What’s The Point | How to Read the Bible? - Hebrews 4:12-13 | August 25

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Hey family, it's good to be here. Like I said, we just began last week,

the ever so briefest of series is about the Bible. The name of the series is What's the Point?

And last week, we began by discussing what is the Bible, why do we read it,

and some other important things like that. Today, we're going to be talking

about how we read the Bible.

But last week, we kind of began this discussion by entering into the idea of

why are we so set on reading one book for the rest of our life,

believing that in some way, we're going to see something new,

we're going to be challenged by something new, that God's is gonna do something new in our lives.

Why are we set on reading this one book?

Why not read more books? What's the point?

And just to give you a brief definition, actually, this is probably not a not-so-brief definition.

It's more of a combination of definitions that I threw out last week.

But just to remind us of some of those definitions, the Bible is carefully crafted

Jewish meditation literature with every word intentionally placed.

It's intentionally placed to tell one story, to bring order out of chaos,

to lead us to an end goal. And then that end goal is to be rescued,

to put our trust and faith in the Messiah, Jesus.

And so, it's been written over thousands of years by more than 40 different authors.

And yet, it's all inextricably woven together to tell one story.

And that story is a rescue story.

It's a rescue story about a God who fiercely loves his creation.

And so, he's endured much and suffered much in his faithful pursuit of people.

And so, we set our hearts to seek him. That's our response. wants.

We set our hearts to seek him like buried treasure, digging through his word

throughout the course of our lifetimes.

We read it because we want to see him more clearly.

We read it because we want to experience the living God.

We want to be changed by him. We want to be shaped into his image that reflects

his glory and goodness into the world.

And this word is light and life for the darkness in and around us. It's life and light.

The Bible says that over and over again, that his words are life-giving.

And it's the same word that has gone out since before creation,

since before the beginning of time, creating and initiating life wherever it

has gone and accomplishing all that God has purposed for his words.

And so that's a recap where we've been. What we're going to talk about today

is how we read the Bible, which might seem like a simple and sort of mundane

topic that you've already got nailed, but maybe it's not as easy as that.

I mentioned last week that the Bible was written at a specific time to a specific

people for a specific purpose.

And so the implication here being that the Bible is for us and.

But the Bible was not written to us, if that makes sense.

The Bible is very much for us, but the words contained within were not written originally to us.

It says in Romans chapter 15, for whatever was written in former days was written

Romans 15 · chapter mention

for our instruction, that through endurance and through encouragement of the

scriptures, we might have hope, right?

So all these things were recorded in the scriptures long ago to teach us.

And through the scriptures, we encounter encouragement. We are given hope as

we patiently wait for God's promises, that the scriptures, they were written for us.

Paul also writes in Ephesians chapter two, God is so rich in mercy and he loved

us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins,

he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.

For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the

heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.

And he did this so God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the

incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us as shown in all that he

has done for us, reunited with Christ Jesus.

So the reason that God has accomplished everything that we know him to have

accomplished is so that he can point to us as a sign for all future generations.

So he can point to all that he has done in this story as a sign to us of his

goodness, of his faithfulness, of his kindness, of his grace.

And to extrapolate that even further, everything that God is doing in your life

right now, everything that God's doing in your life right now is to demonstrate

his grace and his love and his kindness and his faithfulness for even more generations to come.

It's not just, that truth is not just relegated to the scriptures that we're

talking about today, but even in your life, what he's doing right now, it's not just for you.

It's for those around you and it's for generations to come people that you don't even know yet.

People that haven't even been born yet. What he's doing right now is for them as well.

And so the Bible is very much for us.

The Bible is for us, but again, it wasn't written to us. The Bible is essentially

the mail of ancient dead people, if we're being honest.

But don't let that lead you to believe that it's irrelevant.

It is extremely relevant. The Bible is very much relevant for our lives.

This story will work on you over time.

It will affect the way that you live. It will affect the way that you think about yourself.

And it will change the world that we live in. I want you to understand this

as we kind of keep this in mind as we go through all of all of what we're going

to talk about today, because I gave you that long definition of what the Bible is.

Here's a better definition that we can think of, because we're going to talk

about how we read the Bible. We're going to talk about the ways that we perhaps

read the Bible incorrectly, right?

That's kind of the main point of what we're talking about today.

For us to keep in mind how we should approach the scriptures,

I want you to keep in mind this definition.

And this is something maybe that you never heard before.

That's not my goal is to impress you with things you've never heard,

but it could change the way that you think about it.

We here at Mountside, we want to be real people who are part of a real family

and worship the real God.

That's what our mission statement is part of the mission statement, right?

So we want to be the real family of God. God created a family for himself.

And this is the most realist family that we can be part of.

So when we say he saves us, we're saved out of our sin and we're saved to a family.

And Jesus, for Jesus, the scriptures were his family stories.

We all have our family stories. We get around from holidays and we share those,

what we remember, how they shaped us, how they've changed us.

These are Jesus's family stories that shaped the way he lived and the world he lived in.

And because we are his family, these are our family stories that shape us and

that change us. These are our family stories.

So I want you to keep that in mind because even though what I'm about to say,

just to be provocative, is that we are reading our Bibles wrong,

or that's more specifically, I'm gonna say you're reading your Bible wrong, right?

What I want you to hear more than that, more than any of that, is just read the Bible.

What is of utmost importance is that you are reading these words,

this story, that you're engaging with God with all of your heart through His

written word, through His scriptures.

So, I want you to hear more than anything, just read the Bible.

We're going to talk about how

we read the Bible, how we should read the Bible, but here, just read it.

And I know we're kind of verging into this area of trademark territory or copyright

infringement, or whatever property law it is, just do it. Just do it. Just read the Bible.

Whatever you hear today, that's what I want you to walk away with.

And I'm afraid that it is as simple as that.

It's as easy and as simple as that. And that might be discouraging.

You might have wanted more. You might have expected more. If you've been struggling

to connect and understand these words over the years, it might grieve you to

hear that the simple answer is to just read it. That there's no secret sauce.

You know, that's the wisdom that we got from Kung Fu Panda. There's no secret ingredient.

It's as easy and it's as simple as that. There's no secret ingredient,

just the consistent and faithful pursuit of God through his word.

That this story will shape you over time as you dig for the treasure.

And for me, I've been contemplating meditating on Naaman in the Bible.

If any of you are familiar with Naaman, maybe you know.

For those who have been paying attention mountainside over the last couple of

weeks. You want to take a guess at where Naaman is in the Bible?

Maybe somebody knows where Naaman is in the Bible?

It's in 2 Kings, yeah. So I've been reading 2 Kings. 2 Kings 5,

Naaman shows up. And so what is Naaman known for? Anybody?

He's known because he was a leper. He's also the commander of the armies of

Syria and they were the dominant empire and he was the commander of their armies.

And so he had this not so well kept secret. He had leprosy.

We don't know the extent of the disease. We don't really know what kind of skin

condition it was. There were several that were called leprosy at the time.

Naaman, as the commander of the armies of Syria, he would lead raids and attacks

against the people of Israel and defeat them at every turn.

And in one of these many campaigns, at some point he acquired hired a young

girl that served his wife in their household.

And one day this brave little slave girl spoke out and just said if her master

would travel to Israel, that there was a prophet of God who could heal him.

So Naaman left at the word of a slave girl. He left with the king's permission

and with many riches he brought with him and he sought to find Elisha.

And when he finally found him, Elisha didn't even come out to see him.

He just sent a messenger to him to say, go and dip yourself in the Jordan river

seven times and you'll be healed.

And so Naaman understandably perhaps was pretty furious at this.

And here's the, his rants. I thought he would surely come out to me and stand

and call on the name of the Lord is God.

Maybe wave his hand over the spot and cure me of leprosy.

And then, you know, he goes on this spiral, right? Are not the rivers of Damascus

and Syria better than all the waters of Israel?

Aren't they cleaner? Aren't they bluer? Aren't they more refreshing?

Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed? So then Naaman turned and went off in a rage.

That's his response to the word of God through Elisha. Luckily,

some of his men were a little bit more reasonable than he was.

And they reminded him, if Elijah had asked you to do something great and extravagant,

wouldn't you have gladly done it for the chance of being healed?

Wouldn't you have done whatever he had asked you? Why not more so for something

as simple as being washed in a river?

Because Naaman thought it was too easy, right? He was offended that Elisha didn't come and meet him.

But Naaman thought it was too easy. It was too simple. It wasn't what he expected.

And so it turned him away disappointed.

And yet when he followed through with these simple instructions,

he experienced the healing of God.

And so just read the Bible. Whatever you do, it's as simple as that.

And perhaps maybe some of your frustration and disappointment and lack of understanding

or confusion, maybe we'll help you through that today. day.

And if not, we'll read it together and we'll work on it through a lifetime, right?

So don't let that word that it's as easy as that lead you to be turned away, disappointed.

Don't let your history of experience deter you. All of us, none of us are starting

with ground zero when it comes to the Bible, right?

Even if we've never read the Bible in this country, we all have some idea of what's in it.

So even more so for us who have read the Bible, who have grown up in church, maybe be.

We all have even more experience, even more baggage that we're bringing along with us.

And we all have bad habits that we need to break ourselves of so that we can

just encounter the full richness of what God is trying to speak to his beloved creation.

So just read the Bible. And when we fail to interact with God's word in a meaningful

and appropriate ways, what we're

doing is allowing other voices to be more influential into our lives.

We're allowing other voices to speak more clearly into what we believe and how we act.

And there are so many other voices in this world yelling that will win if we

fail or if we lose vigilance in faithfully pursuing God through his word.

There are so many other voices out there. Let me just ask you a question.

How many of you have looked at your phone today?

Everybody? Perhaps, yeah. Have you read your Bible or interacted with God's

word more or less than you've looked at your phone today?

I know that many of us read the Bible and listen to the Bible on our phones.

So there's some overlap.

The word of God is not the primary voice that we encounter throughout our day.

It's not what is most influencing us. It's not the voice we hear the most.

And we have to, we have to change that to agree. We are being influenced by other voices.

So we have to be, we have to stop being distracted.

Because the only reason that anyone sins at all is because on some level they are deceived by sin.

They are distracted by other, there are other voices that, that we,

we listen to these other voices rather than being upheld by the voice of truth.

And so we need to saturate ourselves with the word of God.

We need to be filled to overflowing with them so that we stop believing the

lies of sin and we start believing the truth, the promises of God.

Hebrews chapter 12 is kind of our home base for this teaching over the next

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

couple of weeks. Next week's gonna be the last kind of part in this series.

So it'll be short-lived, but let me read those words for you again,

just so we can get them fresh in our minds. This is Hebrews chapter four, verses 12 through 13.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,

piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow,

and in discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the

eyes of him to whom we must give account.

God sees all, right? There are many voices of deception that are winning.

They're winning the battle for our attention. They're winning the war for our

minds. They are taking captive our hearts.

And God has given us his good news. He's given us his promises.

He's given us his word to protect us, to protect us against this deep deception.

That's trying to harden our hearts, that's trying to lure us away from God,

that's trying to bring us into destruction, this lies and deception of sin.

And the word of God is living, and it is active, which means that it has power in your life.

And it can, and it can pierce deeper than any deception has ever gone.

And it can expose to you what is truly valuable, what you, what you should care

about, what it will reveal to you, what is valuable.

Worth, worthy of our attention. What is, we're worthy of trusting what is worthy

of loving, but we have to oftentimes do a little work to get there.

We have to dig for the treasure sometimes, right?

We have to let this story work on us over time.

Sometimes it's going to be immediate, but sometimes a lot of times our experience

is that the story will work on you over time.

So we have to know how we have to know how we're supposed to read the Bible.

And to do that, I've introduced this idea that we have to defamiliarize ourselves with the Bible a bit.

That this is ancient literature, which means that it's quite literally foreign to us.

It's not originally written in our language. It's not originally written to

us. It doesn't take place in our culture.

So, there's a series of essays that I encountered published under the title For Us, But Not To Us.

So, one passage of this essay reads this, If we are to interpret scripture so

to as to receive the full impact of God's authoritative authoritative message,

we have to set our cultural river aside and try to understand the cultural river

of the ancient people to whom the text was addressed.

The Bible was written to the people of ancient Israel and the language of ancient Israel.

Therefore its message operates according to the logic of ancient Israel.

In other words, we cannot seek to construe their words in our terms.

We cannot seek to construe their words in our terms.

What that simply means is that there's often a big difference between what we

hear and what the authors are trying to say.

And all of you know this, you've experienced this in your marriages and your,

and your relationships, just in your life in general. I know one story for me

sticks out. Actually, there's a more recent one.

Jane is doing cross country and Jenny told me that I needed to go pick him up

because the coach Joanna was leaving at five.

But what actually she said was that Joanna was having a mess,

a meeting at five that I needed to go to.

But what I heard was that she was leaving. So I need to go pick him up early.

Right? So I didn't hear what she was actually saying.

That's a bit different than what we're talking about because those are hearing

different words. The story I'm thinking about is a little bit of a weird one.

As many of you know, I'm quite often not wrong. So the times that I am, that's not a joke.

So the times that I am wrong, people, my friends, those who are closest to me,

they love to point out those rare occasions and really harp on it over the years.

Eric has already taken advantage of this relational dynamic.

But for this story, I don't remember when it was. I don't remember if Jenny

was there or not. She might remember it. She was there. She remembers.

So we're walking somewhere with a group of friends. There were other people.

A lot of people was in the evening.

I remember being in a field, but I can't place in my head where that would have been to be in a field.

And a guy came up to me and he asked if I had a light.

And I said, no, I don't have a light, which it's a normal, it's a completely

normal interaction. He walked away, everything was done.

So obviously, what was the guy asking for?

He wanted a lighter to help light a cigarette. What did I think he was asking for?

A flashlight, because it was getting dark. So, you know, I haven't lived that

down for 20 years, and I probably won't.

Luckily, nobody's mentioned it lately, but I am getting old.

And we do this with the Bible.

I think there's a pretty funny one in the Delaney household,

if it's okay if I share it, where... I'm asking you right now, so...

If I, this is embarrassing maybe to Emerson, but maybe not.

I, I think Chrissy asked Emerson, he had to go do some chores, right?

And so she asked him to not let the chickens out multiple times.

This is correct. And so Emerson went out and he came back in and what did you

say? I let the chickens out.

So what Emerson had heard and what Chrissy had said, we're not the same thing.

We do this all the time in our relationships. We do it with the Bible.

So we, it still happens.

You're a teenager. You know, I get it. Not all the neurons are firing right now for you.

We have to relearn how to read the Bible. We have to re we have to retrain ourselves

because the truth is, like I said, we all have our experience,

our history of experience, our baggage that we're bringing into the word of God with us.

We all have these preconceived notions, these ideas, these assumptions,

and we, we really begin to believe the longer we're Christians that we know

this book, we know this story front and back.

And perhaps what we need to do is maybe remind ourselves or think to ourselves,

maybe I don't know how to read the Bible.

Maybe I don't know. What happens if I don't know how to read the Bible?

We just got to constantly keep

that in mind because there are ways that we read the Bible incorrectly.

I can't hope to imagine. I can't hope to share with you all of those possible

ways that bring it home to you. So we're going to just be a little more general.

Actually, what I'm I'm going to do instead is focus on the right feelings,

the correct intuitions that we have when we read the Bible to know what it is,

to know how do we read it, to know what we're going to get from it,

to know what we're learning.

We have these right intuitions that so often lead us to sort of less than helpful

methods, less than helpful tools as we read the Bible, tools that maybe weren't designed.

They were designed for another purpose, for a different type of literature,

but not necessarily for the Bible.

We're all bringing these kind of tools into us and because they mostly work

well, we keep doing them.

But overall, that's not how the Bible was intended to be read.

And so at some point it's gonna fail us. And so what do we do when those methods,

those less than helpful methods fail us?

I know to bring this point home a little bit, even yesterday as we were hanging

dry roll at the balance house, I experienced this, but there's been so many

times where I've been building something and maybe I've been screwing it together with a drill.

And at some point what i really need is a hammer because i need to move a board

over or something like that but because it's more convenient what i end up doing

is taking the drill and just bashing it against the board which is probably

not good for the battery because it's more convenient and you know the blood

the hammer's all the way over there and now i got it and it's in space right.

So the drill is not the right tool and there are lots of tools of reading literature

of all kinds that are not the right tools, but it can take us pretty far if

we're not paying attention.

It really fails us in the end. So what are, there's some right tools.

There's the right intuition. So what are these right intuitions?

So first, we rightly assume that the scripture is designed to teach us about what is true.

That is a right assumption. It's a right intuition. That scriptures are designed

to teach us about what is true. This is God's word.

This is the source of God's truth.

In reading the Bible, we encounter somebody who's not us.

That truth doesn't exist inside of us.

Truth exists outside of us and God is the source of truth.

And so there is a constant, there is, there's a source of truth that we learn

from and it's a voice that is outside of ourselves. And so we encounter God

and we encounter his truth.

We encounter the living God whose thoughts are not our thoughts,

whose ways are not our ways, right? It's his truth and it changes us.

We believe rightly that the scriptures are meant to, to give us wisdom on how to live.

That's, that's correct. that it's not instructions alone, but absolutely the

Bible leads us to God's wisdom, which guides us in life, that the word of God will teach you.

It will teach you a new way of thinking that you never thought of before.

It will change the way you think about life and culture and the way that you live.

We also rightly think that the scripture is where we learn to listen to God's voice.

We learn to how to listen to God's voice. and absolutely, of course, it is His Word.

And so through it, we learn how to trust in the one who wants to rescue us.

And there's, of course, there's this famous verse in the Bible with regard to

scripture that you've probably heard before.

If you're not, I'm going to read it right now. But in 2 Timothy 3,

it says, You must remain faithful to the things you have been taught.

You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you.

You have been taught the holy scriptures from childhood.

They have given you wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting Jesus

Christ. So they give us wisdom.

Now, all scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true

and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us.

It gives us wisdom to live.

It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us what to do when it's right.

It gives us truth, gives us a starting point. It gives us a foundation.

God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

So God's word teaches us about what is true.

It gives us wisdom about how to live. And it's where we learn to listen to the

voice of God. These are his words.

So how can we get that wrong? If those are our right intuitions, how do we get that wrong?

So scripture is truth to stand on. This is a right intuition.

This is good. How do we get it wrong?

So how do we get, how do we approach other sources of truth in our lives?

We read them like a textbook. We're in school, right? We read them like an encyclopedia.

We read them like a reference book.

So what we do is we ask God a question and then we try and find the right page,

the right paragraph, the right sentence that most directly answers our question.

We treat the Bible like a textbook, like a reference book. And this is a right

intuition. We know that there's truth there.

But if we read the Bible in this manner, then what we're going to encounter

is that there's any number of situations or scenarios.

That perhaps don't fit into the question that we're asking.

So what happens, what happens where we, when we ask the Bible a question or

the story that we're reading in doesn't answer the questions that we have. Do we just skip it?

We begin to treat the Bible like other sources of truth in this.

We ask the Bible, okay, Hey Jesus, what does the Bible say about what I should do with my money?

Say, okay, Jesus, is it really a sin to have sex before I'm married?

And we get our answer and we say, thank you, Alexa. I mean, Jesus,

for giving the answer that I asked for. That's how we begin to treat the Bible.

And you can make this tool work a whole lot of the time. That's why we do it because it works a lot.

But what happens when it stops working? Do we just skip those stories?

Last week, I picked on the book of numbers a lot. So I'm not going to pick on

the book of numbers this week.

So, you know, I honestly can't tell you why the book of Nahum is in the Bible.

I mean, like, historically speaking, I can tell you what it's about and why

it's there. but it doesn't seem to answer the questions that I have.

So what happens when we read a book like Nahum? Do we just skip it?

Do we just leave it in the Old Testament where it belongs?

Do we treat the Bible like a reference book?

Even when we're searching for truth, even when we're searching for truth,

if we treat it that way, some of the details are going to become irrelevant

to the questions we're asking.

That at some point in all of our musings, we're going to encounter stories that

don't fit because they're trying to answer questions that we aren't even thinking of.

But there is truth there. There is treasure there, if we're willing to dig for it.

Then we're going to miss out on the richness of what God is trying to communicate

to his beloved creation if we treat the Bible like a textbook.

Like I said, you can make it work for a long time, but we're not really paying

attention to the form. We're not really paying attention to the function.

We're not reading the narrative, the poetry, the letters, the apocalyptic literature.

What is that? I don't know, but it sounds scary.

We're not paying attention to how the Bible is written.

And so when we do this, we can encounter all the time, these seemingly surface

level contradictions, right?

Proverbs talks about how a good man passes on his inheritance to his children.

Proverbs talks about how we can honor God with our wealth.

Jesus comes along and he tells a parable about being faithful and unjust wealth, which is weird.

Then he talks about how somebody can't serve both God and mammon, God and wealth.

And then he tells one young man to give away everything that he has.

Then Paul comes along and says that money, the riches are the root of all evil.

So what do we do with this?

We have to read the story in the context that it's written in.

We can't read a verse in isolation, but we have to read them all at once.

We have to read them together, not necessarily at once, but we have to pay attention to what's happening.

We have to learn from what the author is trying to communicate and let it inform

our overall understanding of something like wealth or whatever it may be.

You have to read it all together. other. Never read a Bible story out of context.

Never read a verse in isolation.

There's truth and there is wisdom to be gained when we read the story of God

as it's written to be, as a story, paying attention to why, to whom it was written,

paying attention to what the purpose is.

And then we can decipher what is God's purpose for our lives in it and through it.

Speaking of wisdom, scripture is wisdom to live by. This is a right intuition.

This is a right idea, a correct feeling. So how do we get this wrong?

For this one, there's a whole lot of ways. I think we get this wrong.

The one, the main one for me, I'll talk about another one too,

but is when we read the old Testament specifically, right?

There's all of these characters in the old Testament that we don't know what to do with.

And so what we do and what sermons do all the time is they turn them into character lessons.

They turn them to these heroes to model our lives after.

And so often when we read these stories, we don't understand them.

They're confusing to us. And so what we rightly think is there's a nugget of wisdom for me here.

So what is the moral of the story? How can I apply it to my life?

That's what we rush into.

But all of these characters in the Old Testament are really messed up guys and ladies.

And all of the characters in the New Testament are really messed up men and

women, except for Jesus.

So they're not heroes to model our lives after, except for Jesus, right?

That's not what they're are in the Bible primarily to do. That's not the intention

of what they're trying to accomplish.

So David, he's got his moments, but he's not someone you should hope to be like.

Esther and Naomi are not pictures of biblical womanhood, despite the thousands

of books that have the books that have been written to tell you otherwise.

The characters in the Bible are not primarily there, except for Jesus,

for us to model our lives after, except for Jesus.

You can make this tool work a lot. There's a lot of good things we can learn from people.

There's a lot of prayers of David that we can learn from.

So you can make this tool work a lot. But what happens when the character's too bad.

Actually, what happens because every character, even in us, is a mixture of darkness and light.

So what do we do when it's the darkness we're looking at? What is it when the character's too bad?

Do we read some of these stories of the kings of ancient Israel,

who the Bible says that they hoard after Melech and they sacrifice their children as burnt offerings?

Do we just read those and we're like, got it. Don't burn kids.

I got this one in lock. I don't have to get any other applications from that

story. That's not what it's about.

There's more, there's a deeper truth. There's a deeper wisdom if we'll dig for it.

And so we can't too quickly try and find an application. That's where we go wrong.

We too quickly try to find an application for our lives. And then we short circuit

the idea of meditation and how God works through us over time in his word.

The second main way that we do this in our search for wisdom,

we tend to treat read the Bible like behavior manual or like a rule book and

basic instructions before leaving earth, right?

That's what we teach our kids. That's what I was taught when I was a kid.

That's what Bible stands for.

Bible's not an instruction book. If we were to primarily read the Bible in this

way, what we would find is an overwhelming number of scenarios and situations where,

any number of responses would be correct, depending on the situation that there

is, because a rule book can only tell you, it can only give you one decision

in one type of situation.

But what God is trying to do is give us wisdom, right?

And so what do you do about tattoos? Many of us have tattoos.

What do you do about tattoos?

Does the Bible even try and answer that question in the one single time that

it kind of mentions something that we would even sort of call a tattoo?

Is the Bible even trying to answer that question?

It's not. It's not trying to answer that question. Wisdom is what God wants for you.

Wisdom that forms the core of what you value, forms the core of what you care

about. wisdom that shapes you and to see the world through his eyes.

The way that he sees them. So the Bible is wisdom literature.

We already said that, but the Bible is wisdom literature that leads us to the

voice of wisdom, the voice of God.

It's not trying to correct our behavior. It's trying to lead us to the heart of God.

And so it will correct us. It will train us.

It will show us ways of living and acting rightly, of thinking correctly,

of making moral decisions, ethical decisions, of contributing good into the the world.

It will do all of those things as we seek the heart of God and his wisdom.

As God does what he's trying to do, which is give us his heart,

to give us his wisdom, to be able to act in righteousness,

which just means to do rightly to people, to act rightly toward people,

to act rightly toward God in whatever situation we find ourselves in.

Scripture is God's voice to listen to. This is a right intuition.

This is a good thing. How can we get it wrong?

I do this all the the time.

And I'm barely confident that every single one of you do it all the time, every day, perhaps.

So the way we're going to do this one, let me read a couple of verses in Psalm

139, and we'll drive it home through this.

This is verse 17, Psalm 139.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I wake up, and I am still with you.

O that you would slay the wicked, it, O God. O men of blood,

depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent.

Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?

And do not I loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete

hatred. I count them as my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts.

See if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting.

Which of that do you think I'm going to memorize? eyes. Which of that do you

think I'm going to conveniently forget about?

Right? We so often treat the Bible as this grab bag of warm,

spiritual, fuzzy feelings, fuzzy lines. And that's what we fixate on.

And then we tend to avoid all the parts that make us uncomfortable or challenge

us that we don't want to think about. We conveniently forget them.

If you make a mental note right now, all the Bible verses that you can think

of, anything that you've memorized, do they mostly fall into the category of life verse material?

You guys know this idea of life verse?

Do they fall into that category? Or do they line up more with these three or

four verses in Psalm 139?

If the answer is number two, there might be another problem.

We treat the Bible like a grab bag of these spiritual fuzzy feelings, these fuzzy lines.

But should David even be praying this prayer? Have you ever thought about that

in the Psalms, in the Bible? Should David David, even be praying this.

Jesus tells us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute you.

So does that mean that David is wrong in doing what he's doing?

Is there a different circumstance, a different situation, a different context going on here?

If we can't rightly adapt these words into our prayer life, what about the verses

that come before it and after it?

Can we just automatically assume that those I agree with, so those I'm going

to take, these I disagree with, so I'm going to leave them.

Can we treat the Bible that way? makes us think, makes us ask questions.

And that's kind of the point. You got to ask questions. You got to be curious.

If you don't have questions when you're reading the Bible, you're probably not

reading it right because it's full of unfamiliar, strange stuff that makes us

uncomfortable at times.

It should cause us to ask questions and those questions should challenge our assumptions.

If we just read the Bible and agree with everything that we're reading,

then we're probably making God in our own image and he agrees with everything

that we agree with. But that's not the God of the Bible.

It's a good thing when our reading of scripture drags up uncomfortable questions.

And actually these questions, we're afraid of them. I know that I'm afraid when

my kids start getting older and ask me questions, I'm like, oh no,

they're not gonna be Christian.

We're afraid of questions. But the truth is that so often questions are opportunities

for us to grow in our faith, to grow spiritually.

There's so many opportunities for a blessing and for deep learning.

Solomon says in Proverbs, cry out for wisdom and beg for understanding.

Search for it like silver and hunt for it like hidden treasure.

Then you will understand and respect, have respect for the Lord,

and you'll find that you know God.

We learn about God, we learn to listen to his voice as we ask questions,

as we sort of press into the difficult questions head on, and we don't avoid them.

We press into them and we learn from them and we receive a blessing as we do that.

And it's because the parts that bother us, that's so often our opportunity is

to challenge our assumptions in the way that we think to expand us and to grow us.

Maybe we didn't even know we had some of those assumptions. So they expose within

us, they penetrate, right? The Bible is sharper than any two-edged sword.

It shows us what's really there.

So we press through the questions, we discover the treasure.

So what are the parts of the Bible that you avoid?

That might say more about you than anything, than you're willing to even admit.

So these are our right intuitions. So as we kind of bring it home,

how should we read the Bible? Here's four quick instructions.

Some of them are repeating what we've already talked about. First,

read the Bible in context.

Resist the urge, maybe you've done this, to flip it open, point an ascendance,

and just start reading it. Resist the urge to do that.

When we read it as a single unified story where what comes before it and what

comes after it has something to say about what we're currently reading,

that's when we experience God.

That's when we realize that it is all interconnected. It is carefully woven together.

So don't pick it apart. Don't consume it piecemeal. Second, we just talked about

this. Ask questions, be curious.

Dig for the treasure. So we talked about how we shouldn't avoid the challenging

parts. We also shouldn't just try and solve them.

We shouldn't just try and solve the tension that we're experiencing.

The Bible is full of things that are supposed to be held in tension that make us uncomfortable.

It's designed for us to keep that tension and not try and quickly solve it.

So when we try and quickly solve the tension, that's when real problems happen.

But the word of God is meant to be wrestled with, like Jacob wrestled with God,

but rather than trying to be its victor, let's let it master us.

Let's let it stand above our assumptions, above our presuppositions.

Let it challenge us. Let it be our authority, especially in those moments where

it doesn't say what we really want it to say. Let it master us.

Third is to read the Bible with other people. It wasn't until the last 500 years

or so that it was even possible for someone to seek God alone all by themselves

to read the Bible in their room, seek God alone.

It wasn't even possible until the printing press.

So the Bible in an oral culture wasn't written for you to read it by yourself.

It was written for you to share these family stories with one another,

to tell them around the table to remind each other of truth.

So read them with other people, ask questions with each other, challenge each other.

This is how we overcome our own history, our own baggage, our own culture.

As we read the Bible together, one thing I'll never stop saying,

you'll never stop hearing me say is that we grow together.

We grow together. We don't grow

primarily by ourselves. We grow in life together. Finally, live it out.

Don't just acquire knowledge. Let Let these family stories shape you,

shape your life over time.

As you wade into the depths of its riches, let it change you.

These words will change you in profound ways and all the ways that God wants to.

You'll find so many ways as you read the Bible that God is changing your heart,

changing what you care about, changing your life, challenging your assumptions.

He wants to do that. The word of God is our only hope. God's word is sharp enough.

It is living enough. It is active enough to penetrate to the depths of our heart,

to remind us that the lies of sin are indeed lies, to reveal to us the promises

of God that we can trust in them.

To shape us into his image, the image that reflects his glory and goodness into the world around us.

The word of God is our only hope. So saturate yourself with these words.

Let them shape the way that you live. Let that be the voice that you hear most often.

So what would it look like? What would it look like right now for you to engage

the Word of God more, for you to press into the Word of God more.

What is your relationship with the Bible currently?

Honestly, like, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about

it? What's the first... What is the word I'm looking for?

Inclination? That's the word. Not intonation. That's a different thing.

What's the first inclination when I ask that question? What is your current

relationship relationship with the Bible?

How can you grow? How can you take a step deeper?

What would it look like for you to wade further into the depths of God's word,

all that he has for you, to the depths of the Bible?

What would it look like? What we need is protection from unbelief,

from all of the other voices competing for our attention,

day in and day out, to fight unbelief with the promises of God,

to fight unbelief with God's word, to fight the lies with the truth,

to listen to the voice of wisdom, to listen to the voice of God.

We need that day in and day out.

So let this word pierce through you to the depths of your soul and spirit.

Let it penetrate into the depths of your heart. Let it make observations of what it finds there.

Let it expose to you your thoughts and your motives, and your intentions.

Let it make judgments of what's there. Let God change you through His Word.

Saturate yourself with the Word of God.

Thank you for listening to Mountainside Church's podcast. We hope you found

inspiration and encouragement in today's teaching.

To learn more about our church, stay connected, or partner with us, visit mcboone.com.

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