[This sermon is contributed by Hal Seed of New Song Church in Oceanside, California and of www.PastorMentor.com. Hal is the author of numerous books including The God Questions and The Bible Questions. If you are interested in The Bible Questions Church-wide Campaign, please visit and watch Hal’s video at www.PastorMentor.com.]
How Can I Master the Bible?
The Bible Questions, Part 5
Ezra 7:10; Deuteronomy 32:46-47
Good morning everybody!
Remarks about Anniversary and people’s “Add Ones”.
Are you ready to do some learning today? If so, say, “I am ready.” – Say it like you mean it.
Tell the person next to you, “I AM READY.”
We are learning about the Bible these days.
So far in our study we have learned that the Bible is a book like no other. It’s
• it’s a book of 66 books, written over a period of 1500 years, by over 40 different authors from 10 different countries, on 3 different continents, in 3 different languages, yet with one message and without contradictions from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.
• It’s the best-selling book of all time. Last year, 55 million Bibles were printed and sold throughout the world. The Bible is such a front-running best-seller that it’s never even listed on the best-seller lists. It’s the hands-down winner every week.
• We’ve learned that the Bible is unique:
• It was the first book translated into a foreign language.
When the Jews scattered from their native land of Israel, they began speaking Greek, so in 250 BC, 70 Jewish scholars got together and translated the Hebrew OT into Greek. We still have this translation today. It’s call the “Septuagint.” “Septuagint” means 70, because 70 scholars translated it. And the apocryphal story is that each of these scholars translated the whole OT by themselves, and when they got together, all 70 of them had the extra same wording for every chapter and book of the Bible. – I don’t necessarily believe that, but it’s a story that has weathered centuries of telling, and it’s interesting and kind of intriguing, if it were true.
• The Bible was the first book printed on a printing press, - Johan Gutenberg did it, and today, one page of one of his original Bibles sells for $100,000. – Which makes it the most expensive book in history.
• The Bible was the first book transmitted by a telegraph.
• the first book in Outer Space,
• the first book on the moon,
• It’s the most visited book in the world. Trinity University in Dublin, Ireland has an 8th century illustrated Bible called, “The book of Kells” that is visited by ½ a million people on yearly.
• Abraham Lincoln called it “God’s best gift to man.”
• Thomas Jefferson said it makes better citizens, homes, fathers, and husbands.
• Benjamin Harrison said it develops for you a system that makes life sweet.
• And Teddy Roosevelt said that understanding the Bible is better than a college education.
•
• It’s the book that reads you
• and the book you never stop reading.
If there is any one book in the world you ought to read, it’s the Bible. This morning, I want to teach you how to master the Bible.
Open a Bible to the book of Ezra in the OT. It’s on p. 338 for those of you with a copy of one of our black Bibles from under your chairs.
If this is your first or second weekend with us, The Bible Questions is a whole learning experience that includes weekly sermons like you’ll hear today, plus daily readings from this book, and weekly small group times to discuss what we’re learning. So I invite you to join one of our small groups this week by visiting the Information Desk in the lobby where they can help place you in one of over 90 groups this week.
Alright?
Let’s pray. Repeat after me:
Lord Jesus
Speak to me.
Amen!
One of the heroes of both ancient and modern Judaism is an Old Testament scribe by the name of Ezra. Everybody say, Ezra.
Ezra had an incredible thing come true in his life. In Ezra 7:9, the Bible says, “The gracious hand of his God was on him.” – Ezra 7:9
Wherever he went God blessed him. He was born in exile, and God blessed him there. He went to visit King Artaxerxes, and God blessed him there. He decided to emigrate to the land of Israel, and 2,000 of his closest friends decided to move with him.
Because he asked, the King sent with him 4 tons of gold and 25 tons of silver to make sure that Ezra could do everything Ezra wanted to do back in Israel.
The gracious hand of his God was upon him. Wouldn’t you like to have the gracious hand of God on you?
So, what was Ezra’s secret? What did he get so lucky? - Or, did he do something to prompt God to put his gracious hand on him?
Well, that’s why I had you open to Ezra. Look at chapter 7, verse 10.
Ezra 7:9 says, “The gracious hand of his God was on him.
And verse 10 tells us why it was on him: 10 For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees.” – Ezra 7:9-10
A lot of people think the Bible is a great book. Most people respect the Bible and believe it can help them. Some people even read the Bible. But Ezra went three steps farther. Not only did Ezra read the Bible. Ezra studied the Bible, applied the Bible, and taught others to do the same.
This is why whenever you meet a godly, Bible-teaching pastor, he seems to be blessed by God. – Because he is.
Ezra experienced God’s gracious hand
A. Why Ezra experienced God’s gracious hand: because
1. Ezra studied the Bible. He opened it and he read it and maybe even took notes on it on his own.
Then he “observed,” it. Meaning,
2. Ezra lived it out. He applied it to his life. He did what it told him to do.
Then, once he developed a level of mastery of the Bible,
3. Ezra taught it to others.
Here it is. Remember the book, “Eat, Pray, Love”?
The Bible’s formula is:
Study.
Live.
Teach.
As Ezra studied, lived, and taught, he didn’t do it half-heartedly. The NIV says he devoted himself to it.
When was the last time you set your heart on something, or determined that you would do something that would make you better?
Ezra’s reward for devoting himself to Scripture was God’s gracious hand.
Historians tell us that Ezra was the founder of modern Judaism. Before Ezra, the Jews were the children of Israel. After Ezra, they were people of the book.
To understand this, you have to know a little about Jewish history. Follow me for a minute. In about 1,000 B.C., the nation of Israel was ruled by King David, and after him, his son, King Solomon.
At Solomon’s death, the nation divided in two nations. The ten tribes to the north become known as “northern Israel,” or just “Israel,” and the one tribe in the south, the tribe of Judah became known very creatively as “Judah.”
Are you with me so far?
For 200 years these two kingdoms lived side by side, until the 8th century B.C., when northern Israel was conquered by the Assyrians and most of her people were led off into captivity, never to return again.
Southern Israel, which was called…? [Judah] survived on its own for another 150 years before being conquered by the nation of Babylon. The people of Judah lived in exile in Babylon for 70 years, until Cyrus the Great, allowed the Jews to return to their home.
These Jews were all from the kingdom of Judah, mostly from the tribe of Judah, so that’s how they got the name, “Jews.”
Throughout Israel’s history, their religion had been built around the worshipping of God at the Temple in Jerusalem. But the Babylonians had destroyed the Temple. So now Judaism needed a new rallying point, a new center for their religion.
This is where Ezra comes in.
When Ezra returned home from exile in Babylon, he not only brought the Scriptures with him, he also brought a conviction that every Jew ought to study Scripture.
As far as we can tell, Ezra was the one who invented the small group system of Bible study.
Ezra organized the Levites, the descendants of Aaron who once where the custodians of the Temple, to be Bible study leaders. And we believe that it was Ezra who invented the synagogue. Say “synagogue.” The word “synagogue” means, “the place where we meet together.”
Pre-exile, all the people came to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem three times a year.
Post-exile, the people called in their hometowns and villages to study Scripture every Sabbath day.
Since these people were mostly Judeans, from the tribe of Judah, this new expression of Israel’s worship became known as “Judaism.”
By the time Jesus was born, 400 years later, the Jews were steeped in Scripture. They started studying it in synagogue schools when they were 5 or 6 years old. Those who were really good at it went on to memorize the entire Old Testament by the time they were 13 or 14.
That’s how the Jews became the people of the Book. For centuries Jews have studied their Scriptures, and as a result some amazing things have happened to them.
An argument can be made that the study of Scripture has made the Jewish people better than all other people. - Which explains why they have so often been persecuted throughout history. Because people like to tear down and take from people are smarter and richer than they are.
How did they get smarter and wealthier than the rest of us? They studied Scripture. Ps. 119:99 says:
I have more insight than all my teachers,
for I meditate on your statutes. Psalm 119:99
In a New York Times article dated January 11, 2010, the Times reported that the Jewish people make up .02% of the world’s population. Yet…
• 54% of the world’s chess champions are Jewish.
• 51% of all non-fiction Pulitzer Prize winners are Jewish.
• 27% of Academy Awards have been won by Jews.
• 22% of Nobel Prizes have been won by Jews.
Those numbers are statistical impossibilities. There is no natural way to explain them – unless the Bible really does make you smarter than all your teachers.
So how can we get in on this? How can we study and apply and teach the Bible?
So how do you study Scripture? One of the easiest and most efficient ways is called Inductive Bible Study, which means studying the text for yourself. The process for doing this kind of study is usually three steps called Observation, Interpretation, Application.
Follow me:
B. Personal Bible Study:
Step 1 - Observation
Observation asks, “What does it say?”
If you’ve ever listened to a great Bible teacher, one of the things that make them great is that they draw things out of the text - things that are there in the text, but that you’ve never seen before.
How do they do that?
They make observations. They look into the text to see what’s there. A keen observer approaches the text of Scripture like Sherlock Holmes approaches the scene of a crime.
Holmes had great powers of observation, and you can develop them too. How did he develop them? He asked great questions.
• Ask great questions
Ask questions like, “Who did this? What went on here? When did it happen? Where was the body found? How did the criminal do it? And why did he do it?”
To start out learning this, you’ll want to use the six question words: who, what, when, where, how, and why?
• by using the six question words:
who, what, when, where, how, and why.
In the very back of The Bible Questions I listed a few great questions to get you started. (p. 193)
The virtue of using the question words is they force you to slow down and look and see and observe what’s in the text.
Let me show you what this looks like by practicing on a passage that talks about the importance of getting the Bible into our lives. We’re going to spend some time here, and you’re going to want to look at the text several times for yourself. So even though I’m going to put these verses on the screens for you initially, it would be good for you to turn to Deuteronomy 32:46-47 on p. 149.
In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is giving the Law to the people just before they enter the Promised Land.
In v. 46…
[Moses] said to them, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. 47 They are not just idle words for you—they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.” Deuteronomy 32:46-47
If I’m reading this passage I say, “That’s a cool promise.”
If I’m studying this passage, I start asking questions of it. When I ask the “who” question, I take a piece of paper and I write down…
Who: Moses, the nation of Israel, future generations
Because those are the “who’s” who are mentioned in the passage.
Then, I ask “what” – and there are a lot of “what” questions that can be asked of every text. But when I ask, “what” of this text, the first question that comes to my mind is, “What’s this passage talking about?” And my answer to that is,
What: Applying the Word of God to my life.
That may not be a completely accurate answer. But for now, it’s close enough. I’m just making observations, and they may not all be spot on.
When I ask the “when” question, I notice that there is no time specified in these verses, but I know that Moses is talking about them applying the Word of God at that very moment. So I write down:
When: now.
When I ask “where,” I happen to know that Moses is on the plains of Moab, even though that’s not in the text. So I write that down, and I write down “the land on the other side of the Jordan” because that’s the place Moses mentions at the end of the verse.
Where: the plains of Moab, the land on the other side of the Jordan.
If I didn’t know that, I would skip the “where,” or maybe try to look it up in a commentary, or online. – You’ll be amazed how much you kind find out about the Bible by doing online searches.
The “how” question comes next and like “what,” it can be asked in a number of ways. But since I’ve already written down that the text is talking about applying the Word of God to my life, my how question is, “How do I do that?” From asking that question, I come up with all sorts of hows:
How: By taking the words to heart.
By taking ALL the words to heart.
By passing the words on to my children.
The “why” question is sometimes hard to figure out. But in this passage, it’s a synch, because Moses lists several reasons why the people would want to apply the Word to their lives.
Why: So they can teach it to their children.
So they can live a long time in the place God has provided for them.
So they can live a long time.
All of this is just recording what I see. Now that I’ve seen a few things – and there are HUNDREDS more things that can be seen in this passage if we take time to observe them all. But now that we’ve seen a few things, I want to make at least one formal observation.
So as I’m thinking about what I’ve written down, I observe that…
There are at least three reasons to learn and follow the Bible:
1. So you can teach your children to obey the Bible.
2. So you can live a long life in the place God has provided for you.
3. So you can live a long life.
That’s an observation.
• Was it profound? No.
• Was that hard to come up with? Not really, it was right in the text.
• Did it take some time? [Yes] Thinking takes time.
This is part of what it means to love God with your mind.
Now, the purpose of God’s Word is not so we can collect facts about it, and it’s not even so that we can learn things from it. The purpose of God’s Word is to make us better people (more like God’s Son). So observation is only the beginning of the process of studying God’s Word.
Once I’ve made a few observations, Step 2 is to make some interpretations.
Step 2 – Interpretation
Interpretation asks, “What does it mean?”
Specifically, what does it mean for me and my life?
When I make an interpretation, I’m looking for a principle that is true for all time.
• An interpretation is a timeless principle.
So, when I observe that the Bible is so important that I should teach it to my children, and that it will enable me to stay in the place of God’s provision, and will potentially prolong my life, I can see all kinds of timeless principles there.
Here are just a few:
1. It is my job to teach the Bible to my children. Moses doesn’t say, “Take to your heart all these words so that someone else can teach them to your children.” He says, “One of the reasons you learn the words is so YOU can teach them to your children.”
Can you see how this is a timeless principle? A principle that is as true in our day as it was in the time of Moses?
A second timeless principle I find here is:
2. If I will live by the Bible, I will have a better life.
God’s going to give me a better life. Not in some magical way. But because a person who lives by the Bible is living the way God designed life to be lived.
(That’s good! – Turn to somebody next to you and say, “A person who lives by the Bible is living the way God designed life to be lived.”)
A third timeless principle I write down is:
3. If I will live by the Bible, I may live longer. It’s not a guarantee, it’s a principle. And principles are not ALWAYS true, but true MOST OF THE time. Get it? [Got it!] Good!
Once I’ve generated a few interpretations (or “timeless principles”), I’m going to do the most important part of my study, and that’s
Step 3 – Application
Application asks, “What am I going to do about it?”
This is why we study the Bible: so that it will change our lives for the better.
Applications are the easiest part of the process to generate, and the hardest ones to live out. Here are a few potential applications:
1. I will spend at least one-half hour a day in the Bible and prayer every morning/evening for the next 30 days.
If that seems like too much for me, I may pare it down and write:
2. I will spend at least 5 minutes a day in the Bible for the next 30 days.
Or, if I need further conviction, I may write:
3. I will make a vow to spend at least 5 minutes a day in the Bible for the next 30 days.
Because a vow is a serious commitment that I dare not break.
In chapters 16, 17 and 18 of TBQ, you’ll spend one day each on observation, interpretation and application. Then, in chapter 19, you’ll read about some of the best tools to help you with Bible study, and in chapter 20, you’ll learn how to let the Bible master you.
And that’s what we’ll talk about next week.
Friends, the power of God is resident in the Word of God. The more you read, the better you will be. The better you are, the better your family, your church, your city and your country will be.
Remember Michael Jackson? He sang a song that went “Read it, just read it!”
Study it, live it, teach it to others. This will make your life more successful than you ever dreamed.
How many of you will read it this week?
Amen.
Let’s pray.
Hal Seed
The Bible Questions Campaign Kit is available at www.pastormentor.com
