Living by the Book/Living by the Book Workbook Set (3 page)

Wendy:
Actually, I’ve tried, but it just didn’t work out.

HGH:
How so?

Wendy:
Well, I went through a phase once where I decided I was really going to
study
the Bible. I’d heard someone at a seminar say that it’s impossible to know God apart from knowing His Word. I knew I wanted to get closer to the Lord, so I made up my mind to really get into Scripture. I bought all these books about the Bible. I came home from work every night and spent about an hour or more reading and trying to understand it.

But I realized that I didn’t know Greek or Hebrew. And there were an awful lot of things that people were saying about different passages that made no sense to me. I mean, I’d read what somebody had to say about a text, and then I’d read the text, but I couldn’t figure out how they’d come up with it. Finally, it just got so confusing, I quit.

HGH:
Oh, so it was a problem of
technique
. That’s common for many people today. They’re reluctant to jump in because they know they can’t swim. And
our culture doesn’t help much. We’ve become saturated with visual images, and frankly, we’re losing our ability to read. That’s why one of the things we’re going to do in the next section is recover the skills of how to read something such as the Bible.

HGH:
Okay, let’s hear from Elliott. Elliott’s the man you want if you’ve got a swimming pool on the fritz. He can show you how to keep that water crystal clear. Furthermore, he brings an incredibly strong work ethic to the job, and I think his faith has a lot to do with that. Elliott, something tells me you pay a lot of attention to your Bible.

Elliott:
Well, let me put it this way—I pay attention to what I understand in the Bible. The Ten Commandments. The Golden Rule. “The Lord is my shepherd.” That sort of thing. But the rest of it I pretty much leave up to my pastor. I mean, he understands all that stuff, and if I ever have a problem, I can just go to him. He seems to know what it all means. Me, I just try to live it out the best I can.

HGH:
That’s encouraging. You’re trying to practice the truth you do understand. But Elliott, I hear you saying what thousands of Christians are saying today:
“I’m just a layperson.”
Or, “I’m a homemaker. I’m not a professional. You can’t expect me, an individual who has no theological training, who maybe never even finished college, to study a book like this.”

That’s the way I felt when I started out as a new believer. Somebody said to me, “Howie, you need to spend time in the Word.”

I thought to myself,
How in the world do I go about doing that? I’ve never been to seminary. I’m not a minister. I can’t understand this stuff.

But as we’re going to see, you really don’t need professional training to understand the Bible. You don’t have to know Greek and Hebrew. As long as you can read, you can dig into the Scriptures for yourself. In this book, I want to help you learn how.

And by the way, don’t be put off by the word
study
. I wish we had a better term than “Bible
study
,” because for most of us, “study” is a bad-news item. It
has all the appeal of flossing our teeth. We know we’re supposed to, but. . . .

In this book, we’re going to discover that Bible study can be fascinating beyond words, and even fun. So hold on.

HGH:
I mentioned homemakers, and, Linda, I guess that describes you. You’re at home full-time with three small children. How do you feel about Bible study?

Linda:
Oh, I’d love to study the Bible. I really would. Like you say, I’ve got three little ones to keep up with, and sometimes I’d do anything to get a break. My husband works day and night so that I can stay home. But that means I’ve got the kids all day long, and I’m lucky to get even twenty minutes to myself. You can’t study the Bible in twenty minutes. Even if I could, I’m usually just trying to catch my breath. I wouldn’t have the energy.

HGH:
I understand exactly what you’re saying. My wife, Jeanne, and I reared four ourselves, and now we have six granddaughters, as well. So we’re aware that parenting is an extremely demanding job. For us it has been a priority. I guess that’s really the issue you’re raising—where does Bible study fit on my list of
priorities
? Unfortunately, for many of us it’s number twenty on a list of twenty-seven things. It’s nice, but certainly not necessary. Hold on to that, because in the next chapter we’re going to discover that the study of the Word is not an option—it’s an essential.

HGH:
Toni, I’m eager to hear your comments. You’re a student on a university campus. Is there still a place for studying Scripture in that setting?

Toni:
Yeah, I suppose people ought to read the Bible. There are some very interesting and inspiring passages in it. But I’m not sure about some of the miracles and predictions and stuff. I mean, Jonah and the whale? That sort of thing is really hard to believe. And I know people quote Scripture to say
whether something is right or wrong. It seems like you can make the Bible say just about anything you want it to say.

So I think you should read it once in a while, just to kind of know what’s in there, or maybe to help you feel better if you’re down. But study it? I don’t know about that.

HGH:
All right, you raise some genuine concerns. Is this Book
reliable
? Is it
authoritative
? Can we base our lives on it? Does it have credibility? Or, when we read it, do we have to throw our intelligence out the window and, as one person put it, strain to believe what we know, deep down, is utterly preposterous? We’re going to discover that it is completely reliable, and that the more we study it, the more consistent and reasonable it turns out to be.

HGH:
Let’s take one final comment. George, your interest in the Word has a lot to do with the fact that you teach an adult Sunday school class at your church.

George:
Yes, I guess I have more reason than most people to study the Bible. When I read through a passage, I’m always thinking about my class, and how I’m going to teach it to them. But I’ll be honest—it’s hard to get people interested in the Bible. It seems like they’d rather talk about sports or what’s going on at work than the great doctrines of the faith.

I don’t expect anybody to become a great theologian. But 2 Timothy 3:16 says that the Bible is profitable for doctrine, and it seems to me that a lot of the problems people complain about could be remedied if they paid a little more attention to what the Bible has to say.

HGH:
I think you’re discovering what anyone who wants to communicate spiritual truth runs into: It’s very difficult to get people excited about one’s own insights into the Word. Unless they’re making their own discoveries on topics that relate directly to their experience, Bible study will just bore them to tears. They just won’t feel motivated to invest time in it. So that’s really your challenge as a teacher—to offer them a process by which they can uncover
spiritual truths for themselves. And I hope you’ll learn some ways to do that through this book.

By the way, one way not to do it is through guilt. Guilt is a poor motivator. It’s very powerful, but it’s also poisonous to the learning process. It kills the joy that ought to mark firsthand acquaintance with the Word. Guilt drives more people away from the Scriptures than into them.

Well, we’ve seen a number of reasons that people do not study the Bible. Which one(s) applies to you? Do you question the Bible’s relevance to real-life issues? Are you locked out of the process by a lack of technique and basic skills? Are you convinced that this Book is just for professionals, not lay-people, that it takes special training to understand it? Is Bible study a low priority (or no priority), especially with so many other demands begging for your time? Do you have doubts about the Bible’s reliability, and whether you can ever really determine its meaning? Do you perceive Bible study as dreadfully boring and not worth your attention?

If you identify with any of these reasons, then this book is for you. We’re going to address all of these issues and more. Every one of these obstacles can be overcome. But first, having looked at the negative—why people don’t study the Bible—let’s turn around and ask, Why must we study the Bible? In the next chapter, I’ll give you three important reasons why Bible study is not an option—it’s an essential.