Please let me ramble for a bit about what bothers me about all these devotionals and branded study Bibles that keep coming out. We receive the Christian Book Distributor’s catalog at our house and there are SO MANY offerings!
The devotionals are typically a verse or two of Scripture, a couple paragraphs about the passage, and maybe a sentence or two that serves as a prayer. Some of them are excellent, providing a good focus over time in small bites. But if this is the staple of your Scripture consumption, you’re setting yourself up to arrive at erroneous and potentially dangerous conclusions about God, about reality, about what it’s all about. Yes, God is about the hope and reminders in those pages. But it’s the other parts of the Bible that rarely ever make it into those neat little hardbound packages that inform us of the whole nitty-gritty of God’s intention for us. It’s all the rest of the Bible that shapes the big picture we’re living in, the big picture we really need to know how to navigate.
The study Bibles…have you ever taken a look at what’s available? I’m not just talking about the hardbound/ soft cover/ leather/ leather-look (plus all the color choices!)/ large print/ giant print/ etc., options. The famous preachers put out study Bibles based on their own notes and denominational bents, and you can find themed Bibles like recovery, student, discipleship, men of character, spirit-led, life application, busy mothers, devotional… all of these for men, women, teens, or preteens and more than a few options for your 6-10 year old. They’re packed with guides to specific passages that apply to the theme, interpretations and applications, nuggets of history, culture, theology, and other commentary.
Please don’t misunderstand me—I love that the Word of God is so accessible to us these days, both in having a Bible at all and in having abundant scholarly guidance. I say get any one of these Bibles into someone’s hands who wants to read the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is absolutely just as present in those packages as He is in a stripped-down, text-only, no cross-references rendering.
What I’m saying is that at some point, we need to get beyond relying on someone else’s ideas and dig into that stuff for ourselves. We need to get to possession of personally-won knowledge how the story of God with us is revealed from place to place, Old Testament to New, book to book, writer to writer, passage to precious passage that we are hiding in our hearts.
Have you read through the entire Bible and gotten that overview of how God has dealt with creation from day one? Have you read enough of the Biblical history to see how the people cause most of their own problems? Which scenario has more prooftexts from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21: the angry, judging God or the God of justice, lovingkindness and compassion?
Is the Jesus you emulate only a warm and comforting companion for the hurting, or does He also meet with self-righteous leaders to talk to them about protecting the status quo at the expense of those dying for God’s kind of love and truth, and then go take His lunch to the park where the gays hang out looking for hookups?
Does your Christian behavior stem from shoulds based on those parts about how Christians should act, or does it stem from the time your desperately grateful heart spends wrestling with the realities of your sinfulness and God’s all-compassing grace, which you discover as you pore over the pages of your Bible?
Is your time in your Bible changing your life?
If your honest answer is no, why?
All those brief bits and notes and guides are fine…until they are what keeps you from hearing from God Himself, in His own Words into your heart with conviction. It’s so easy to get diverted to the sidebars and chase down the key words in the concordance. They’re great tools. But they can be a serious distraction from the actual Word of God.
I like to think that the stuff that’s printed in those study Bibles and devotionals is all truth, every sentence and phrase a true vessel of grace. But those devotionals are not the whole counsel of the word of God, and the commentary and extensive study notes are also not the word of God. Again, please don’t get me wrong here. I read the commentaries—after I’ve done my part, to see if I end up at the same place, again trusting that these popular preachers do indeed rightly divide the Word of Truth. I use some devotionals, but for snacking and respite, not for my whole diet.
Concerning him we have much to say, and it is difficult to explain, since you have become poor listeners. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the actual words of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unacquainted with the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to distinguish between good and evil. Hebrews 5:11-14
All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be fully capable, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
Read it. Study it. Practice it.
For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrew 4:12
All this to say that a new friend told me about the S.P.E.C.K. method of Bible study and I really like it! How have I not known about this until now? Essentially, you look for five things in the passage in question (although you won’t always find all five). You can apply it to a short passage as well as to a whole book, which you’d break up into those shorter segments to examine one at a time.
After you’ve quieted yourself before God with your Bible and notebook, read your segment of Scripture over as many times as it takes. Prayerfully look for
Sin (to confess or avoid)
Promise (to claim)
Example (to follow or not follow)
Command (to obey)
Knowledge (of God)
Here’s an introduction with a really good example (go ahead and read it—I like a lot this girl says in her write-up). The point is gaining the larger picture of God, clues to His nature and character, what He does and why He does it. Something said here can shine an Aha! moment on something else over there. The more you spend time in the Word, the better you understand God and what He’s really after. Tiny, partial images can be misleading if that’s all you ever see.
[There are some variations of this—SPECS (significant truth for the second S), SPECKA (application for the A)—and any of them are good—you’re wrestling with the Word of God yourself.]
Of course, there are occasional puzzles presented by our lack of knowledge of the culture and history that made sense to the original writer and reader. Rarely, however, does grasp of the critical, livable truths rely on obscure understandings. The explanations found in the commentary and histories frequently make the message even more reverence-inspiring, but the original conviction by the Holy Spirit in your seeking, obedient heart is wholly adequate for your holiness and equipping.
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a worker who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15
I’m preaching hard, aren’t I? Sorry. I don’t mean to be forceful, but it is important. Days are coming when our faith will rely on what we’ve hidden in our hearts because we won’t have all our fancy Bibles. I’m anxious for some protracted time in the Word for myself and…what’s my excuse? I’ll have to work that out.
But please let me encourage you to get into the precious Word for yourself. The rewards are astonishing. Most humbling is that you’ll get to know God, the creator of the universe, God Himself.
But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’” Matthew 4:4
There’s your license. Go hunting. Go.
Toward the promise,
Lana
P.S. File this one away for the next time you get called to lead a Bible study. Passage, five points to dig out and discuss—should be simple and practical!
Through the Bible in a Year Reading Plan and Challenge
One month to go and we’re through the Bible! Does it seem possible? Stay strong! I know the end of the year gets crazy, but you have a higher purpose here.
Of course, I’m thinking about another reading challenge for next year—maybe something shorter, a smaller chunk over less time. We’ll see. In the meantime, I found this fantastic list of plans in case you want to pick your own. Note the last option—a personal reading plan generator! I wish it was set up to select each book or the separate genres, but this is still very nice.
Sunday, December 5 Catch up and reflect
Monday, December 6 Daniel 1-2, 1 John 1
Tuesday, December 7 Ezekiel 3-4, 1 John 2
Wednesday, December 8 Ezekiel 5-6, 1 John 3
Thursday, December 9 Ezekiel 7-9, 1 John 4
Friday, December 10 Ezekiel 10-12, 1 John 5
Saturday, December 11 Hosea 1-4 , 2 John - Jude
Question for this week’s reading: 1 John is full of jewels of instruction and bewildering hair-pin turns in the train of thought. In your best estimation, what is John’s theme in this book?
Here’s the link to last week’s issue, Thanksgiving thoughts, and the week before Worship in street shoes
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