? For example, I appreciate the example whoever texted this in, listing lineages, measurements, etc. It's a great question.

I would encourage you, and we'll talk more about this, to begin in some places that are narrative passages of the Bible or in the Epistles. When I say narrative passages of the Bible, you'll read more about this if you go through the textbook. There are different genres of Scripture. Narrative passages are often the stories of the history of the Bible. You get into books like First and Second Samuel, or First and Second Kings, and you get into Ruth, or you get into New Testament books like the Gospels or the Book of Acts. Those are largely narrative passages of Scripture.

I would encourage you to start in some of those passages and start in the Epistles, which we're going to look at quite a bit tonight. As you begin to grow in your understanding of those passages of Scripture, what you're going to find is that your hunger is going to increase for things that at first don't taste quite as good. I'm sure you remember when you were a kid, there were certain foods you found distasteful. Has anyone experienced that? Like mushrooms or something? As time goes on, as you grow and develop your palate for food, your taste begins to change. You find that you want to understand some of those other things that are a little bit harder to get into or a little bit more difficult to unearth, if you will.

There are other passages of Scripture, and I'll just be very candid and honest. You get to certain long lists or lineages in Chronicles, and even I will kind of skip over them. Have I read through all of them word by word? Yes, multiple times. I've studied through those passages of Scripture, but a lot of times, if I get to a big huge genealogy, I kind of know what's going on in there from having read it in the past, and I will jump to the next passage of Scripture.

However, there is value in really digging into those things, seeing the connections, and understanding who these individuals were. Then you can start to do what we would call character studies in the Bible, really digging in to find out who these kings were that are in these long lists or who these individuals mentioned in these passages are and why they matter.

God listed them for a reason and a purpose. For example, the greetings list at the end of the Book of Romans contains a lot that can be gleaned and learned about the early church. Sometimes, it just takes developing a taste for passages that you may not initially appreciate.

Next, what words existed at the time when James, the brother of Jesus, penned his thoughts about the teachings of Christ and the disciples? This is very significant. In fact, the person who sent this probably doesn't know that James is very likely the first written work of the New Testament. Though it appears later in our Bibles, it is one of the first written works of the New Testament, if not the very first.

So, what did James have to read when he talked about the scriptures or the word that we should take to heart? We should keep two major things in mind. First, in Acts chapter 2, it states that the early church continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching. The apostles were those who were with Jesus for three to three and a half years. He dispatched them to cast out demons, heal the sick, and minister and teach alongside Him. They heard His teachings constantly and asked Him many questions. The initial teachings were those that the apostles conveyed from Christ.

Jesus commissioned them to go into all the world, 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 the things He commanded. He assured them, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Initially, it was the apostles' teaching, and they were teaching what Jesus had taught.

In addition to that, the scriptures that James would have had access to would have been the Old Testament passages. What we know as the canon of the Old Testament was available at the time of Christ. They also had it in the Greek language, which was widely spoken during that period. The Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek in 285 BC by what we know as the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. They had the Hebrew Bible, although the books were not in the same order as they are in our Bibles today. They had the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, as well as the writings.

The words of the prophets were included in the writings of the history books of the Old Testament, such as Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First and Second Samuel, and First and Second Kings, as well as First and Second Chronicles. They had all of that, along with the Psalms, which were very rich and important to the Jewish people during that time. Additionally, they had a collection of writings that we would call extra-biblical. Although we do not have them in our canon of scriptures, they included many other writings, including a lot of rabbinical writing, which served as commentary on the Old Testament.

The early church recognized the Old Testament scriptures and began to acknowledge the letters of Paul as scripture. Peter, in one of his letters, refers to Paul's letters as scripture and even mentions that Paul is hard to understand. Many people find Paul's writings challenging, and even the Apostle Peter, who was a simple fisherman, acknowledged this difficulty. However, they recognized these letters as scripture.

The Gospels began to circulate fairly early, within 25 years of the resurrection of Christ, and were also seen as scripture. For instance, Luke's writings were referred to as scripture in some of the later Old Testament works, indicating that the Gospel of Luke was already recognized as such.

Now, regarding the next question, what are the three books that I mentioned in my Bible class? I will have to look at the syllabus; it has been a year or so since I taught the class. The primary book was one that I used, and remember that the class I teach at the Bible College is not just about how to study the Bible, but also how to teach the Bible. Another required reading in that class is called "Preaching" by Timothy Keller, which is a great book on how to preach. However, I am drawing a blank on what my third required book is, so I will have to think about that one.

As for the apocryphal books in the Catholic Bible that are not included in the Protestant Bible, if any of you came out of Roman Catholicism, you would know that the Roman Catholic Bible has 14 additional books in the Old Testament compared to the Protestant Bible. Among those are books like Tobit and First and Second Maccabees.

Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, is part of a number of books known as the Apocrypha. There are 14 books that are not considered canonical by the Protestant church. Throughout a significant portion of church history, these books were also not regarded as part of the Canon of Scripture. However, this does not mean that they lack historical and interesting value for us. In fact, the books of Maccabees, both First and Second Maccabees, provide insight into what was happening in and around the nation of Israel during the inter-testamental period.

This period spans several hundred years between Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, and Matthew, the first book of the New Testament. During this time, significant events occurred, particularly under the Greek Empire, which included the Ptolemies and the Seleucids—two major kingdoms within that empire. The Maccabees describe various happenings in the land of Israel during this time, allowing us to gain insight into the theology and views of the Jewish people.

Now, regarding the role of the Holy Spirit and personal revelation in putting together a sermon, I would say that the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential to our study of the Scriptures. As we will discuss in the next section, it is important to ask God for insight and wisdom as we approach His Word through the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised in John's Gospel that He would give us the Spirit of Truth, who would guide us into all truth and teach us all things.

We have the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit of God within us; we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, God can grant us wisdom and understanding in His Word. However, we must primarily ask God for this wisdom and understanding. When it comes to personal revelation, there is a real danger in people claiming, "God told me this" or "God told me that." While such feelings may seem valid, we must measure them against the plumb line of Scripture to ensure they align with its teachings and doctrines. Many Christians have, for lack of a better term, become self-deceived by assuming their personal revelations are infallible.

That they heard something that is not in line with Scripture. Now, it's not to say that God can't reveal certain things to us, but I am going to say chiefly and primarily His revelation is always going to be Scripture. I am very cautious about any personal revelation, and we need to be careful about that. We should use the Word of God as the standard by which we judge what we are believing. What we see from the Scriptures is important.

I think that is it on questions for now. Remember, if you have questions, text them to 760-814-1223. We are now going to talk about what I said is devotional Bible study. In the first hour, I talked about the metaphors that are used in the Bible regarding what the Bible is for us. The Bible is like milk for the newborn baby; it is solid food for those who are growing. Hebrews chapter 5 says Jesus talks about it being bread for us. The Word of God is like bread.

We have these metaphors in Scripture of the Bible being food, and we want to make sure that we are taking it into our lives so that we might grow. These food metaphors are helpful because they are something that you and I interact with every single day. You will not grow; in fact, you will die if you do not partake of food consistently.

Now, we obviously, in America, do not have a real problem with that. We have become a rather large nation, for lack of a better way of saying it, because we have an abundance of food. We understand this idea of consuming food so that we would be nourished, grow, and continue to live and thrive. Well, the same is true with the Word of God. If we are going to grow in our faith, if we are going to grow spiritually, then we need to consume the Word of God.

As you recognize, there have been those who have had eating disorders, whether they overeat or, maybe even worse, deal with overeating through purging—binging and purging. What is happening when a person consumes a whole bunch of food and then throws it up? They are not digesting it; it is not bringing any sort of sustenance to their life, and they will die if they don't digest it.

So, God's Word is essential to our lives, but we need to consume it, and we need to digest it. It needs to become a part of our lives. We need to consume it in such a way that we will be able to digest it for the purpose of growth. So, how do we consume and digest the spiritual food of God's Word?

There are many different ways to get into God's Word and allow God's Word to get into you. What we're going to talk about tonight is devotional Bible study. Next week, I believe we will be discussing purposeful Bible study, and then we will talk about inductive Bible studies. These are different methods, if you will, different ways in which we come to the Scriptures so that we can consume them and digest them, making them a part of our lives.

What I want to discuss tonight is rather simplistic. The challenge is that it is so simple that it becomes almost difficult for us because it brings us down to the very lowest level. The reason we're starting here is that I want to try to slow you down in your reading of the Bible. One of the problems that many Christians face is that we have kind of a buffet mindset about consuming God's Word. We pick up one of those plans at the beginning of the year. January 1st comes around, and many churches, our church included, have given a "read the Bible in a year" plan.

For many years, I followed a reading plan put together by an old Scottish theologian named Robert Marie McShane. The McShane reading plan would require that you read one or two chapters in the New Testament every day, along with a passage in the Old Testament and a passage in the Psalms. Normally, the passage in the Old Testament would be two or three chapters. It felt like gorging yourself on the Bible; you would read three or four chapters in Genesis every day, a chapter in the Gospels, something in Acts, and something in the Psalms. It was just this constant inflow of God's Word.

The only way you can do that and maintain a life with children and a job is to read very quickly, almost speed reading through the text. While that may have some value and might be helpful, especially for getting the larger picture of what's happening in the Scriptures, I would say that for a series of three or four years, I read through the Bible annually using the McShane plan.

One of the problems I faced, and I know that many people would as well, is that you would get a couple of days behind. Then, those couple of days would turn into five days behind, and suddenly you have 47 chapters to read to get caught up. The only way to possibly do that is to either skip it or spend an excessive amount of time trying to catch up.

Reading through the Scriptures can sometimes feel like a drudgery, leading many people to give up. I always encourage individuals to remember that if they fall a few days behind, they can return to those passages later. Just start where you are today and read through what you can. However, it can feel overwhelming, like binging on the Scriptures until you feel sick of them. What I want you to do is slow down and truly dine on a few verses or a paragraph.

One of the challenges we face is that the Bible is divided into chapters and verses, which can compel us to read an entire chapter. But sometimes, it’s perfectly fine to read just a few verses—three, four, or five—or even just a paragraph. I mentioned last week that there are what are called reader Bibles. A reader Bible presents the Scriptures in a single column format, organized into paragraphs. You probably can’t see this very well from where you are, but this is the Bible I have taught from for many years and the one I read when going through the Scriptures.

We have also handed out Bible journals here at the church. Last summer, when we went through the Book of Esther, and this summer, when we studied the Book of Nehemiah, we made those journals available. They take a single book and present it in a reader format, with space for you to write in the margins. This design encourages you to slow down your process of engaging with the Scriptures.

What we will look at tonight is intended to help you slow down, which can be challenging. When I study a passage of Scripture, I often find myself preparing to teach. For instance, I will be teaching at a conference in the Philippines next month, focusing on the Book of Philippians. Philippians is my favorite book of the Bible. I have read through it dozens of times and taught it no less than eight or nine times. I have even translated the book from Greek into English, which forces me to slow down significantly because I am not fast with Greek.

Often, when I approach a passage I know well, I have to force myself to slow down and consume it one verse at a time. This is what studying it in the original language compels me to do. It can take me 20 minutes to break apart just two or three verses and see exactly what they convey.

Happening in that verse is forcing me to slow down. What I'm doing with you tonight is encouraging you to slow down as we go through this, so that you can consume enough for the purpose of growth and that we don't just gorge ourselves on the Scriptures.

The aim of devotional Bible study is very simple. Devotional Bible study has two main objectives: we are looking for two very specific things in the text. This approach works very well in the Epistles, which make up the bulk of the New Testament. Many Christians spend a lot of their time in these letters, and that's good. While it is effective in other places as well, it is primarily effective in the Epistles, as we will see.

The two main things we are doing are looking for truths to believe—doctrines—and things to obey—commands. We will see in a few weeks, when we talk about word studies in the Bible and look at the original languages, that there are tools available for this. You do not have to become a Greek scholar to do this.

We will look at the fact that the Greek language, which is the language of the New Testament, has verbs that are parsed in different moods. There is the indicative mood, which pertains to the doctrines—the things to believe—and then there is the imperative mood, which pertains to the commands. However, you don't even need a Greek lexicon to engage in this study.

As we examine the English Bible, we will be looking for truths to believe—doctrines—and truths to obey—commands. That is the extent of what we are doing when we engage in this practice called devotional Bible study.

Now, we are actually going to do this with some passages of Scripture. I would ask you to open your Bibles. Even though the text will be on the screen, please open your Bible to Colossians. Colossians is one of Paul's letters. If you don't know where Colossians is located, open to the last third of your Bible, which starts with Matthew.

The New Testament includes Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, and First and Second Corinthians, followed by Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and then Colossians. When I took a class on how to study the Bible at about 14 years old...

Old Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Gentiles eat pork chops. That's what I was taught: Gentiles eat pork chops. Amen, and praise God for pork chops!

So, Colossians chapter 3. I'm sorry if this might be small for some of you whose eyes are a little bit older than mine. Colossians chapter 3, verses 12 and 13. When you come to a passage of Scripture, this is just two verses. It's not a whole chapter or five chapters; it's two verses. This could be your devotional time.

I would encourage you to even consider writing it out on a pad of paper. All you need for devotional Bible study is a Bible, a pencil or a pen, and a piece of paper. That's it! You don't need a commentary, you don't need a concordance—we'll talk about what that is—you don't need a Bible encyclopedia, you don't need a Bible dictionary, you do not need a lexicon. You don't need any of that sort of stuff. You don't need Blue Letter Bible, and you don't need Logos Bible Software. You just need a Bible, a pen, and a piece of paper.

How many of you have a Bible? If you don't have one, there's a whole stack of them; you can have one. How many of you have a writing instrument, a pen, or a piece of paper? Okay, good!

So, you just write down the Scripture reference at the top of the piece of paper. Maybe even copy out the text or copy it into your Microsoft Word. For those poor people who have Microsoft Word, Apple Pages is much better. Sorry, I'm kidding!

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

What I would encourage you to do first is to pray: "God, open my eyes to behold wonders from Your Word." It can be as simple as that. "Lord, I'm studying Your Word. I believe You inspired this. I'm asking You to open my eyes to behold wonders from Your Word."

Then, you just go through it. Read through it, and then I’d encourage you to read through it a second time. Maybe even read through it in a different version. If you only have one version of the Bible, you can go to blb.org (blueletterbible.org) and you can read it in the New International Version, the New Living Translation, the Christian Standard Bible, or the New American Standard.

The Bible is available in various translations, including the English Standard Version, the King James Version, and the New King James Version. You can read through these translations for free, exploring them in different languages or translations multiple times. This practice helps you grasp the flow of the passage and understand the different words that may be used in various translations.

For instance, the New International Version translates certain passages differently than the New King James Version. There are different methodologies in translating the Bible. The New King James Version is more of a word-for-word translation, though not a perfect one. It aims to find the best English word that fits with the Greek words in the original text. The closest English word-for-word translation to the Greek New Testament is the New American Standard Bible (NASB), which is the most accurate representation of the original Greek.

Other translations, such as the English Standard Version and the Christian Standard Bible, also follow a word-for-word approach. In contrast, there are thought-for-thought translations, like the New Living Translation, the Living Bible, and the Amplified Bible. The Amplified Bible, for example, takes one sentence and expands it into multiple pages. The New International Version also falls into this category of thought-for-thought translation.

When comparing different translations, you will notice both similarities and differences. Sometimes, translators choose entirely different words to convey the same meaning. This variation arises from what is known as the semantic range in the Greek language, where one Greek word can have a dozen different meanings in English. Translators work in teams to determine the best way to translate these words.

All the English translations I mentioned are spectacular, though there are some I do not favor as much. For example, I believe the Passion Translation is not a good translation of the Bible; in my opinion, it is only good for throwing in the trash. We can discuss that further later. Additionally, some people may offer you a translation called the New World Translation, which I find not very helpful.

Now, as you begin to go through the text after reading it several times, remember to put on tender mercy, as the scripture encourages.

Different versions go through this step by step, and it's very simple. What we're looking at first is, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved. We're stopping there. That's indicating something that I should believe. What is it indicating? I am elect of God. I am holy. I am beloved.

I want to suggest that there are some people here tonight who have a hard time even with those ideas right there: the elect of God, the idea of being holy. That word "holy" is the same word that's translated as "saint" in a number of places in the New Testament. Some of you come from a Roman Catholic background where you can only be a saint if you've been canonized by the church. So, the idea of being a saint makes you think, "That's not me. I'm not a saint." Or even just the idea of being holy makes you think, "I'm not holy."

Beloved, I am beloved, elect, chosen by God, holy and beloved. This passage teaches I am elect of God, I am holy, I am beloved. So, I write those things down. I need to believe this next thing: therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, and long-suffering.

Put on—what does that sound like? It sounds like a command, something that I need to obey. Put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, and long-suffering. Now, I want to suggest that you could spend an entire week doing some cross-references on kindness in the New Testament. What does the Bible have to say about kindness? We're going to talk about this next week when we discuss reading the Bible with purpose.

What does the Bible say about kindness? What does the Bible say about humility? You could spend several days thinking about what the Bible says about meekness. What is meekness? We live in a culture that doesn't really know what meekness is. But at this point, we're not even doing that; we're simply writing down that I need to believe I am elect of God, I am holy, I am beloved.

We need to write down "obey." Put on—that's a command; it's in the imperative. In this passage, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, and long-suffering. Then we continue on through these couple of verses here. Verse 13 says, "bearing with one another." That's in the imperative.

Forgiving one another falls under the category of obedience. Bear with others; I'm sure none of you have any problem fulfilling that command. Forgive others. When you read a passage like that and you stop to break it down, you might even find that the Holy Spirit reminds you of someone who did something to you at work that really bothered you. You may feel angry at them, and now you have this command to forgive one another. Why on Earth would I ever want to do that?

Well, if anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. There’s another doctrine, something to believe. There’s another imperative. I write down eight things here: I am elect of God, I am holy, I am beloved, I am forgiven of God, and I have some truths that I need to obey. These are truths to believe and truths to obey.

Put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, and long-suffering. Bear with one another; put up with other people. I must forgive as I have been forgiven by God. I am forgiven by God. Those are some things to think about and dwell upon.

Now, even at this point, if all you did in the morning was spend 15 to 20 minutes praying through the text, reading through the text, and writing that out on a piece of paper, would you possibly have something to share with your spouse about what you read in the Bible today? You don’t have to get into all the technicalities of how the word "forgive" is used in this passage. You don’t need to discuss the Greek tense, mood, and voice. You simply have to share what it is that you learned from the text.

Do you realize that the text says that God loves me? Maybe you struggle with that, but that’s what the Bible says. I took a class about a year ago that I really enjoyed on cognitive behavioral therapy. In cognitive behavioral therapy, it’s amazing how well this modality for counseling and psychotherapy fits with the way that we approach teaching the Bible.

The whole aim in cognitive behavioral therapy is to help us take what is true—the Scriptures, the Plumb line—and change our thinking to conform with what the Scriptures say. It's exactly what cognitive behavioral therapy does, which is surprisingly close to what we do when we're teaching the Bible to people. This is what the Plumb line says: I don't believe that I need to bring my thinking, my belief, into alignment with what the Bible teaches. The Bible says I am a saint.

Now, how did I become a saint? Well, the book of Colossians actually talks about that, and we will look at it another time. You didn't become a saint by how saintly you've been; God made you a saint. How did He do that? Well, He loved you and forgave you. That sounds like the gospel in just a couple of verses.

So, devotional Bible study slows us down to read the passage prayerfully, carefully, and slowly. We can identify two basic things: truths to believe and doctrines, and truths to obey—commands. We're only looking for things to believe and things to obey. Does that make any sense to people? It's very simple. Let's try it again because there are lots of passages we can do this with.

We looked at this passage last week: 2 Timothy 3:16. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. It is useful for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God or woman of God may be thoroughly equipped, ready for every good work."

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; convince, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching. For a time will come when they will not endure sound

When studying the Bible, I often start with a standard version and then read it in the New Living Translation or the New International Version. When I am preparing to teach, I have a Bible study program on my computer, which I will show you at a later date. I typically have no less than four or five English versions open every single time: the New King James, the NASB, the New Living Translation, the New International Version, and probably the Christian Standard Bible. I look at what a text says in each of these versions to try to get a sense of what is going on in the passage. I examine how it is translated in different ways by different translating teams to gain a better understanding.

I recommend reading the passage multiple times—two or three times—in different versions before we start to walk through it slowly. For example, Paul writes to Timothy, "I charge you therefore." We will discuss the word "therefore" in detail when we get into inductive Bible study. I've mentioned this before, and you may have heard it: whenever you come to a "therefore" in the Bible, you need to ask, "What's it there for?" It always points back to something, specifically to 1 Timothy or 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verses 16 and 17, which is the previous section.

Reading in context helps us understand. Paul states that all Scripture is useful for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. Therefore, he charges Timothy before God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Here, we have some doctrine. The title "Lord Jesus Christ" is significant; it is not just His first, middle, and last name. There is a lot of theology in that statement. Jesus of Nazareth is Lord, which in Greek is "kurios," meaning Master. He is also the Christ, which in ancient Hebrew is "mashiach" and in Greek is "Christos," meaning the anointed one—the one that the prophets were looking forward to.

Recognizing Him as Lord Jesus Christ is essential. This title also teaches us something about who He is and what He does. What does He do? He will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom. This introduces some doctrine: Jesus is the judge, and He is going to appear someday in the future. The Greek word "parousia" carries a lot of meaning in the New Testament, and His kingdom will come someday.

The kingdom is something I don't have to know all the particulars of at this point. I just need to recognize that the Bible teaches that Jesus is the Christ and Lord, and He is alive. In the future, He is going to judge both those who are alive and those who have died at the coming of His kingdom. There is doctrine there; again, I don't need to know all the details about that. I'm simply observing that it's there.

From there, we will go down a little bit further, looking at what the doctrines teach. We move into verse three, which states that the time will come. There is coming a time in the future when they—I'm not sure who "they" are yet—but I notice there is a switch from Jesus Christ's coming in the future to now referring to "they." They will not endure sound doctrine, meaning good teaching, but according to their own desires.

Because they have itching ears, I wonder if this means they literally have ears that need to be scratched, or if there is an idiom at play here. Again, I'm just noting that it's there. I don't have to explain all the details; I'm simply observing that there is a "they" at a future time who are going to have itching ears.

So, what are they going to do because they have itching ears? They will heap up for themselves teachers. They are going to look for some sort of teachers, and these teachers will turn their ears, the ones with itching ears, from the truth and will be turned aside to fables. I'm merely observing that the text of the Bible indicates something about a group of people who are going to be turned away from good teaching.

I don't have to answer all the questions of who they are, when that will happen, what exactly it will look like, what the fables are, or who these false teachers are. I'm just noting that the text says this. Because this is happening, Paul is predicting that there is something that will occur at the end of the age. He is going to judge someone. Who is He going to judge? Apparently, there are some people who have heaped up for themselves teachers who turn them aside to fables. They might be among those who are going to be judged by the Lord.

So, how do we address this? What do we do? Now we move to the commands of the passage. Paul says to Timothy here in this passage.

Preach the word. It looks like a command, doesn't it? I'm noting that there's a command there: preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season to do what? Convince, rebuke, exhort. If you look at these in the original language, we don't need to, but if you did, you'd find that these are all imperatives: convince, rebuke, and exhort.

Now remember that "therefore" that we saw in verse 1. We go back to chapter 3, verse 16. There, in chapter 3, verse 16, it says, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it is useful for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, so that the man of God would be thoroughly equipped for every good work." What do you use to convince, rebuke, and exhort? Preach the word, which is able to convince, rebuke, and exhort. This takes all long-suffering, so it's going to take some patience and teaching.

Convince, rebuke, and exhort with all long-suffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers

That will not endure sound doctrine. Because of this, they look for teachers who tickle their ears, as another translation says, who say things to them that make them feel good about their best life now. They will be turned aside to fables and away from the truth. As a result, they may be subject to judgment.

But you, here’s the command: preach the word. Be ready at all times to convince, rebuke, and exhort. How? With the Scriptures. The previous section said that’s what does this. Be watchful, like a soldier on the rampart. Be watchful and endure afflictions. Listen, there are going to be people who don’t like you if you hold to the sound doctrine of Scripture. Have you noticed? Endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill your ministry.

The fullness of our work that God has called us to is fulfilled when we share the good news of who He is with other people. There’s a lot of stuff here in this passage. If you took the time to pray through the passage and read through it, it would probably take you 30 to 40 minutes. It will take you a while, and you might end up with a whole bunch of notes. If you took the time to do that, do you think you might have something to share with your neighbor about what you saw in the Scriptures?

You may not have all the answers to all the questions that this brings up, because there are a lot of questions that come to mind as you go through this. You might be wondering, what on Earth is the coming of the Lord? What on Earth is His kingdom? What are the fables that people are turning to? I mean, there are all kinds of questions. Maybe just write those down on a piece of paper and come to them later. But don’t spend all your time trying to answer every one of those questions right now.

Right now, you’re just observing what is there in the text, and you’re slowing down to go through five verses. It might take 40 minutes, and you might do this every single day for five days with the same passage of Scripture. But I guarantee you, it will not be time wasted.

One last passage: we’ll look at a little bit longer, two paragraphs here, as the way it’s broken up. Ephesians—just a sideline, I say two paragraphs, but the Apostle Paul is the king of the run-on sentence.

The grammar teachers in the room would have hated the Apostle Paul; there would be red marks everywhere. Ephesians chapter 4, verses 17 through 24 states, "This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts. Who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness."

That is one sentence, but you have not so learned Christ. If you have learned concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, then you would put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.

Now, by this point, some of you are already identifying doctrines and commands. You are beginning to see it; you didn't see it before, but now you're starting to look at the Scriptures differently than you did 39 minutes ago. That is exactly what I want you to do. I just want you to see differently, and it is going to mean that you see slower.

It is entirely possible that you have read through Ephesians chapter 4 before and sped read through it really fast, missing all of these things that I am talking about right now. So how do we start? We start with prayer. We ask God to open our eyes, that we may behold wonders from His word. We ask Him to help us see the Scriptures. Holy Spirit, enlighten our eyes; help us to understand what it is that You are speaking to us.

Then we read through it. Read through it in the New King James Version, then read through it in the New Living Translation. You could read it in the New International Version or the J.B. Phillips translation, which is a paraphrase if you want to. You can also read through it in The Message Bible. I know some people get freaked out by that. If that is your only Bible, I would say that is a problem, but if you use it as part of your study, it might be really helpful.

Then you start to go through it systematically, slowly, intentionally, rightly dividing the word of truth. Show yourself as a workman or workwoman who is not ashamed because you have correctly handled the word of God. So, what do we see? I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the...

The rest of the Gentiles walk looks like a command. Now, it's actually in the original language, not in the imperative mood; it's in the infinitive. But those two moods, we'll talk about this more later, and it's not really that big of an issue because we're just reading it in English. However, those two moods appear oftentimes in our English translations as commands to us or exhortations.

I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk. So now we have this contrast between me and Gentiles. We don't even need to know what Gentiles are as Paul is using that word in this passage; we just need to know there's a difference between me and somebody else.

Well, how do Gentiles walk? Observing it indicates something about how they walk. They walk in the futility of their mind. Their understanding is darkened, and they are alienated, separated, distanced from the life of God. They're not connected to God. So, you're connected to God, but there are people who are not connected to God, and Paul is going to call them Gentiles.

We can remove everything that we ever thought we knew about Gentiles and just say Gentiles are not connected to God. They walk in the futility of their mind; their understanding is darkened. They are alienated from God. Why? Because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.

So, why are they alienated from God? Why do they walk in the futility of their mind? Because they have ignorance. They don't know who God is; they don't know the way of salvation. They don't know the way that God has called them to live. There is ignorance in them and blindness in their heart. As a result of that, they are past feeling, having given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

There's a laundry list there of issues. They have a deadness in them so that they are desensitized, and that conscience that God has given to them is not working in the way that it ought to work. They no longer have feeling; there is a deadness, a spiritual deadness. They've given themselves over to do bad things, lewd things. If you would read the New International Version and the New Living Translation, it would amplify what is lewdness because this is using a word we don't use all that much today: lewdness to work uncleanness with greediness.

Have not so learned Christ. It's indicating there's something different about you because you've learned something that they have not learned. There's an ignorance in them; they don't know something, but you know something. You know something of Christ. If indeed you've heard, it's indicating you've heard something of Him and you've been taught by Him—the apostles' doctrine, the teaching, the Scriptures. You've been taught these things; you've heard Him, the gospel, the words of Jesus Christ. So, you've learned about Him; you have been taught by Him.

Note this: this is a truth that we need to think about. The truth is in Jesus. Right there, I'm thinking of a verse that correlates in John's Gospel, chapter 14, but that's for another day. The truth is in Jesus; that's a truth we need to dwell upon.

Now, he says that you should put off concerning your former conduct the old man, which grows corrupt according to deceitful lust. There are some things about the old man, some truths we can see there. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness. There's a lot there to go through slowly, carefully, and prayerfully. It might take you 30 or 40 minutes, or maybe you will break it up over three, four, or five days. Perhaps you will spend five days studying through one paragraph, slowly and prayerfully reading through it, trying to circle, underline, or write down everything that you seem to learn from this passage.

What is a truth to believe? The truth is in Jesus. You could dwell on that, think on that, and meditate upon that all day long. What does it mean that the truth is in Jesus? God, help me to understand what it means that the truth is in Jesus. I will show you some tools in a few weeks that will help you to cross-reference and see where else that passage of Scripture or that word might come up, helping me to understand what it means that the truth is in Jesus.

Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind. God, what does it mean that Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind? All you'll have to do is walk around Escondido for a little while, and you'll see utility, emptiness, vanity. What does it mean to be past feeling and being given over to lewdness? To be so far gone that you are almost incapable of doing what is right because you've been...

Possessed by sin, it has taken over. That's what it means to be given over to something fascinating. You could write down all of the truths to believe and all of the things to obey. The truth to obey in this passage would probably take you 30 or 40 minutes to go through slowly, prayerfully, and carefully. Highlight, underline, and write down these things on a piece of paper to understand. This is devotional Bible study.

So, tips for the Bible in this way: T-I-P-S. The first thing we do after we have prayed, the first thing we do in devotional Bible study, is identify the T—the truths in the passage. These are truths to believe, doctrines, and truths to obey—commands. We identify the truths in the passage by circling, underlining, or whatever it may be.

Next, the I: I examine myself in light of those truths. The plumb bob asks, "Do I believe this? I am holy. I am beloved. I am forgiven." Do I believe that? That's what the Bible teaches. Do I believe that, or do I think that I could never be loved, that I could never be good enough to be holy, that God could never forgive me? I'm sure nobody in here has ever thought like that, except that probably all of us have.

I examine myself in light of this truth. Do I do these things? Am I bearing with one another and forgiving others as God has forgiven me? The answer to the question is no; no, I'm not. As I'm going through this, I might even be writing down, "No, I actually struggle with forgiving people and bearing with one another. I have a hard time with that." Maybe I didn't put a name down next to it of a person I'm having a really hard time forgiving.

Next step: P. I pray and plan to obey. "God, help me to bear with so-and-so. Help me to forgive that person who I actually kind of hate." I want you to become honest in your prayers.

Read the Psalms. David was honest about how angry he was at his enemies, to the point of saying, "God, kill their children." You could pray that; David did. He was being honest about how mad he was over the sin of his enemies. "Break their teeth in their mouth." Those are called imprecatory prayers. We'll talk about that more later. They're pretty powerful and they're God-honoring because it's not taking vengeance into your own hands; it's saying, "God, you will deal with this." It's a God-honoring prayer.

So, pray and plan to obey. The final point is to obey with the Spirit's help. "God, help me by your Spirit to be patient with this person." In and of myself, I can't do it. Thank God patience is a fruit of the Spirit. "God, help me to love this person with your love because I don't love them." Help me to be joyful in this situation because I'm actually not happy right now.

I want to encourage you to be honest in your prayers to God. You're not perfect; if anybody knows that, God knows that. So, be honest: "God, I'm not happy right now. I'm really upset. Help me to have your joy in this situation." "Restore unto me the joy of your salvation," said David at one of his lowest points in his life. It's a good prayer; it's a God-honoring prayer.

This week, in fact, if I can get a few people to help pass these out, you have homework. The homework is doing exactly what I'm showing here. I'll show you up on the screen what this looks like. You'll be getting this; you probably won't be able to see it very well. Over the next week, choose three of the following sections of Scripture. I've selected some passages from the Epistles, the letters of the New Testament, from Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, James, and First John. I want you to select three of these passages, and I want you to take 20 to 30 minutes three times this week going through those passages, doing exactly what I just talked about, starting with step one: prayer. Step two...

Read the passage slowly two or three times using multiple versions.

Step three: Identify the truths to believe, the doctrines. You don't have to be perfectly right; you might mess up this whole thing, and you might be wrong. But try to find the truths to believe in the doctrines in the passage.

Step four: Identify the things to do or obey, the commands in the passage. What is this passage telling me? Not what this passage reminds you of in another passage that tells you to do something, but what is this passage telling you to do? Identify the commands in the passage you are studying. Don't move out of the passage. If you are looking at Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 and 13—my favorite verses in all of the Bible—then don't look anywhere else. Don't go to Philippians chapter 4 or Ephesians chapter 1; just stay in that passage only.

Pray, read the passage multiple times in different versions, identify the truths to believe, and identify the things to do. There is an area at the bottom for your thoughts and contemplations, with three different sections for three different days and three different passages. Go through the passage slowly, carefully, and prayerfully to devotionally study the Bible. Yes, I'm asking you to turn it in next week, so come next week with this filled out and give it to me with your name at the top. That's called accountability. It's necessary and important.

Let me see if anybody texted any questions. If not, I'll open it up to questions.

Do you have a quick way to memorize the books of the Bible? Yes, there are some great songs that you can find on YouTube. Just search for "books of the Bible song," and you will find Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and so forth. If you need to learn just the books of the Bible, there is no simple way to do this; you just have to do repetition, repetition, repetition. Songs are helpful, and little mnemonic devices like "Gentiles eat pork chops" are helpful, but really, what it comes down to is just repetition, repetition, repetition.

How to study the books of the Bible? How many verses? How do I know how many?

When it comes to reading verses, do I just decide on a random number, or do I go from there, or stick to one or two verses at a time? As you're going to read in Gordon Fee's book, "How to Study Your Bible," he will encourage the very same thing that I will drive home constantly: learn to read the Bible in paragraphs.

If you do not have a reader Bible, I highly recommend that you either get one or download the YouVersion Bible app on your mobile device. Alternatively, you can visit blb.org, Blue Letter Bible. Here, you can select different versions of the Bible. The King James Version is what I'm going to use here. Let's go to Ephesians chapter one.

Right now, it's breaking it down by verse, but if I select the paragraph option, there you go! Now I have it in paragraph format, and you can read it that way. It is very helpful.

Let's see if I have any other texted questions. If not, I'm just going to open it up. Ah, Leo, thank you! "Does God eat popcorn?" That's another one. "Gentiles eat pork chops." Does God eat popcorn? Are we sure about this, Leo? I'm not sure.

Oh, this is a great question: what do you do with old Bibles that are falling apart? I have no idea. I have dozens of them, and I feel terrible about getting rid of them. Maybe you could send them to someone who needs a Bible? I have no idea.

Will the homework be graded? I guess we shall see.

Okay, other questions? We still have a few minutes. Yes, Jacob? Oh, wait! Hold on; he's going to bring you a microphone because we need it for the recording.

I was wondering if there are any resources, like a journal, that has that kind of method broken out, or if you just do it in a plain notebook? Not that I've seen. A lot of times, what I will do is I absolutely love these little Moleskine journals. I have dozens and dozens of them. I will just write down the verse at the top and then go through the truths to believe.

We're going to say something about Amazon Basics. They started making those, and I know they're cheaper. I've tried both, and I prefer the Amazon Basics one. The Apple journals are at a premium. He's probably right; just buy the Amazon Basics one, I guess.

The problem is that I have way too many of these half-filled journals, and I don't know how to get rid of them. Maybe my children will read them someday, hopefully long after my death.

Other questions? In the very back, John, Nick's going to bring you the microphone. Thank you, Nick. I have a question regarding the class. Later on, will we learn to look at the history of why someone wrote a particular book, like why Paul wrote Colossians?

Yes, we are going to cover that. I want to say it's probably two weeks from tonight. We will look at some of the study tools that are freely available to you. One of them is right here at blueletterbible.com. We will explore how to use some of those tools. I will talk about commentaries, concordances, lexicons, Bible dictionaries, and Bible encyclopedias. I'll explain how we use them, why we use them, and where to find them for free.

Yes, we will learn about the time period, why it was written, and the city where it was written. I will also make available to you a timeline on the book of Acts that shows where the New Testament books line up with the timeline of Acts. I highly recommend that if you've never done it, you read through the New Testament chronologically with the book of Acts. It will open your eyes to when these books were written and where they fit into the story of Acts.

If you go to our website, it will take you a long time to listen to all the teachings on that whole section of Scripture. One of the other things I will make available to you is that all of you who are signed up for the class are receiving an email notifying you about the class. This email will take you to a section of our website for this.

This is a group here, and I will put resources up on there, including the Acts timeline. I have another timeline that I will also put up, which is a timeline I made of Old Testament history. This will help you see where the different books and the prophets line up, just to give you an overview. We will talk more about some of those resources that are available out there. There are a lot of free resources. Recognize that the Bible is the most studied book that has ever existed, and there are some wonderful resources available for free. There are other ones that cost a lot of money, but they are very helpful.

Other questions? Hold on one second; I will bring the microphone to you. Nick needed to finish his circles on his watch today, so he is going to run around a little bit.

In this book, in chapter two, it said that any modern translation other than the King James Version or the New King James Version is not recommended. Later on, it mentioned that the NIV is perhaps the best. Every single Bible teacher has a bias; in fact, they have many biases. It is worth noting that if you do a study on English translations of the Bible, you have two primary sources.

Primary sources are manuscripts that the translations are built from. You have what is called the Textus Receptus, which is referred to as the received text. Those are the texts that the King James and the New King James are built upon, and there is a lot of writing and tons of scholarship on Textus Receptus documents.

Then, there is what is commonly referred to as the Westcott and Hort texts. These are additional manuscript texts that are compiled from the New Testament writings, from which English translations are derived. The King James and New King James are from what is called the received text, the Textus Receptus. Those texts have not had the weight of scholarship, and really, they just don't have the backing that the other texts do, the Westcott and Hort texts.

You will come to passages in the New Testament where it says that such and such manuscript omits this section, this verse, or this word. When you get into that whole discussion, you are getting into what is called critical textual analysis. As I said, the Bible is the most studied book on the planet, and when you delve into critical textual analysis, you discover that there is a lot of information layered within.

How they compile these manuscripts and how they are used to translate the Bible is quite interesting. We have the availability of multiple English translations that you can look at for free online. You will see that the texts line up very well. My preference is for the New King James Version. I recognize that the Textus Receptus is considered in scholarly circles to not be as good as the Westcott and Hort text. That said, it's not like there are major doctrinal inconsistencies or huge problems between them. The divergence of the text is not significant; it's not that big a deal.

If you were in a place where you had only one solitary Bible translation, then yes, it would be nice to have the New American Standard or whatever you have. A lot of those translations are great. The fact that he says the New International Version is, in his opinion, the best, I think he is simply saying that because it is an easier read than some of these other translations. However, the New International Version, both the 1984 and the most recent NIV version, are what I talked about earlier: a thought-for-thought translation and not a word-for-word translation.

If you are looking for a translation closest to the original Greek, the New American Standard Bible is going to be your best option. They just came out with the New American Standard 2020, which is updated, and there are some minor changes to that. For example, every time you see the word that is translated as "Lord" in the Old Testament, which comes from the original Hebrew "Yahweh," they now actually say "Yahweh" in that passage. So, you are seeing where those line up, which is somewhat helpful, but there are no major differences between those. I would disagree with Gordon Fee on that, but as I said, every single Bible teacher has their preference or bias.

There was a question back in the audience, and then we have to address that. These teams of translators are huge. We are connected to the Southern Baptist Convention, and Southern Baptists have a real passion for what is called the HCSB Bible, which some people lovingly call the Hardcore Southern Baptist Bible. But now it is just the Christian Standard Bible. I have like five professors who are on the translation committee for that, and they are very passionate about the CSB.

So, you should read from multiple versions and see how the different translations compare.

Versions align and how they change. I'll show you in a couple of weeks when I talk about Bible study tools. I have a Bible study tool that shows you exactly how, when you put five versions next to each other, they diverge with different colors. It's kind of interesting and includes percentage gauges.

We had a question up here. If you want to run up, here he comes. He's getting his circles on his Apple Watch; they're probably already full. One of my favorite things about this church and Cross Connection is your approach. I love when people start there. Hopefully, take it as a serious matter. It's very rare to find your perspective and the angle you take on the Old Testament, as well as the way you deliver it to us.

One of the things that has troubled me my whole life as a Christian is the inability to properly apply the Old Testament to the New Testament Christian. I have a hard time with this, and it shuts down a lot of conversations, even with friends. I often get called a heretic because it's God's word, and it kind of puts a stop there. I don't know if you've always been like this; I'm sure there was a point when something clicked for you.

Well, I'm kind of a history buff, so I love the Old Testament. I very much want to see the connections. That said, we had a pastor's meeting today looking at Deuteronomy 22, where we're going to be this weekend. It's very challenging. I mean, you read things in passages where you're going, "I have no idea what angle to come at this." This is where it really does come down to God; you need to give wisdom and insight. There are strange things, like we talked about last Sunday in Deuteronomy 21. There are strange things in the scriptures in the Old Testament that make you wonder how on Earth this is the word of God.

So, we come to it with a presupposition: God, this is your word. Now help us to see how to make sense of this and help us to see what the underlying principle is. All that to say, a lot of people shy away from the Old Testament because it's hard and challenging. There are things that are not culturally correct with 21st-century culture in America, and we have a hard time with that. We have to try and filter through, okay, what's the point of what's being said here?

We'll talk more about this on Sunday morning. We have gone over our time, so I'm going to close in prayer. But if you have questions and want to stick around, I will stay as long as you want to ask.

Questions? Do not forget to do your homework. Please, it will be due at the beginning of class next time.

Let's pray. Father God, stir in us a love and a desire for Your Word that is on the same level as our appetite for food. May we desire it more than our daily food. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

God bless you guys. We'll see you next week.