I am blessed that within my job I get to teach three classes on Monday night to people who want to study and learn the Bible. The classes go beyond the normal Sunday school class, small group study, or even sermons that we have here at Westlake Baptist. We are able to dive into the deeper, finer points of Scripture, and engage in some interesting, and sometimes off the wall, debates and discussions. I will be the first to admit (before a member of the class rats on me) that sometimes the discussions get away from us. But overall, it feeds my passion for the Word of God and the study of it, when we are able to have classes like we have. For three hours on Monday nights we pull out, interpret, and learn to apply the Old Testament, New Testament, and Theology. The goal of the classes since I began teaching them has always been to challenge the students God sends me to examine their theology. I must admit sometimes I throw out statements that I myself do not agree with just to see if someone will engage me in a biblical debate. I am pleased to say that the overwhelming majority of the time, I get just what I was looking for. I begin each semester with two fundamental questions. They are the title of this blog, do you know what you believe and do you know why you believe it? I also begin every semester with the statement, “if you ever tell me you believe something because someone told you it, and you have never studied it for yourself, I will fail you right here, right now.” I remember one of my Liberty University professors saying, “what someone gives you, someone else can take away from you, but what God shows you belongs to you.” I often think about that statement in sermon or teaching preparations. It would be easy to go to a commentary and see what they said about a particular passage. Commentaries are helpful from time to time, but they shouldn’t be relied upon as the main source of your interpretation work.
May I ask you, what do you believe and why do you believe it? Last night there was a debate between Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis and Bill Nye the Science Guy on the origins of all things. By the way, please don’t tell me how it went, I hope to watch it sometime later this week. 2 Timothy 2:15 tells us to “study to shew thyself approved.” Regardless of what you believe, can you back it up with sound reasoning and logic or is it something you hope for, want to believe in, or maybe something someone you really trust told you? I often remind those at WBC, takes notes of teachings and sermons here and then go back and study them. If there is one thing I have learned over the 30+ years of my life it is this, I can and will make mistakes. One of the hardest parts of a pastor or teachers job is the work of interpretation of Scripture. Most Christians readily agree that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infalliable word of God. 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us, “All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God and it is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.” Because it is God’s Word (not man’s) and it is good for those things we must understand that all Scripture has only one correct interpretation. Each verse can only mean one thing. Now how it is applied can vary from person to person. So how can I know if when I am studying it, I am interpreting it properly?
First, we must all come to the word of God with humility. Isaiah 55:8-9 tells us that God’s ways are not our ways. God is so infinitely more wise than we are, we cannot understand everything that God does. So we need to come with a humility that says “this is your word, I need you to teach it to me.” Secondly, we must come prayerfully. Without the Spirit of God teaching us the Word of God, we won’t understand, properly interpret, or apply it. Remember, this is God’s Word, not ours. And yes based on Isaiah 40:8 I believe that God has kept His promise to preserve His word for all generations. Finally, the best way to properly interpret the Bible is to let it interpret itself. In other words, leave your thought, feelings, and opinions on the shelf, and allow the Word to speak for itself. The great news is that God said exactly what He meant. If He needed our help, He would have asked for it. But He didn’t, because He doesn’t, and so that is that. Compare the Scripture you are reading with other Bible passages that talk about the same thing. Because the Bible is perfect in all things, there are no contradictions and so if you read a passage and think it is saying one thing, but then you read another passage and it is saying something different, then you are not properly interpreting one of those two passages. That is not a knock, because the work of interpretation isn’t easy. Lastly, the Bible will not mean something today that it didn’t mean back then when it was written. The attempts to hijack the Bible and twist it in order to say what we want it to must be rejected. My challenge to you is this, know what you believe, why you believe, and even where to find it in the Bible. In the words of the great reformer, Martin Luther, sola scriptura, Scripture alone. The Bible is our sole authority on creation, God, man, eternity, and all other things in between. The Bible said it and that settles it!
By His grace and through His strength may we live for Him