by J. Vernon McGee
There are certain guidelines that each of us should follow
relative to the Word of God. I guarantee that if you will follow these
guidelines, blessing will come to your heart and life. There are seven very
simple, yet basic, preliminary steps that will be an effective guide for
the study of the Word of God.
Someone has put it in a very brief, cogent manner: “The
Bible—know it in your head; stow it in your heart; show it in your life; sow it
in the world!”
1. Begin with Prayer
The Bible differs from other books in that the Holy Spirit
alone can open our minds to understand it. You can take up a book on
philosophy, and if a man wrote it (and he did), then a man can understand it.
The same is true of higher mathematics or any other subject. There is not a
book that ever has been written by any man that another man cannot understand.
But the Bible is different. The Bible cannot be understood unless the Holy
Spirit is the Instructor. And He wants to teach us. The fact of the matter is,
our Lord told us, "He will guide you into all truth." (John
16:13) When we open the Word of God we need to begin with the psalmist’s
prayer:
"Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things
out of thy law." (Psalm 119:18)
The Holy Spirit is the Teacher, and He must be the One to
lead us and guide us into all truth.
This, then, is the first guideline: Begin with prayer
and ask the Spirit of God to be your teacher.
2. Read the
Bible.
The second guideline may seem oversimplified.
Someone asked a great Shakespearean scholar years ago,
“How do you study Shakespeare?”
His answer was very terse, “Read Shakespeare.”
And I would say to you: "Read the Word of God."
Do you want to know what the Bible has to say? Read the
Bible. Over and above what any teacher may give you, it is all-important
to read for yourself what the Bible has to say.
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan has written some very wonderful and
helpful commentaries on the Bible. In fact, he has a series of books that I
recommend on all sixty-six books of the Bible. I know of nothing that is any
better than them, and when I started out as a student, they had a great
influence on my study of the Word. It is said of him that he would not put pen
to paper until he had read a particular book of the Bible through fifty times.
So don’t be weary in well doing, friend; just read the Word of God. If you
don’t get it the first time, read it the second time. If you don’t get it the
second time, read it the third time. Keep on reading it. We are to get the
facts of the Word of God.
Then the third guideline is . . .
3. Study the Bible.
Someone came to Dr. Morgan, years ago, and said, “You speak
as though you are inspired!”
Dr. Morgan replied, “Inspiration is 95 percent
perspiration.”
The Bible needs to be studied. We need to realize that
the Spirit of God will not teach us something that we could get ourselves by
study.
We have to knuckle down and study the Word of God. A fellow
student in a Bible class when I was in college said, “Doctor, you have assigned
us a section that is very dry.”
The professor, without even missing a step, said to him,
“Then dampen it a little with sweat from your brow.”
The Bible should be studied, and it is very important to see
that. There is a certain knowledge that the Spirit of God is not going to give
you. I do not think He is revealing truth to lazy people. After all, you never
learn logarithms or geometry or Greek by just reading a chapter of it just
before you go to sleep at night!
Now you may be shocked when I say that I do not encourage
devotional reading of the Bible. Over a period of years I have learned that a
great many people who are very faithful in what they call devotional reading
are very ignorant of the Bible. I stayed with a family for over a week when I
was holding meetings in a place in middle Tennessee. Every morning at the
breakfast table we had devotions. Unfortunately, breakfast was always a little
late, and Susie and Willie were rushing to get away to school. I am confident
that they didn’t even know what was read. Dad was wanting to get away to work,
and he generally made the Bible reading very brief.
Always he’d say, “Well, I’ll read this familiar passage this
morning because we don’t have much time.”
And, believe me, we didn’t. By the time the reading was
over, Susie and Willie left the table like they were shot out of a gun, and Dad
got out of there almost as quickly as they did, and Mother was left with the
dishes—and I wondered if she had really heard what had been read. I determined
right there and then that in my home we wouldn’t have devotional reading. I
have always encouraged members of my family to read the Bible on their own.
That is the reading that is profitable.
Someone is going to say, “But I have my devotions at night
after the day is over.” Now really, don’t you have them right before you go to
bed? You’ve got one foot in bed already, one eye is already closed, and you
turn to a passage of Scripture to read.
It was said of John Wesley that he was a man of one Book.
What made him a man of one Book? Well, he got up and read the Bible at four and
five o’clock every morning—read it in five different languages. Believe me, he
studied the Word of God. And you and I need to study the Word; we need to get
the meaning of the Bible.
This leads to the fourth guideline:
Meditation is something that God taught His people. The Word
of God was to be before the children of Israel all the time—so that they could
meditate on it.
"And these words, which I command thee this day, shall
be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and
shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by
the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind
them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine
eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy
gates." (Deuteronomy 6:6-9)
Now that is an amazing statement coming from the Lord. He
told them to write the Word of God upon the doorposts. In other words, wherever
they turned, it was just like looking at billboards.
Now what does it really mean to meditate on the Word of God?
There is a very interesting statement in the first Psalm:
"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of
the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he
meditate day and night." (Psalm 1:1, 2)
To meditate is to ruminate, to bring to mind and consider
over and over. We are to get the Word of God, read it, have it out where we can
look at it, then think about it, meditate on
it.
5. Read what others have written on the Scriptures.
I know that this is a dangerous rule, because many people
depend on what someone else says about it. Also there are many books on the
market today that give wrong teaching concerning the Word of God. We need to
test everything that is written by the Bible itself.
However, you and I should consult a good commentary. With
each outline of the books of the Bible I list recommended books, commentaries
that I have read and have found helpful. You will find it very profitable to
read what others have said. Actually you are getting all the distilled
sweetness and study of the centuries when you read books written by men who
have been guided in their study by the Spirit of God. You and I should profit
by this. There have been some wonderful, profound works on the books of the
Bible.
In addition to commentaries, a concordance is invaluable. I
can recommend three: Young's concordance, and Cruden's concordance—take your pick. Also
you will need a good Bible dictionary. This is very helpful.
6. Obey the Bible.
For the understanding and the study of the Scriptures,
obedience is essential. Abraham is an example of this. God appeared to him when
He called him out of Ur of the Chaldees and again when he was in the Promised Land.
But Abraham ran off to Egypt when famine came, and during this time God had no
word for him. Not until Abraham was back in the land did God appear to him
again. Why? Because of lack of obedience. Until Abraham obeyed what God had
already revealed to him, God was not prepared to give to him any new truth. So
it is with us. When we obey, God opens up new truth for us.
7. Pass it on to others.
Not only read the Bible, not only study the Bible, not only
meditate on the Bible, and not only read what others have written about it, but
pass it on to others. That is what we all should do. You will reach a
saturation point in the study of the Word unless you do share it with others.
God for some reason won’t let you withdraw yourself from mankind and become
some sort of walking Bible encyclopedia, knowing everything, while the rest of
us remain ignorant. I think that is the reason He said:
"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as
the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye
see the day approaching." (Hebrews 10:25)
God has told us to be witnesses. He said, “Ye shall be
witnesses.” He did not say that we should be scholars, walking
encyclopedias, or memory books. Do not bury God’s truth in a notebook. We are
called to be witnesses today, therefore we ought to pass it on to others.
Pass it on!
These, then, are the seven basic guidelines to follow to
study the Word of God:
1. Begin with prayer
2. Read the Bible
3. Study the Bible
4. Meditate upon the Bible
5. Read what others have written on the Bible
6. Obey the Bible
7. Pass it on to others
Article from:
Crosspurpose International
No comments:
Post a Comment