If The Bible Is The Word Of God, What Should We Do With It?

This is a star without a speck; a sun without a blot; a light without darkness; a moon without its impaleness; a glory without a dimness. O Bible! it cannot be said of any other book, that it is perfect and pure; but of thee we can declare all wisdom is gathered up in thee, without a particle of folly.

-Charles Spurgeon

The Bible is amazing. I, myself, wish I knew this more. The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, authoritative Word of God. It is sufficient, relevant, and applicable to all of life. The fact that is has withstood thousands of years of the most intense persecution and only multiplies gives forth its supernatural character. Someone is behind the preservation of it.

But, what is our attitude towards it? In an age of increasing biblical illiteracy among solid evangelical churches, what is our relationship with the Bible? If the Bible is God’s Word, what should we do with it?

1. Read It!
   It is stunning how many Christians profess that the Bible is God’s Word and yet how few of us know it! If the Bible is God’s Word then we must read it. There is no other application more important than this. At the most basic level, what does every Christian do? They read the Bible. The Bible is how we grow in faith. The Bible is how we come to know God.
   Christians in centuries past who didn’t have access to Bibles were dying that people would read it to them. Men and women died to have the Bible accurately translated into their native tongue. They would commit it to memory if they didn’t have 24/7 access to it. They would study it zealously. But, in the 21st Century, it’s hard enough for us to get off Instagram and Facebook merely to open up the Bible.
   There is no book that contains the beauties and wonders that the Bible contains. No book has the rich spiritual gold that the Bible has. The Bible does not contain the Word of God; the Bible is the Word of God. Read it!
   What other book tells us so much of Jesus? What other book is so pure of the gospel? Other men and women merely write books about the Bible. The books that light our hearts on fire most are books that explain the Bible best.
   Let me give you an explanation of what one of my seminary professors recently told us. What’s the difference between man and dust? The breath of God. God made man from the dust and breathed life into him (Gen. 2:7). The breath of God causes something inanimate to become dynamically animate. The breath of God brings life, purpose, identity, and joy. It brings a relationship with God.
   Now, what is the difference between the Bible and other books? The breath of God. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God.” Robert Mounce says, “Scripture is ‘God-breathed.’ The word occurs nowhere else in the Bible. It means that Scripture is the product of God’s creative breath. As God formed man from the dust of the ground and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” so that “man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7) so it is that God’s breath has turned lifeless words on paper into a living utterance. Had God not breathed life into the words of the prophets they would have been no more than the words of men. As it is when we read the prophets we find ourselves confronted with God Himself who speaks to us directly through what was written by chosen men of old.”
   There are no devotional books, no Christian living books, no doctrinal books, and no commentaries that replace the Bible. Authors are only worth their gold if they explain what The Author has said. We are living in an age where anything that remotely smells of pseudo-Christianity is adopted as something inspired. There is a reason why John Kwasny is teaching a Sunday School class on “Bad Books” because it is so rampant even in the best churches.
   Nothing matches the Word of God. If it is God’s Word, read it!

2. Meditate On It
   That which is most sweet to us stays on our minds. Those experiences that are so meaningful to us are the stories we tell most. If the Bible is the Word of God, we must spend time meditating on it. The Bible is a rich dish of food. It’s not something you shovel into your mouth so that you can get it over with. The Bible is something that should be savored. You should try to point out all the different flavors to it. It’s when you meditate on the Bible that you turn to your neighbor and say, “You’ve got to try this!”
   If the Bible is God’s Word, one of the most important things we can do in life is find times (whatever works for you) to slow down and limit distractions so that we can meditate on God’s Word. Practically, what does this look like? One thing that has often helped people is to take a portion of the Bible and write down 20-30 thoughts on that one portion. Many times, when you get to about 10-15 it gets much harder. This requires you to meditate even more on the truth.
   Ask these questions of the Bible: What is the Bible trying to say? How is the Bible saying it? Why did the author want to say that truth to those people back then? How does that apply to us today? How is the text leading me to the Person and Work of Jesus?

3. Give It To Others
   If the Bible is God’s Word, give it to other people. Don’t let them just assume what the Bible says. If they have questions, show them what to read. If the Bible is no ordinary book, if the Bible is God’s Word, if the Bible is heavenly dynamite then give it to someone for them to read. Read it with them. Let the Bible speak for itself!
   There are countless of conversions that happen merely because someone has to read the Bible for themselves. Matter of fact, no one is ever converted without the truth of Scripture. Don’t you see this? If everyone is converted by the Bible (in one way or another) then give them a Bible!
   To be sure, not every is converted when they read. It’s not in the mere physical and mental act of reading that converts them. It’s when the Holy Spirit takes the living and active Word of God and causes a spiritually dead person to come alive to the truth is when conversion happens. Dead people read the living Bible and come alive by the infinite power of the eternal Holy Spirit.
   What is one of the best evangelistic activities you can do? Offer to read the Bible with an unbeliever. We worry too much about making sure we know all the answers to apologetics, worldview, and ethics. We want to make sure we can answer questions in a scientifically true way. We are so easily distracted. Knowing apologetics, worldview, and ethics is very important but let the Bible speak. Apologetics never converts someone. Worldview never converts someone. Ethics never convert someone. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation. The Bible tells us of this gospel.

10 Reasons Why You Can Trust That The Bible Is God's Word

In our “What Is Calvinism?” Sunday School class this past Sunday, we looked at the doctrine of Scripture along with the Holy Spirit’s role in using Scripture in the Church and Christian’s life. Towards the end of the class, I quickly mentioned 10 ways Calvin brings up about why we can trust that Scripture really is God’s Word. Here are the ten with some brief explanation:

1. Scripture is superior to all human wisdom
   Calvin says, “What wonderful confirmation ensues when, with keener study, we ponder the economy of the divine wisdom, so well ordered and disposed; the completely heavenly character of its doctrine, savoring of nothing earthly; the beautiful agreement of all the parts with one another—as well as such other qualities as can gain majesty for the writings. But our hearts are more firmly grounded when we reflect that we are captivated with admiration for Scripture more by grandeur of subjects than by grace of language.”

2. Not style but content is decisive
   Even though there is, as Calvin says, “an elegant and clear, even brilliant, manner of speaking, so that their eloquence yields nothing to secular writers” it is not the style of Scripture that captivates us so much as the content. What Scripture says is what gives more of a testimony to the Bible being God’s Word than anything else. Scripture is “clearly crammed with thoughts that could not be humanly conceived” says Calvin.

3. The age of Scripture
   This has often been a very helpful argument for believers to be more convinced and for unbelievers to begin to see the truth of Scripture. The “great antiquity” of Scripture far outstrips all other writings. The fact that Scripture has been around for so long and through so much persecution should give divine testimony to men and women that only God could preserve such a Book. Not only that but if God were speaking from the beginning of time then He certainly would’ve have had His words recorded by men in order to preserve the truth. Why should it surprise us that the God who spoke thousands of years ago made sure that people wrote it down and kept it alive for us today? Isn’t that a sign that He loves us? When we say that Scripture is outdated then we not only call God outdated but we also doubt His love for us since He could not give us relevant truth for today.

4. The truthfulness of Scripture seen in men proclaiming their own faults
   The Bible does not hide the shame and sin of its “own” people. The Bible, more than any other book and religion, shows the depravity of man and the sinfulness of sin. Why would men write so much of their own sinfulness and shame for all to read throughout history if they were making up their own religion? Certainly, the Bible shows not only the sin of unbelievers but also of believers. All stand in need of Christ and His grace and this is the testimony of Scripture from beginning to end.

5. Miracles authorizing God’s messengers
   The Bible is a record of eyewitness accounts. The miracles that are recorded in the Bible did not happen behind closed doors for only the writers to see. Rather, the miracles were before the public eye and many gave testimony to them and then they were written down to be remembered. Take the gospel according to Mark, Mark is all about the eyewitness account of Jesus in which there are details that only people who were there could give. In Mark 4:35-41, Jesus is said to have fallen asleep on the cushion in the boat. There is no need for that comment to be there except for the fact to show that the person who saw Jesus calm the stormy sea was actually there and remembers everything.

6. The amount of prophecies that have come true (All of them!)
   There have been some calculations of over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that refer to Jesus coming as the Messiah. How many of them have come true? All of them. On the contrary, can you predict one thing that will happen fifty years from now? How do you know that will happen?

7. The preservation of the Law and Prophets
   Calvin says, “But even though all wicked men, as if conspiring together, have so shamelessly insulted the Jews, no one has ever dared charge them with substituting false books. For whatever, in their opinion, the Jewish religion may be, they confess Moses to be its author.” God has preserved His Word from the worst tyrants and persecutions in history.

8. Simplicity and heavenly character
   The content of Bible is so simple than anyone who can read may understand it but it is also so heavenly that anyone who reads is confronted with a “heavenly character”. Calvin comments that “the truth cries out openly that these men who, previously contemptible among common folk, suddenly began to discourse so gloriously of the heavenly mysteries must have been instructed by the Spirit.”

9. Unvarying testimony of the church to Scripture
   Although it is the Holy Spirit and not the Church who testifies that Scripture is God’s Word, nevertheless, the Church has throughout the centuries been unified in their recognition that the canon of Scripture is God’s Word. No matter what age, people, or culture, there has been a unity in the true Church that the Bible we have today is God’s Word.

10. Martyrs who died
    Why would men and women die for a book that weren’t true? If they made it all up, why would someone choose to be burned alive as William Tyndale was? Even under the worst torture, why didn’t anyone just say, “You’re right! We came up with it ourselves!” These people would’ve had everything to lose by their deaths if the Bible was not God’s Word. But, if the Bible is God’s Word then they had everything to gain by their deaths if they died holding onto their confession of Jesus Christ as proclaimed in the Holy Scripture.

Tips for Reading the Bible

Every Spring semester, our youth ministry puts on a reading challenge in which the entire group is divided up into teams where they compete against each other by seeing who can read the most. The winners come away with some sort of prize (and obviously immortal glory!). In years past, we have mixed it up with reading all kinds of books but this year we are focusing merely on reading the Bible. One of the categories of Christian experience that middle schoolers and high schoolers need to grow in is in their reading of the Bible (especially in a biblically illiterate age). One of the encouragements that I wanted to give our students were some tips for how to read the Bible. I thought that this might be helpful for even ages beyond the youth ministry. So, here are 23 tips for reading the Bible:

1. Get you a hard copy Bible that you will make “your” Bible.

2. Think about getting a “Journaling Bible” from Crossway in order to write down your reflections on the side.

3. Download the “Read Scripture” app and follow its Bible reading plan. It’s free!

4. Remember where each book of the Bible is in the entire story when you are reading it. (Ex: It is helpful to know that Daniel was written during Israel’s period in exile. Or, it is helpful to know that Esther is towards the very end of the Old Testament time period even though it’s not placed at the end of the Old Testament books.)

5. Choose a book that your passionate about reading and start there.

6. Read the introductory notes of the book before starting (if your Bible has those).

7. Read all of the Bible in order to understand the books better.

8. Ask these questions:

   1. What does this say about God?

   2. What does this say about us?

   3. What does this say about our need for Jesus?

   4. What does this about how we are to live?

9. Read John Perritt’s booklet “Bible 101” to understand better how the Bible works.

10. Don’t just think about what the Bible is saying but think about why God wants you to know this.

11. Talk about what you read with someone else.

12. Use helpful resources to go alongside your reading, such as:

    1. “God’s Word for You” series

    2. “Let’s Study” series

    3. Matthew Henry’s Commentary (easy to read!)

13. Set aside time in the morning, afternoon, or evening that you protect and prioritize.

14. Turn your phone over and the TV/computer off.

15. Pray before you read and ask God to open your eyes to see what’s really there and to hear what He is saying.

16. Pray afterward and ask God to sink this truth into your heart.

17. If it is in the morning, grab your coffee to help you wake up.

18. Set aside 15-20 minutes of undistracted focus.

19. The more you read, the more it’ll make sense and the more you’ll want to read more.

20. Use a Study Bible and read the notes at the bottom to help you understand what the text is saying. Try these Study Bibles:

    1. ESV Study Bible

    2. Reformation Study Bible

    3. Biblical Theology Study Bible

    4. Gospel Transformation Study Bible

21. Read other good Christian books in order to understand the Bible better.

22. Practice what you read.

23. Don’t rush through your reading. Think about it.