Well, without the rest of these qualities that we will talk about in today’s video, any progress you make in Bible study will be destroyed, like a wrestler getting slammed to the mat. So this is a pretty important lesson for us today. Hello, church. Today’s lesson is lesson seven of a 20-part video series we have been teaching on Bible study, and today we are continuing to teach through the book Understanding the Bible for Yourself. We started last time with the first three requirements for Bible study, and today’s video continues with points four through twelve. So we are covering a lot today, and I would go so far as to say that if any of these are missing, you cannot actually study the Bible accurately. If you are new here, my name is Ryan Rench. I am the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California. We recorded this video series over a year ago for an extension ministry of a Bible college, and I just hope it is a help to you. I hope it helps you grow in knowing Jesus better and helps you get into God’s Word. So with that, enjoy this week’s video.
Obedience
Well, hello. We have made it to class number seven. Good job. That is a good number. I mean, there are seven days in a week, and so class number seven is where we are starting today, and it just feels like a good milestone for us. So congratulations on making it this far. I am looking forward to this lesson today. We started last lesson, class number six, with the requirements for Bible study, because we are bringing something to the Bible when we pick it up. We are bringing ourselves, so we have to know that we are ready to study the Bible. We are not approaching it like we are fixing the Bible. We said last time that we have to have a spiritual life. There must be a spiritual aliveness. You have to be saved. That is the best way to study the Bible. Then approach it with a spirit of reverence and awe and respect for the Scriptures. And thirdly, have the right objective, where we are trying to know God, trying to know His will, and trying to help other people. So I am thankful for the Scripture, and I am thankful to approach it in that way, and I want to continue where we left off in the last lesson, with point number four of the spiritual requirements, the requirements for Bible study, the things I need to prepare in myself when I am studying the Scriptures. Number four is that understanding the Bible requires obedience. Throughout our course of Bible study, and in understanding the Bible for ourselves, we do not want to just have head knowledge. We do not want to just understand the Bible and know that it is full of a bunch of nice stories we can tell our kids, but we want to understand the Bible so we can obey it. It is a unique book like that. You can read any book from the library, any book man has written, and you do not necessarily have to obey it. But man, when we study the Bible, we are opening up God’s Word, and we are compelled to obey it. We must obey it, especially once we understand it. We are called to obey it. First Peter chapter 2 says, “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.” So Bible study has this two-pronged approach, according to that text. We are supposed to lay aside malice, guile, hypocrisies, envies, and evil speakings. So there is a kind of spiritual preparation I need to have before coming into the Scriptures. I need to lay aside any of these evil parts of me. I need to confess those sins, those malicious sins, the guile, the hypocrisy. I need to set those things aside and repent of those sins and confess them. Then the second aspect of that is, man, just like a newborn baby, as they crave and cry out for milk. I have had three kids, as I mentioned in the first class, Abe and Charlotte and Gwen, and all three of our kids were just healthy babies, did not have any problems with that. My wife would feed them, and it was just such a routine, especially as newborn babies. I mean, every couple of hours they were crying out for more and more, always wanting more milk. In a sense, the Apostle Peter is saying, “Look, you need to have that same kind of craving for God’s Word. Just like a baby craves milk, you need to desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.” So we are setting aside the evils of the world and then coming to the Scriptures with a hunger for them. R. A. Torrey, whom I quoted in the last lesson, said, “It is remarkable how clear, simple, and beautiful passages that once puzzled us become when we are brought to that place where we say to God, ‘I surrender my will unconditionally to Yours. I have no will but Yours. Teach me Your will.'” He says, “A surrendered will does more to make the Bible an open book than a university education. It is simply impossible to get the largest profit out of your Bible study till you surrender your will to God.” I love that approach. I love that mentality, that mindset he describes, just having a heart that says, “I obey God. Whatever You want for me, I am going to do it. I am just going to follow God.” Well, that changes Bible study right there. The Bible says in John 7:17, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” So we are called there to know of the doctrine. And then John 8 says, “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” So there is a continuing there in God’s Word. I want to know it. I want to know the doctrine, and I want to continue in it, and I want to constantly obey it. I do not want to just know it one time, but I want to persistently continue in it as well. Psalm 139 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts.” That is a compelling prayer, where you are saying, “God, I want to be completely obedient to You. I want to be open to whatever Your Word says.” We understand from the parable of the sowing of the Word in Mark chapter 4 that certain things in life can, it says, choke the Word. They can grip your life and choke out what wants to grow in you. And man, God wants to get hold of your heart. He wants you to obey Him. He wants you to follow Him. But there are so many things, I know especially here in America and here in California where I am, that distract and that choke the Word out of people’s lives. It grieves me to see people who once were on fire for God so distracted by so many other things, and yet that is what the Scriptures teach: worldly lusts will choke out the Word. So a Christian who is approaching the Scriptures must approach them with an obedient heart that just says, “God, whatever You want. You are the authority; I am not. I want You to have full control of my life, and I want to be obedient in whatever realm You want me to be obedient in.” That is a good way to approach the Scriptures. So that was number four.
A Hunger for God and His Truth
Number five: understanding the Scriptures requires a hunger for God and His truth. Job chapter 23 says, “Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” I love it when there are people who have such a hunger for the Bible and love to study the Scriptures and love to get into it. I am so burdened for people who think the Bible is so boring and dry and dull. They are not reading the same book I am reading. Man, I am reading a book that is alive and life-changing, that molds people and shapes their lives and changes them. I love the people who are hungry for the Scriptures, who meditate on them day and night, and who filter their whole lives through the Scriptures. I am on a Bible reading app, and it shows who is starting different Bible reading plans. There is a lady in the church that I pastor, and it is not my church, it is God’s church, but in the church that I pastor, just yesterday I saw a notification on there that she started a Bible reading plan where she will complete the Bible in thirty days, a thirty-day Bible reading plan. I am impressed by that. That is a whole lot of reading. If she is not reading constantly, then it is listening through. Maybe she is exercising and listening, or maybe while she is driving to work that is what is on in the background, in an audio Bible format, where she is listening and constantly consuming the Scriptures, allowing the Scriptures to change her mind and to be renewed in the spirit of her mind, like Ephesians 4 teaches us. I love that. I love that there is a hunger for God’s Word, for God and His truth. If there is a hunger in my kids for food, well, as a parent I do not want them to fill up on junk food and candy. My youngest daughter, Gwen, has lately been eating ice cream, and then after eating ice cream she says, “My belly hurts,” and we say, “Well, you had too much ice cream. You spoiled your belly, because it is too much junk food.” We can do that spiritually too. We can get to the point where we put too much junk food in our lives, and we need the rich meat of the Word of God put into our lives. So study the Scriptures and have a hunger for God and His truth. Do not spoil your appetite on lesser things.
The Right Priority
Number six: understanding the Bible requires the right priority. It requires the right priority. “Seek ye first” what? “The kingdom of God, and his righteousness”: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” That seeking is putting God first in my life, so that in everything I do, I want to make sure I am following the Lord. It says He has magnified His word above all His name, in Psalm 138:2: “I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.” So, in seeking God first and seeking first the kingdom of God, a couple of ideas on that. Bible study, I think, should come first in the day. I understand we have people in our church who work overnight. I used to work overnight, and the very first thing I would do in the daytime was fall asleep, because I would get home at 7:30 in the morning. So I understand: if your work situation does not allow for that, then obviously you work around your situation. But I love waking up in the morning. I wake up really early in the morning, and the very first thing I do, well, the first thing I do is walk to my coffee pot and make some coffee, but while that is brewing, I get out the Scriptures and read my Bible. That is the thing that is changing my thinking. That is what is helping me. Many times I will read several chapters before even taking my first drink of coffee, so I even try, many times, to put the Bible above coffee. That is a good priority to have, as the first thing in the day. The author of this book said that when he was dating his wife, they were writing letters back and forth, and he said, “I did not even want to open a love letter from my girlfriend before I had spent time with the love letter from my God.” He would not read his mail until he had read his Bible, and that is a good priority, keeping God first in the day. The second idea there, in keeping God first, is that it should be given sufficient time. We need to make sure we are not just giving God a sliver of time, but that He gets a big chunk of our day. Now, I realize the Scripture teaches that if you are a married person, you give much of your time to your family. If single, you have more time to give to the things of the Lord. But if you are married, then necessarily you have to go to work. If you do not provide for your family, the Scriptures teach against that, so obviously we have to work, and we have to work for food, and that is going to be a big portion of our day. But I would hate to spend all of my day working and trying to make money and never working on spiritual things. I want to make sure that I am putting a focus on spiritual things, and not just a tiny sliver of time, not just one little verse per day, but that I am actually giving sufficient time to study the Scriptures. Studying the Scriptures should also be a priority above other books. I do not want to give more time to other books than I do to the Bible. I want most of my time to be in the Bible, not just studying about the Bible, but actually studying the Bible, actually studying the Scriptures. So that is a good priority for you as well, a good encouragement for you, and that was number six.
Prayer and Dependence on the Holy Spirit
Number seven: understanding the Bible requires prayer and dependence on the Holy Spirit. Prayer and dependence on the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we might think that goes without saying, but many times maybe not. That is such a thing we need to be reminded of all the time: I need to pray. I need to depend on the Holy Spirit to help me understand the Scriptures. In Psalm 119 the prayer is, “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” That was verse number 18 of Psalm 119. He is asking God, “Help me. Open my eyes. I need Your help in this.” Psalm 119:125 says, “I am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies.” So he is asking for help there. Proverbs 2:3-5 says, “Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.” Proverbs 3:5-7 says, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.” So seeking the Lord is a spiritual endeavor, and trusting God through that is a spiritual endeavor, but we need to ask for help in that. We need to seek the Lord in that, and seek Him all the time. It is not just an intellectual exercise. We are not just exercising our minds when we are reading the Bible, but this is a spiritual act that is happening, so we need to invite the Holy Spirit into what we are doing. We need to open ourselves up to whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do in our lives. So we need to pray for wisdom. James 1 says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” So we need to ask God. Sometimes there is a text we do not understand, and we are going, “God, I really need Your help on this. I really do not understand this. I really need some wisdom here.” So ask God for that, and study with that kind of spirit. If we think we have all the answers, well, we know from the Scripture, “But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” The humble are the ones coming to Bible study and just saying, “I do not have all the answers. I need God’s help in this. I am not self-confident. I am not bringing my own understanding to the Scriptures. God, I need Your help, and I need Your understanding.” Our understanding will only get us so far, but with God’s help and God’s understanding, we will be able to understand the Bible in such a powerful way. R. A. Torrey says, “Prayer will do more than a college education to make the Bible an open and a glorious book.” Charles Bridges said, “Without the spirit of prayer, there may be attention and earnestness, yet not one spiritual impression upon the conscience, not one ray of divine light in the soul. Earthly wisdom is gained by study; heavenly wisdom by prayer. Study may form a biblical scholar; prayer puts the heart under a heavenly tutorage, and therefore forms the wise and spiritual Christian. God keeps the key of the treasure house in His own hand. We look for no other inspiration than divine grace to make His Word clear and impressive.” Another author said, “When you are reading a book in a dark room and come to a difficult part, you take it to the window to get more light. So take your Bibles to Christ.” If we need to understand the Scriptures in a better way, then bring it to Jesus Christ, and He is there to help. That was number seven: understanding the Bible requires prayer and the Holy Spirit.
Meditation
Number eight: understanding the Bible requires meditation. Meditation. Psalm 119:97 says, “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.” Psalm 1 talks about meditation, doesn’t it? It says, “But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” It is a constant word that is flowing through our minds. Psalm 119:99 says, “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.” He understood that studying the Bible is not just a one-time thing, but it stays with you through the day, and you meditate on it. A good way to meditate on the Scripture is through memorizing it. Study a verse so long that it gets into your soul, so that you can stay with it the rest of the day without opening a Bible. It is just right here, memorized in your mind, and it stays with you. So it helps to memorize. It helps to get a good education and good training and good reminders, like this video series on Bible study. And it involves a mindset that says, “Man, I want to study the Scriptures to see whether these things are so,” just like the Bereans did, just like 1 Thessalonians 5 says: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil.” Studying the Scripture means, “Man, I am going to test this thing out. I am going to meditate on it and spend some time with it.” That is a good habit.
Patience and Persistence
Number nine: understanding the Bible requires patience and persistence. Patience and persistence. I am not going to understand everything 100 percent the very first time I read it. I am going to need to slog through some things. We understand that in child rearing, right? One of the verses we read in Peter was that we start as newborn babes and are supposed to desire the sincere milk of the Word, but we are not supposed to stay with the milk. We are supposed to grow to the point of, “Well, I can handle meat too.” So I love the milk of the Word, but I want to grow deeper in my understanding, so I can get to the meat of the Word too, and that is a little bit deeper Bible study and a little bit deeper knowledge. But understand, that is not going to happen at once. It is going to take a little bit of growing. It is going to take a little bit of patience. It is going to take a little bit of time before I am all the way there, and that is okay. We can progress through that. We need to be patient in this kind of growing, because there is some pruning that needs to happen. John 15 says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” So there are seasons where some things might need to be pruned. We have to be patient because it takes diligent labor. There might be some pruning, there might be some work, there might just need to be some labor that goes into it: seeking some wisdom, getting some training, getting some more understanding, and being diligent in it. Seeking wisdom is equated to seeking riches in the Proverbs. So we are to diligently seek wisdom the same way we diligently seek riches. Well, I do not know how many people are as diligent about Bible study as they are about work and providing for their family and earning an income and earning money. But that is the kind of drive we need to have. It needs to be that important as well. We also need to be patient because it is the Word of God. It is the Word of God. There are going to be things that, because they are written from the mind of God, are so far above us that we may not fully understand them. We have to be patient because we live in a body, in this groaning world, in this world that is decayed by sin, and we have to battle the flesh all the time in this environment. We get tired, and we get tempted, and we get dragged down all the time. Psalm 119:83 says, “For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes.” He says, even though I am getting tossed around like this dried-up leather bottle that is losing some of what it used to have, I do not want to forget Thy statutes. Someone said, “Read the Bible when you feel like it, and when you do not feel like reading it, read it until you do.” That is good advice. That is really good advice, and I like that. But it is going to require some patience. It is going to require some growth, some time, and a lot of the issues we face are not going to be solved overnight. We understand that.
Concentration
Number ten: understanding the Bible requires concentration. We have to concentrate. We have to put our minds in gear on what we are focusing on. In America it seems like everybody has a smartphone, and everybody has notifications turned on, so we are constantly pulling out our phones and looking at what buzzed in, what text message came in, what social media alert or like or comment buzzed in, and we want to respond right away. It is like our minds can never go deep anymore, and I think that is a shame. We need to have some intense, focused, concentrated times in life where we put everything aside, turn everything off, and just focus on the Lord and on the Scriptures. I would encourage you to do that. Maybe spend a whole day and just go away with God. Take a Bible and a hymnal and just spend time with God. I think we need to do that regularly. And maybe, if it is an hour a day, your devotion time is a distraction-free environment. I think we will talk through some more tips for that later, but a distraction-free environment where you are concentrating on the Word of God. We are in what is called the body of this death. We are struggling with this flesh, constantly being drawn away by distractions, so we need to learn how to concentrate. Having a non-distracting quiet place is absolutely necessary, and the Lord deserves our undivided attention. He gave Himself for you, so I do not think it is too much to ask that we give ourselves back to Him, especially giving portions of every single day. I understand you might have small children at home, if you are a parent, and you might only have tiny pockets, tiny windows of time, and work and the requirements of the things you have to do just to survive might increase. I understand that. But as busy and as crazy as life might get, I still encourage you to give time to the Lord. Concentrate on the Scriptures and allow the Lord to speak to you, and in those times remove the things that will be distracting. Do not have digital things if they are distracting. Do not be in an environment that distracts you. Some people like to listen to music while they are reading, and that is not distracting for them, but for some people like me, I am musical, so I am thinking about the instruments instead of the Bible when I am listening to music. So music itself might be distracting. Remove any distractions and just focus on the Scripture. A computer might help, but maybe a computer is a distraction, so you might need to remove that. Turn off cell phone notifications. Ask the Lord to help your mind focus on the Word of God. If there is something in your soul that is bothering you, then cast all your care upon the Lord. Ask the Lord to allow you to have a time of concentration and focus for a while, so that you can give your mind to the Lord for a short time, and maybe write down what is bothering you and deal with that later. If things come into your mind while you are trying to study the Bible, just have a pen and paper ready and jot those things down, set them aside, and focus back on the Scripture. Read with that kind of focused attention: “I am here for Bible study. I am here for the Scriptures. If I misunderstood what was said, I am going back and rereading what is there, and I am not going to get distracted here.” Another good tip: try not to read while you are tired. I will not say, “Do not read while you are tired,” because some people are just constantly tired. You wake up tired, so I may not be able to mandate that, obviously. But as much as you can, try not to read while you are tired and let that be a distraction. I said it already, but maybe read first thing in the morning. If there is an audio Bible you can follow along with, that might help your mind stay focused and attentive. Maybe it is just a Bible that is printed too small, and you might need to get some larger print, and that might help. Just keep on going. Be persistent. Do not give up. Keep your comprehension levels up. Always try to understand more and more. Those are good tips for staying concentrated on the Word of God.
Details, Humility, and a Good Church
Another tip would be number eleven: understanding the Bible requires paying attention to details, and we will cover that in more detail in the future when we get into more interpretation and how to study the Bible, looking for details. Number twelve: understanding the Bible requires humility, and we touched on that earlier. God resisteth the proud but giveth grace unto the humble. We touched on that when we were talking about prayer and the Holy Spirit, but that is the approach we need to have when studying the Scriptures: we approach them with humility. And this last one I will mention is that understanding the Bible requires a good church. The church, according to Timothy, is the pillar and ground of the truth: “But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” There are a lot of good teachings on videos. There are a lot of good teachings on the internet. But an internet pastor, a video recording of a pastor talking to you? I am not your pastor. I do not know you. Someone on YouTube is not your pastor; they do not know you. You need to make sure you are connected to a good local church that is preaching the Bible, where there is a pastor who loves you, and a church congregation, a family of believers there, encouraging each other in the Lord and provoking one another unto love and to good works. I mean, that is what church life is about. The truth is not in some educated seminary somewhere. The truth is in the Scriptures, which are founded in the church as well. So seek out a good Bible-preaching, Bible-believing church, and make sure you stay connected to a church. Most of what we read in the New Testament is all connected to churches, and that is God’s design for this time period we are living in. I understand there are churches of all levels. There is Bible teaching of all different degrees out there, and as long as there is sin in the world, which is until Jesus comes back and makes a new world, you are not going to have a perfect church. I am not saying look for a perfect church. I mean, we are in it. We are sinners. We are bringing imperfections; we are bringing sin to the table. So you are not going to have a perfect church, but get somewhere that is a solid Bible church, a Bible-preaching church, a church that is focusing on the Scriptures. When that is the case, the preaching does not have to be super dynamic. If a preacher is opening up the Scriptures and studying the Bible with you, and you are encouraged to open up the Bible, then you are in a good place, studying the Scriptures, and that is wonderful. So I am going to stop right there. Bible study requires many, many things in approaching it, and before we come to the Bible, there are a lot of things we need to make sure we have in place. I am going to stop right there with church, and we will pick up next time with a continuation of that thought, carrying it into the next thoughts as well. God bless you, and we will see you in the next class. Well, thank you for watching this video from our 20-part series on Bible study. I realize this kind of content, or our Baptist perspective, might not be for everyone, and I do not want to waste your time, but if you did find it helpful or enjoyable, would you subscribe to our channel? We are releasing videos every Monday at noon Pacific Standard Time, and I just want to help you bring the Bible home. So we will see you maybe in person this Sunday at our church. That is it for now. God bless you, church. Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
