How to Study the Bible - Week 8

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the 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." (Matthew 28:18–20)

A simple, reproducible method of discipleship—just Scripture, prayer, and the Holy Spirit—that turns ordinary believers into disciple-making disciples.

A Final Class and a Practicum

We've made it to our final class, and tonight we'll wrap things up with a bit of a practicum. Normally when I teach this at the Bible college, the last class or two are given entirely to each student getting up to deliver a five-to-seven minute exposition on a passage they've worked on all semester. We're not going to do that tonight, so you don't have to be too worried.

We could do as Charles Spurgeon used to do at his pastor's college, where students were trained to preach extemporaneously. He would hand a student a slip of paper with a verse reference on it, and the time it took to walk to the pulpit was all the time he had to prepare. They had to be ready to preach in season and out of season, just as Paul says in Timothy. I'm not sure I'd be ready to do that myself.

Why This Class

I'll start where I start every single week: why this class? It exists so that we might learn to access the Scriptures in order that we would make them accessible to others. Hopefully over the last couple of months you've found a better grasp on understanding the Scriptures when you open them devotionally.

We started with simple devotional Bible study—looking for truths to believe and to do, the indicatives and imperatives, the doctrines and commands. We examine ourselves in light of those things: do I believe this, do I do this? When we discover we're out of alignment with the plumb bob, we plan to obey, we pray that the Spirit would help us, and we apply those things with His help.

We also looked at purposeful Bible study—reading through a specific lens, asking questions of the text: What does this passage say about salvation? About humanity? About God? About Christ? We covered research tools like Blue Letter Bible, word studies, inductive Bible study that breaks the text into its component parts, and Bible arcing.

A Universal Commission

Last week I shared these commissions we began with in class one. We have been called and commissioned by God to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. That is a universal commission to the whole body of Christ—not only for pastors, leaders, and clergy, but for every Christian.

That brings us to the Great Commission in Matthew 28. Notice that if you did a word study, there are only two imperatives in this passage: make disciples and lo (behold). "Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Those two things are key, because the command to go and make disciples requires that God be with us, enabling us to do it.

I want to zero in on one of the nine marks of a healthy church: number eight, discipleship. Throughout my nearly 23 years in vocational pastoral ministry since early 1999, this has been my focus.

How Discipleship Shaped My Life

When my family started attending this church—then Calvary Chapel of Escondido—I was 11. Before that we attended an Episcopal church, where I was an altar boy and went through first communion. I knew when to stand, sit, and kneel, and when to say "and also with you," but I didn't really know what the Bible meant.

We called this the "donut church" because the fifth-grade teachers brought donuts from Winchell's. What I discovered there is that I understood what they were teaching, because they actually taught the Scriptures. Through junior high and high school, this church discipled me—we had a school of ministry and a youth internship program. Discipleship is the reason I'm in the ministry.

It's a unique blessing that I pastor this church having grown up here as a regular kid, with my dad not being the pastor. Pastor Mark, Pastor Jason, and Pastor Nick came up the same way. Seeing God raise people up into the ministry has everything to do with that mark of discipleship—discipleship unto leadership.

My Personal Call

This commission isn't only a general one; it's also my personal call. In January 1999, my youth pastor Tony Bonacci—who still sits right over there on Sunday mornings—stopped me in the parking lot. I'd come on as an intern handling tech, phones, networks, and the website, and after three weeks he said, "I'd like you to teach the junior high ministry." My first thought was no, but you can't tell your youth pastor no when he asks you to teach a Bible study. So I said what Christians say when they want to say no but can't: "I'll pray about it." And I actually did.

That night I was reading in 1 Samuel 12 and Ephesians 4. In 1 Samuel, when Israel asks for a king, Samuel says:

Far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you; but I will teach you the good and the right way. (1 Samuel 12:23)

It was as if the Lord said, "Far be it from you that you should cease from doing that." Then in Ephesians 4:

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11–12)

From those two passages I had what pastors call a sense of a call—a call to teach the Scriptures and equip the saints. That calling has taken me to Germany, Ireland, the Philippines, the Bible college in Murrieta, conferences, and here every Sunday. It all goes back to equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.

My desire, as Paul told Timothy, is to make disciples who are disciple-making disciples:

And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. (2 Timothy 2:2)

Simplify and Focus

But how do you actually make disciples? If you're not a pastor-teacher, how are you to be involved? I wanted it to be simple.

When I took over the church in April 2008, we were like a lot of Calvary Chapel churches—a lot of complexity, something going on nearly every day of the week. Meanwhile my wife and I were newly married, buying a home, starting a family. Saturday and Sunday services, Monday school of discipleship, Tuesday women's studies, Wednesday midweek and youth, Thursday men's ministry, plus three hours teaching at the Bible college. It was constant, and I realized very quickly it wasn't sustainable—for me or for the ministry.

So at the start of 2009, after only seven or eight months pastoring, I told the church our focus was two simple words: simplify and focus. To drive it home, we put a 40-foot dumpster in the parking lot and invited people to bring their spring-cleaning junk and dump it. We emptied that thing seven or eight times—a visible picture of simplifying.

It took a long time, but we've become a very simple church with a simple focus: life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus. We teach the Scriptures verse by verse, and we have groups that gather—prayer groups, connect groups, mountain-bike groups, running groups. You may not realize it, but as you walk, pray, and play together, you are discipling one another.

Discipleship Is More Than Information

Classes have a place in discipleship—I was raised up through schools of ministry and discipleship, and they're important. But discipleship is not just the impartation of information from a talking head to people filling notebooks. It takes place as you interact, iron sharpening iron, just as Jesus walked on the way with His disciples. He called the Twelve "that they might be with Him," and that time together was where discipleship happened.

I remember in tenth grade, Tony asked me to go through a little blue book called the One-to-One Discipleship book—an eight-week course that took us three years and we never finished. We'd meet every Wednesday before service, pray, open the book, and almost never get through it. We'd talk, I'd ask questions, or he'd say, "Hey, I've got to run to Costco—come with me." That's where discipleship really took place. The book was just a launching point.

The Two Essentials

So what's essential for discipleship? First, the Scriptures. The early church "continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42). The same word used in Matthew 28 appears in Acts 14:

And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, "We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God." (Acts 14:21–22)

That must have been a tangible lesson when Paul was probably still bearing the marks of being stoned almost to death. They preached the gospel, made disciples—obedient followers of Jesus—and strengthened them.

The second essential is the Holy Spirit. Remember, "Lo, I am with you always."

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth... He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. (John 16:12–14)

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. (John 14:26)

The church was birthed as a work of the Spirit at Pentecost. They preached the gospel, the church started, and it went out from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the uttermost parts. Fast forward 2,000 years: today there are 8 billion people on the planet—we crossed that number today—and 2.3 billion identify as Christians, because the church simply went out carrying the gospel.

Prayer Discipleship

I kept trying to figure out how to simplify discipleship so that ordinary believers become disciple-making disciples without always needing a class. I didn't have a great answer until January of this year.

I needed one final missions class for my Master of Divinity at Gateway Seminary—a three-day intensive taught by Dr. Alan Carr, a professor of missions based in Colorado. He conducted the whole class on Zoom, alternating short lectures with live interviews of missionaries from Indonesia, Africa, China, Azerbaijan, and elsewhere. In one lecture he told a story that changed my thinking.

About twelve years earlier, Dr. Carr went to Borneo, Indonesia, to minister among the Iban people, who live communally in big longhouses up in the hills. An Indonesian pastor he had trained had built a relationship with one village chief, and Carr was invited up to meet him. They arrived around five in the evening, and the chief questioned him for hours. Around ten o'clock the chief said, "We just wanted to make sure you had the same answers this man has been giving us—and you do. We're ready to put our trust in Jesus." He and eighteen other leaders all received Christ.

The chief had heard that new Christians "have to get wet," so they discussed baptism and planned to walk an hour to the river the next day. Then, over a late meal, the men started chuckling. The translator said, "They want to know if you want to see the heads." This was a former head-hunting, cannibalistic tribe. They lowered a box like a coffin holding 200 skulls—people their grandfathers and great-grandfathers had killed, including Japanese soldiers from World War II. They were proud of them.

After that, the chief asked, "Now that we've become followers of Christ, who's going to teach us? Who's going to disciple us?" Carr admitted he didn't have a good answer but promised to pray. The next morning he learned they had a cell phone and a Bible translated into the Iban language. So he told the chief: read a passage of Scripture each day, call the pastor briefly, pray together, ask any questions—then go share what you learned with others, who will then share with everyone else.

From that, Dr. Carr developed what he calls prayer discipleship: "a commitment of two or more people to pray in community every day—whether in person, by phone, or even email—understanding that prayer opens a portal of access to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, essential for our union with Christ and our growth in who we are in Christ." It is "not dependent upon outside curriculum but uses the Holy Spirit's power in community in conjunction with Scripture to transform and grow followers of Jesus. It is contextual, cross-cultural, reproducible, and cheap—but its greatest asset is that it provides portal access to the power of the Holy Spirit."

He later wrote a paper to present at the Evangelical Missiological Society. Just before him, a veteran missionary of decades shared how discouragingly hard discipleship had been—creating curriculum, translating materials, sending nationals away for theological training before they could return and teach. Then Dr. Carr stood up and shared this radically simple method.

What Happened to the Heads

About three weeks later, the Indonesian pastor, Lugon, called Dr. Carr. The believers had been praying and growing, and they had a question: "What do we do with the heads? The Holy Spirit has been showing us that what our ancestors did was not right." Carr said, "I don't know the answer, but the Holy Spirit knows—tell them to ask Him."

They prayed and decided the heads, which they had treated almost like idols holding spiritual power, were nothing compared to the power of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They wanted to return them. For the skulls from Japan, too far to travel, they dug a grave, buried them, and asked God to forgive what we would call the generational sin of their ancestors. Then they carried the skulls from a neighboring village—an hour or two through the jungle—to give them back. That village, terrified, hid in the jungle until the Christians sat down on the outskirts, waved, and called out, "Please come out, we won't hurt you."

They explained: "We met Jesus, the Holy Spirit showed us what we did before was wrong, and we are so sorry. Here are the heads of your grandfathers and fathers. Please forgive us; don't be angry anymore." Not that day, but in time, people from that village became the next church plant—because the Holy Spirit had discipled them through prayer and Scripture, convicting them of what needed to change. (Lugon, sadly, passed away of cancer about a year ago.)

I'd Seen This Before

As Dr. Carr shared this in January, it hit me: this is exactly what I saw before I took over the church. I told you weeks ago about a couple who came for counseling on a Wednesday night—there had been infidelity, and their marriage was falling apart. I shared the gospel, both received Christ, and I sent them home with a simple assignment: read through Ephesians, a chapter a day, pray, and talk about it.

When we met the next week, they said, "We got to Ephesians 4 where it says do not be drunk with wine, and we've been getting drunk a lot. We feel like maybe we shouldn't do this." I said, "Yes, that's right." It was simply praying and going through the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit was speaking to them. That's exactly what I saw years ago, and what I've been trying to simplify ever since.

The Practicum: Become a Disciple-Making Disciple

So here's the practical side of everything we've done. I'm asking you to do this, and you have a whole room of people to start with. Identify a friend you've made in this class or here at the church—guys with another guy, gals with another gal (and married couples can do this together too, but I'd still encourage you to find another same-gender partner). Make it a point three to five days a week to get together by phone, FaceTime, Zoom, email, or in person, and commit just ten or fifteen minutes.

What passage? I built a website called thelisteningplan.com. We just started 2 Peter today; it goes through Revelation by year's end, then starts over with Matthew 1, working through the New Testament every weekday. Subscribe to the email or podcast and simply go through the Scriptures.

And when you hit something you don't understand—"What do we do with the heads?"—ask the Holy Spirit. Ask Pastor Mark, Pastor Jason, Pastor Garrett, a more seasoned friend, or a commentary like David Guzik's. But understand this: the fastest path to growing in your faith is exercising your faith. You will not grow if you do not exercise it.

For some this will be a stretch; others of you talk a lot, so it won't be a problem—and it would be far better to talk about the Bible than about Fox News. You're already discipling yourself in the ways of this world by what you put into your brain. Far more fruitful to disciple yourself in the Scriptures. As you read, pray for one another and keep each other accountable. When Scripture says to bear with one another and forgive one another, you can say, "I have a hard time forgiving—will you pray for me?" I guarantee that as you have that accountability in prayer and Scripture, God will transform you.

You Are Not Sufficient in Yourself

Some additional opportunities: we need children's ministry teachers. You may think, "I can't do that." Yes, you can. And "I'll pray about it" is not your cop-out, because God has called you. You may feel like a fish out of water—and in yourself, you're right, you can't. But:

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:5–6)

He enables us. I felt totally out of place when I first got up to teach Galatians 1 to junior highers on February 14, 1999. I went home thinking, "I'm never doing that again"—and then I had to get up the next week and do it again.

We could also use your help in the nursing-home ministry that Lorraine has just taken over—Care Connection—teaching simple Bible studies in local nursing homes. The people in those homes would be overjoyed if you committed to that. And the prayer team gathers weekly to pray for the church's needs; if you're already doing prayer discipleship, it's a small step to join them, and we could start another team at a different time if Wednesday doesn't work.

If you want to grow in your faith, you have to begin exercising it. It always starts small—in Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, then the uttermost parts. Maybe it starts with you and your spouse, then moves to another person in the church, then to teaching in the children's ministry or a nursing home. God wants to extend your borders and use you to share what He's teaching you—even if the truths seem very simple. We often need to hear the same simple thing five thousand times before we get it.

The Simple Gospel

Someone asked: what gospel did they declare in Acts 14? Paul tells us:

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you... that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once... After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also. (1 Corinthians 15:1–8)

There it is: Christ died for our sins according to the Old Testament Scriptures, which all pointed to a sacrifice without spot or blemish; He was buried—truly dead; He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures; and we know He rose because He was seen by witnesses. That's the simple gospel.

Authority, Reliability, Sufficiency, Veracity

Someone asked about the authority of Scripture. Last week we said we trust the authority, reliability, sufficiency, and veracity of Scripture. Authority means it becomes the standard for our lives—what is right, wrong, good, and true. Sufficiency means all we need for life and faith is found in the Scriptures; not every fact in the universe is in the Bible, but everything you need to know about God and how to live before Him is there. You don't need another book like the Book of Mormon—you need the Bible and the Spirit of God guiding you into all truth. And veracity means it is true.

A Final Word

I'll post a link on pastormiles.com to Dr. Carr's full video so you can hear the whole story in his own words. Prayer discipleship is wonderfully simple: a commitment of two or more believers to pray in community, going through a passage of Scripture, trusting that prayer opens a portal to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. All you need is a Bible and the Holy Spirit, and God will lead and teach you.

So my challenge is to put this into practice. You're already practicing reading the Bible devotionally on your own; now take it a step further with a partner. If you've struggled to be consistent, the accountability of calling a friend at 7:30 each morning changes everything. When I started teaching junior highers, I never dug into the Bible more, and my devotional life had to change because I had to be consistent.

Thank you to so many of you who stuck around for the whole class. I ordered 25 or 30 books expecting about 30 people, and you blew my mind. It encourages me greatly. So now go sign up for children's ministry, talk to Lorraine about Care Connection, and find a partner to pray and go through the Scriptures with—because I know you are all obedient, God-fearing Christians.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I thank You that You have made this really quite simple. You have given us Your Spirit to guide us in all truth and teach us all things, and You have given us Your Word so that we might know You—Your nature, what You are like, and Your will. I pray that as we get to know You through studying the Scriptures, and as the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth, You would challenge us and stir us to share these things with someone else, to prayerfully get into the Scriptures with somebody else, that we would grow and shine brightly. Lord, You have called us to be the salt of the earth and a light, a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden. If ever there was a time our community, our nation, and the world needed salt and light, it is this moment. We are living in critical times. So shine brightly through this church and this gathering, and use us as a preserving and flavoring agent, as a light to those in darkness. We all know family members and friends who are in darkness and need Your grace, so stir us to share the good news with them. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.