Eating and Digesting
Rev 1:3, Deu 17:18-19, Acts 17:11, 2 Tim 2:15, Heb 5:12-14
November 3, 2003
I. Last week I talked about the importance of developing the habit of spending time with God’s Word. And, we talked about ways to improve our hearing.
A. And, it is vital to our Spiritual growth that we be ready and eager to hear God, that we confess any sin in our life, that we take notes on what we hear, and keep a spiritual note book, and that we act on what we hear.
B. Today I want to get into some of the other things that we didn’t get to last week about how we develop the habit of spending time with God’s word.
C. We re going to look at the second thing that helps us develop the habit of spending time with God’s word. HOW TO READ GOD S WORD.
D. For those you who were here last week and did the drawing of the hand. First we just had the little pinky finger, now we re going to add the ring finger.
II. How do you read God s Word? The Bible says in (Rev 1:3 NIV) Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.
A. What that is saying is, "Happy is the one who reads this book and obeys what is written in it."
B. How often should we read God s word? The Bible says you should read it daily
C. (Deu 17:18-19 NIV) When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees.
D. Or as the New Living Translation says it "When he sits on the throne as king, he must copy these laws on a scroll for himself in the presence of the Levitical priests.
He must always keep this copy of the law with him and read it daily as long as he lives. That way he will learn to fear the Lord his God by obeying all the terms of this law. "
E. God wants us to read the His Word on a daily basis.
III. Here are some suggestions on how to read the word of God.
A. FIRST YOU NEED TO READ IT SYSTEMATICALLY. You don t use the dip and skip method. A lot of people do this. They sit down on the bed at night and start to feel guilty -- "I ve got to read my Bible!" -- so wherever you open it up that s where you start. That can be dangerous.
1. Some of you might have heard of the guy who said, "Lord, I want to know your will for my life." He opened up his Bible and put his finger down and it said, "Judas went out and hung himself" He thought, "That couldn’t be right." So he closed his Bible and opened it again and put his finger down and it said, "Go thou and do likewise." He thought, "Lord, this couldn’t be right. ." He opens it a third time and puts his finger down and it said, "And what thou doest, do quickly."
2. The dip and skip method of reading the bible can be dangerous. That s the kind of results you re going to get if you use the dip and skip method, the cafeteria style approach.
3. We need to pick a book of the Bible and read it a book at a time. When you read a letter you don t read the last part then the first part, then the middle. You read it straight through. Many of these books in the New Testament are letters. They re meant to be read straight through.
4. Also most bibles have sub heading in them, that group the verses together. When we read we need to read at least all of one sub heading because if we don’t we won’t get the whole idea that the writer was trying to get across.
5. So read it systematically from beginning to end. And you need to read all the Bible, not just your favorite parts. Some of you get stuck in Psalms and Proverbs and the Gospels. It s going to be pretty embarrassing when some of you get to heaven and Habakkuk comes up and says, "How did you like my book?" and you re not even going to know he was in the Bible. You need to read the whole thing.
6. Scripture interprets scripture. That means that seeing the whole picture helps us understand the meaning better. You need to read it all to be able to get a clear understanding of what is going on.
B. NEXT, READ IT IN A BIBLE WITHOUT NOTES.
1. Some people have several Bibles that they have taken notes in and literally every verse is colored a different color. Some have Bibles that every single page, every verse has some notation by it and that is good.
2. But when we go to have a quiet time to spend time with God’s Word, we don’t need to use a Bible that we’ve made our notes in. Because when you do that you have the tendency to see the same thing over and over.
3. There are many times that I read a passage and God teaches me something that I never saw before, but that is not as likely to happen if I have written down in the bible I am reading, what I am suppose to get from that passage.
4. For your quiet time you should have a Bible that has no notes at all so you see something fresh. And let God speak new things to you through His Word.
5. Don’t let there be any thing to distract you from what God wants you to hear. Read in a Bible without notes.
C. READ IT IN DIFFERENT TRANSLATIONS.
1. There are several good translations that can help us better understand what the bible is saying. I always preach from the NIV but I read different translations.
2. The Good News translation is good and very readable. The Good News was translated by the American Bible Society for the purpose of teaching English as a second language overseas. It has a very simple vocabulary and it makes things easier to understand.
3. The New American Standard is translated closer to the original word order than other translations. The King James has beautiful wording. The New Living translation is easy to read and accurate.
4. The point is that different translations can help us find more of the meaning, because we see what is being said in a different light.
D. Also, READ IT ALOUD TO YOURSELF.
1. If your mind tends to wander while you re reading, just read it aloud. Your mind doesn t wander as much when you re reading aloud.
E. And, have another bible that you underline or color code key verses when you read.
1. You can put all the promises in yellow high lighter and all the verses about Jesus in red and all the verses about the Holy Spirit in green. You can make up your own color code that helps you to study.
F. THEN CHOOSE A READING PLAN AND STICK WITH IT.
1. People say that they can’t read through the bible, but they will read through the whole Sunday paper. There are not many more if any more words in the New testament than there are in the Sunday paper. So reading the whole New Testament and the whole bible is a do-able thing.
2. There are several reading plans that you can get that will give you a schedule for reading through the New Testament or the whole bible.
3. Get one of the reading plans and stick with it.
4. You can keep a record for yourself to read through the Bible in a year. Pace yourself. If you will read about 20 to 30 minutes a day you can read through the Bible once a year.
5. If you ve never done it, make that your goal. If you have done it before do it again, there is no end to things that God wants to teach us through His Word. Let me ask you something. Do you believe the Bible from cover to cover? Have you read it from cover to cover? How do you know if you believe it from cover to cover if you have never read all of it?
6. One of things that I did as a young Christian that has helped me more than anything else is, I read the whole bible, from cover to cover. Within about six weeks of the time that I became a Christian I had read the entire bible, and it has helped me more than you will ever know. Make reading the whole bible in the next year your goal.
IV. Another thing that we have to learn is HOW TO STUDY GOD S WORD.
A. (Acts 17:11 NIV) Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
B. This is talking about the Berean church and they are praised because they didn t just accept what they were told as truth. They went back and looked at the Scriptures everyday to make sure that what they were being told agreed with what the Bible said.
C. We should do the same thing. Not just accept what a Bible teacher tells you but to really know God s word and go back to see if it agrees with what you are being told.
D. (2 Tim 2:15 NIV) Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
E. 2 Timothy 2:15 tells us we are to be good workmen. We are to suppose know what His word says and means. And, the only way that we can know what it says and means is to study
F. Anyone can learn how to study the Bible. It’s not something that only preachers and Theologians can learn to do. God intended every Christian to know how to do more than just hear His Word and read His Word. He intends for us to study His Word.
G. The difference between reading and studying the Bible is basically using a pencil.
H. The basic difference between just reading your Bible and studying it is keeping a pencil and a piece of paper and making notes on what you see. And trying to determine the meaning of what you are reading and how it applies to you.
I. The secret of effectively studying the Bible is knowing how to ask the right questions. And that is something that can be learned.
1. You might look at a passage of Scripture and not even know where to begin. Here are some questions you can ask WHO? WHAT? WHEN? WHERE? WHY? HOW?. These are basic questions that you can apply to any passage of scripture and get some insight out of it.
2. The important thing is that you don’t just read it and go on, but that you take the time to understand the meaning, Who is involved? What is the important part about it? When did it take place and what about the timing is important to the meaning? Where did it take place, and how did that effect what was done and said? Why did things happen the way they did? And, how does it apply to me? How does it affect my life today? What is this saying that I need to apply to the way I live and the choices I make?
3. If you will just ask yourself some questions about what you are reading and then try to find the answers it will help you develop a habit of studying the bible.
J. If the bible says that we are to be a good workman where reading the bible is concerned then we also need tools. Any of you who work at anything know that you need tools to get the job done.
1. Your tool maybe a computer, or a hammer, or a drill, or welding machine, but to get a job done you need tools.
2. So I am going to talk about some tools that you need for studying the bible. And, I want you to know that this is just touching the tip of the iceberg about studying the Bible. But it is a start.
3. One of the best books for learning to study the bible is by Rick Warren and it is called, DYNAMIC BIBLE STUDY METHODS.
4. Another tool that everybody needs is study bible. Four of the best are:
5. For personal application THE LIFE APPLICATION BIBLE PUBLISHED BY TYNDALE is great. It has all kinds of application questions after you read a passage. It will help you think through what you just read.
6. The best topical Study Bible is the THOMPSON CHAIN REFERENCE BIBLE. It helps you link things in the bible together.
7. The best background study Bible is the MV STUDY BIBLE. It gives you background information on the things that you are reading.
8. The best doctrine study Bible is THE DISCIPLE STUDY BIBLE.
9. And, Bible Handbooks are an A to Z listing of archeological background information telling you about the different people of the Bible. They are tremendous little helps. One of them, HALEY S BIBLE HANDBOOK, has been around for years and years. Billy Graham says next to his Bible that s the best investment he ever made in a book.
10. Another is called ANY TRANSLATION NEW TESTAMENT. It is a Bible that will take a passage of scripture, and it will lay it out on a page with the King James version, Living Bible, Good News, New American Standard, NIV, and Phillips Translation on one page. It will lay eight different translations of the Bible for that particular passage side by side on a page to make it easier to read in different translations.
11. The next thing is A COMPLETE CONCORDANCE that corresponds to the translation of the Bible that you use. It is something that every Christian needs if they really want to get serious about studying the Bible. If you have every thought about a verse and couldn’t remember where it was a concordance will help you find it. It gives you a listing of every single word in the Bible and every time it s used. So if the verse you re looking for has the word "love" in it you look up "love" in the alphabetical listing and you can find all the places that word occurs in the bible.
12. The next two items, are a BIBLE DICTIONARY AND AN ENCYCLOPEDIA, they are just expanded versions of the Handbook we mentioned. The Bible handbooks are small and concise. The encyclopedia and dictionary go into a lot of detail. You can find things that you ve never heard of before. If you have a question about something and you don t know who to ask, you go to the Bible dictionary and look it up and it gives you information about that subject.
13. The last thing is the MOODY ATLAS OF BIBLE LANDS. That has maps and charts and things that talk about Israel and Palestine, Egypt, and other places that are mentioned in the Bible.
14. There are also several bible computer softwares that have several of these things built in them, and they are a big help in studying and reading the bible.
15. I use three different ones myself. They make my study time more effective because they help me to look up information quicker, and allow me to look at more of the things that I am trying to study faster.
V. I know that what I am preaching about today might seem elementary to a lot of you, but there is nothing more important to growing as a Christian than learning to read and study God’s Word.
A. To mature physically we have to take in food that will strengthen our bodies, and then use that energy that we get from it to exercise our muscles.
B. The same thing is true with our spiritual growth we have to take in spiritual food from hearing, reading and studying God’s Word, and then put what we have learned to use so that our spiritual muscles become stronger, in order to develop the way we should.
C. To do that we need to learn how to read God’s Word effectively, and we need to make reading God’s word a daily habit. If we don’t eat every day we get weak, so how do we expect to stay spiritually strong if we don’t eat spiritual food every day?
D. And we not only need to eat spiritual food but we need to learn how to digest it. Babies can’t start out eating every kind of food because their bodies are not able to handle it, and digest it. It takes years of training to be able to eat as much Mexican food as I do and not get sick.
E. As Christians we have to grow and learn to take in different kinds of Spiritual food, and build our spiritual systems up to be able to digest more and more things to grow in our relationship with God they way we should.
F. That’s what the writer of Hebrews was taking about in (Heb 5:12-14 NIV) In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
G. I think sometimes we preachers assume that people know more about growing up as Christian than they do, so I am trying to take the time to go back to the basics and make sure that as a church we learn to grow spiritually. That we get to the point that we can eat spiritual food that will stay with us.
H. I hope that you will make a commitment today, to make reading God’s word a daily habit, that you will read through it and not jump around so that you can get the most from what you read, and that you will find a plan for reading the bible and read it every day.
I. And I hope that you will get some of the tools that you need to help you be a better workman where God’s Word is concerned, and put them to use, so you can grow in your faith and be able to digest spiritual food that will stay with you longer.
J. Because one of the goals of the Christian life is to grow up spiritually.
