Three New Questions for Bible Study
I have often been told, and often told others, that whenever
you read the scriptures you should ask three questions: What does it say, what
does it mean, and something like what does it mean to me, or how can I apply
this to my life.? Now, these are good things to ask, and it is
certainly better to ask these things of the scriptures rather than simply read
the text, close the book and move on.
But I would like to suggest some questions which I believe are better, more
Christian, more devotional, and more practical.
When I say more practical, I mean they will make your
personal devotions better, will make your family devotions better, and will probably
even make your teaching or preaching better. You want a more
Christ-centered life, so do Christ-centered Bible study. It will help you help your children to
interact with Christ in family devotions, and it will help your church to know
Christ from your sermons. Remember, the objective of every biblical
text is to display Christ in such a way that people will respond to Him in some
way of faith. Remember, also, that
Christ speaks to Old and New Testament people through the Holy Spirit speaking
through the patriarchs and prophets, sages, poets, historians and apostles; the
Bible is all “red letters.” So,
ask:
1) What is Jesus telling these people (and me!) in the Bible
about themselves in order to make them feel their need of Him,
2) What Jesus telling these people (and me) about Himself in
order to get them to trust in Him, and
3) What is Jesus telling these people (and me) about the way
He wants them to act out their trust of Him?
If you will ask these questions of every portion you read, and
see that you answer them in the course of your personal study or family devotional
talk, or sermon, you, with the energy of the Holy Spirit, will have a live
transforming encounter with the Holy Speaker.
If all three questions are answered in the course of your text, that is
great, but you may find that the text brilliantly addresses only one or two of these
questions but not all three. In that
event you will have to remember that the answer lies elsewhere in the Bible. This is why one of the most important aids to Bible study is to make it extensive,
i.e., if you read the whole Bible lots of times you will be better at
understanding any given part of it. Just
be sure to answer all three and make the appropriate response to God.
Explanation of the three
questions.
Question
1: ”What is Christ telling these people about themselves in order to
make them feel their need of Him.”
This is an important dimension in every part
of the Bible. The Bible begins with the
revelation of what we have lost and how we lost it. All through the Bible, then, is the
revelation of how God intends for us to regain it, but at every stage along the
way men must be reminded of their loss, or of their condition as still partially
restored, so that they will seek the divine solution/remedy/help/etc., that God
provides for every part of our earthly pilgrimage. They
will not seek it unless they are feelingly convinced that it is something
utterly necessary for them. Why not? Because
of the magnitude of the need that is there, and the opposition made against
them by “the world, the flesh, and the devil.”
No, throughout the Bible, people are confronted, explicitly or by
obvious inference, to recognize their ignorance, their guiltiness, their moral
inability, their captivity to Satan, their dangers, and their need of strength
to persevere in faith and to glorify God. All of these things are likewise true of us,
but we are buried beneath many layers of falsehoods imposed by the world, by self-deceit,
by pride, etc. Is Christ calling these folks in the text to repentance, to faith, to hope, to action,
or, what is most likely, to some combination of these? Most likely we are in need of hearing the
same truth about ourselves, so we need to see that this text is addressing a
problem we (or our children, or our congregation) have. We must take this text and turn it, mirror-like,
upon ourselves, look deeply into it and say, “This is me!” “I am guilty of this,” or “I am fearful of
this,” or “I have been suffering this,” “I am in danger of this,” etc. Now, a great part of the lesson of the text may
be taken up with this first question. It
may consist in much probing of the conscience, or examining and dismantling
those arguments which unbelief has built up, etc., but the objective here will still
be to bring ourselves or others to the point of seeing the truth, feeling its
importance, being convinced that there is some situation that leaves me in some
need of Jesus’ wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification or redemption. God wants
me to see something about myself so I will look into the text to see what He wants
me to see in Jesus.
Question
2: “What is Christ telling these people (and me, my child, my congregation) about
Himself in order to get them to trust in Him?”
This is
the primary objective of all divine revelation, the objective of the Father,
the objective of the Holy Spirit: to have men “Hear Him!” and so to set forth
Christ, the mediator between God and man, as the object of all human affection
and corresponding action.
This is perhaps the greatest failing in preaching today:
many preachers tell people to believe in Jesus but often fail in telling them why
they should. It is wrongly assumed that
since saving faith is the gift of God, knowledge is unessential for it: God just
gives it. But faith, and repentance,
hope, obedience, love and every other Christian affection and action is a
response to a revelation God makes about HIMSELF, and the better you know HIM
the more and better your heart will respond to Him, and this greater knowledge
will come to you from the Scripture in your daily study of His word. So ask it of your text: “What is Jesus, the
one talking to these people and to me today from His throne in heaven, in this
text of scripture, telling us about Himself?”
You will be looking for some quality in God, some attribute, like His
Sovereignty, His infinity, His eternity, His unchangeableness, His grace, His
love, His wisdom, His power, His holiness, His justice, His goodness, His
truth, His faithfulness, His mercy, His compassion, His covenanted interest in
His people, His knowledge of and interest of them, etc. All these things are all combined in one and
the same God, so his grace is Sovereign, wise, just, powerful, compassionate,
etc. You will be looking for the evidences of these things, the expressions of
these things in His names and His actions, in type and shadow, promise and
fulfillment, etc. Especially, you will take notice of how Jesus’
person and work are demonstrated in this passage to answer to the need you found
when you asked question number 1. That
is the big story of the Bible, and wonderful beautiful practical facets of it
are taught over and over again as you read through the individual parts.
Question
3: What is Jesus telling these people (and me) about the way He wants them to
act out their trust of Him?”
I put
it this way because all our right responses to God are some form of faith in
Him. In the definition of faith found in
our Confession, “
By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is
revealed in the Word, for the authority of God Himself speaking therein; (John
4:42, 1 Thess. 2:13, 1 John 5:10, Acts 24:14) and acteth differently upon that
which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands,
(Rom. 16:26) trembling at the threatenings, (Isa. 66:2) and embracing the
promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. (Heb. 11:13, 1 Tim.
4:8) But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and
resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life,
by virtue of the covenant of grace. (John 1:12, Acts 16:31, Gal. 2:20, Acts
15:11)[1]
Faith is to believe something to be true because God says so
and to believe it so as to make the response which is appropriate to the thing
believed. Throughout the Scriptures we
are supplied with information about God in Christ which is intended to draw
from us some believing response in Him as our prophet – providing us with truth,
as our priest – saving us from the guilt of sin and all its results, as our
shepherd king – providing us with care and strength, protection and victory
over His and our enemies and ruling over us.
As we learn from great passages like Hebrews 11, faith is more than
“resting,” or “trust,” or “intellectual ascent” to something, but, and this is of utmost importance to us as we
do our bible study or as we instruct our children or preach to our
congregations, it ALWAYS begins with something about God
which must be KNOWN and is always greater or lesser, wiser, stronger, more
joyful, more peaceful, more fruitful, etc., according to the knowledge one has
of God, particularly of God’s being and attributes AND His covenanted
relationship with the listeners to our sermons. So, being motivated by our clearer view of
our all-sufficient and worthy Savior, we ask “How, Lord, do you want me to
respond in faith to you,” and we look into the text for the answer.
Conclusion:
Are these three questions for Bible study preferable to the
more common ones? Here is why I think
they are. First, they emphasize fellowship
with God. Bible study was never ever
intended to be a mere academic exercise, learning what is written in a book, (“what
does it say,” “what does it mean”) but an exercise of give and
take (fellowship) with God the mediator, speaking through the Holy Spirit in
the word and personally receiving from us the response of our hearts (i.e., “Speak,
my Lord, your servant is listening”).
So, in these questions we ask we are asking God to help us see ourselves
and Him more clearly for the sake of walking in closer friendship with Him. Like the aim expressed in a Medieval prayer
turned Broadway musical song—“to see Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly,
follow Thee more nearly.” Secondly, it
will make our Bible study what the Triune God intends for it to be—Christocentric. The Bible is a communication of the Logos,
the Word, of God. It is from beginning
to end the word of the second person of the Trinity speaking on behalf of the
Father, through the Spirit, to the world in general, and particularly and
effectually to those given to Him by the Father before the world began. Every text of scripture deals with some creaturely
need which is to be supplied, some fall-originated wrong which is to be righted,
by Christ Hence, the Bible is a message
from Jesus to us, calling us to respond to Him, and our Bible studies, whether
personal, family devotions, small group, or sermon to hundreds of people ought
to be seen as personal direct messages from God the Son, about us and our
relationship to Himself, to elicit a God directed, Spirit enabled response to Him,
the Mediator between God and man.
posted by Dr Rick Daniels at 4:15 PM
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