Has Your Bible Read You Today?

We're often asked - and rightly so - "Have you read your Bible today?" But an even better question is this, "Has your Bible read YOU today?" In his new book on the parables of Jesus, Gerald Bilkes turns our thinking (and our Bible reading) around with these challenges:

"...many today are content to read the Bible in a way in which the Word of God is subject to them, rather than reading so they are subject to the Word. They study the Bible--so they think--but the Bible does not study them. They may even 'search the Scriptures,' but the Scriptures fail to search them."

Gerald M. Bilkes, Glory Veiled and Unveiled, Reformation Heritage Books

I once heard Dr. Bruce Ware suggest a simple prayer to pray before we begin our Bible reading, Lord, open Your Word to me and open me to Your Word. I think this is an appropriate way to begin allowing our Bibles to read us.



Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
(Psalm 139:23-24 ESV)

Why I'll Never Divorce My Wife

*This is a repost in light of a recent message I taught on this subject.

Well, there's lots of reasons, actually.  To name a few...

I'll never divorce my wife because I love her.
I'll never divorce my wife because I love my four children.
I'll never divorce my wife because I love God.

But John Piper suggests another reason - a more foundational reason - in his book "This Momentary Marriage."  Under the section heading, "Christ Will Never Leave His Wife," he writes,

Staying married, therefore, is not mainly about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant. “Till death do us part” or “As long as we both shall live” is a sacred covenant promise—the same kind Jesus made with his bride when he died for her. Therefore, what makes divorce and remarriage so horrific in God’s eyes is not merely that it involves covenant-breaking to the spouse, but that it involves misrepresenting Christ and his covenant. Christ will never leave his wife. Ever. There may be times of painful distance and tragic backsliding on our part. But Christ keeps his covenant forever. Marriage is a display of that! That is the ultimate thing we can say about it. It puts the glory of Christ’s covenant-keeping love on display.
The most important implication of this conclusion is that keeping covenant with our spouse is as important as telling the truth about God’s covenant with us in Jesus Christ. Marriage is not mainly about being or staying in love. It’s mainly about telling the truth with our lives. It’s about portraying something true about Jesus Christ and the way he relates to his people. It is about showing in real life the glory of the gospel.
Jesus died for sinners. He forged a covenant in the white-hot heat of his suffering in our place. He made an imperfect bride his own with the price of his blood and covered her with the garments of his own righteousness. He said, “I am with you . . . to the end of the age. . . . I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Matt. 28:20; Heb. 13:5). Marriage is meant by God to put that gospel reality on display in the world. That is why we are married. That is why all married people are married, even when they don’t know and embrace this gospel.
(Page 25-26, Emphasis added)

I'll never leave my wife because I love the Gospel!

It's true that our lives and our words and our actions and our relationships are all means by which we can display the Gospel to the lost world, but it is our marriage and ONLY our marriage that is designed by God to be THE perfect illustration of the amazing and permanent love that Christ has for His Bride.

Of course, our marriages aren't perfect because we aren't perfect.  In fact, if you have an imperfect marriage (and we all do), what better way to show the world how God loves sinners than to have two sinners in a marriage showing that same love to one another.

Job Security for the Theologian

The student of God never fully completes his course. Oh, there may be a grade given; but it will be for faithfulness... not for finality.

The theologian may retire, but there is never complete resolve.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
(Romans 11:33 ESV)

Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised,
        and his greatness is unsearchable.
(Psalm 145:3 ESV)

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
        it is high; I cannot attain it.
(Psalm 139:6 ESV)

Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
        his understanding is beyond measure.
(Psalm 147:5 ESV)

And though there is no ultimate finality in knowledge, there is also no futility. We can know Him - we must! It is a matter of life or death.

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
(John 17:3 ESV, emphasis added)

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
(1 John 5:20-21 ESV, emphasis added)

May Paul's prayer be ours, to know the unknowable...

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
   
(Ephesians 3:14-19 ESV, emphasis added)

The History of the Old Testament: In 450 Words or Less!

Here's a great little summary of the history of the Old Testament from Mark Dever's volume, The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made.

Our text begins, not surprisingly, on page 1 of your Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). That is where the story line of a particular history begins. The Bible is not only a book of wise religious counsel and theological propositions, though it has both. It is a story, a real story set in real history. It is a historical saga—an epic. And the story in the Old Testament is amazing!

In this very first verse, the story begins with the greatest event in world history. You have nothing, and then all of a sudden you have something.

But keep reading; there is more!

You have inanimate creation, and then all of a sudden you have life.

You have creatures, and then you have man made in God’s image.

You have the Garden of Eden, and then you have the Fall.

And all this occurs in the first three chapters of the Bible. Some people have called the third chapter of Genesis, where Adam and Eve sin in the Garden, the most important chapter for understanding the whole Bible. Cut out Genesis 3, and the rest of the Bible would be meaningless.

After Adam and Eve’s sin, Cain kills his brother Abel. Humankind further degenerates for a number of generations. And God finally judges the world with a flood, saving just one righteous man—Noah—and his family. The generations following Noah fare no better. Humankind rebels at the Tower of Babel; this time God disperses everyone over the face of the earth. A new beginning is then promised as God shows his faithfulness to another particular person, Abraham, and his family. After a brief period of prosperity, Abraham’s descendents, now called Israel, fall into slavery in Egypt. Then the Exodus occurs, in which Moses leads the people out of Egypt. God gives Israel the law. The people enter the Promised Land. They are ruled by a series of judges for a short time. A kingdom is established, with kings David and David’s son Solomon representing the pinnacle. Solomon builds the temple, which houses the ark of the covenant and functions as the center of Israel’s worship of Yahweh. Shortly after Solomon’s death, the kingdom divides between Israel and Judah—the northern and southern kingdoms. Idolatry grows in Israel until the Assyrians destroy the northern kingdom. Judah then deteriorates until it is destroyed by Babylon. Survivors are carried off to exile in Babylon, where they remain for seventy years. A remnant then returns to Jerusalem and rebuilds the temple, yet Israel never regains the glory it knew under David and Solomon. And that is the whole history of the Old Testament!

Dever has a New Testament volume as well, The Message of the New Testament: Promises Kept. These would be two great resources for any Bible student or teacher.

Hard Preaching

It's hard to preach hard things.
But we must.

For years churches have shrunk back from declaring the "whole counsel of God." (Acts 20:27) It's not just the liberal churches and their omittance of doctrines such as sin or Hell or the exclusivity of Christ. Evangelical churches are just as guilty of avoiding certain "hard" topics.

Speaking from almost two centuries ago, Charles Bridges addresses this serious problem with gentle counsel and balanced warnings. He identifies one extreme of preaching a pet-doctrine to the neglect of others, and the other extreme of out-right neglecting a difficult doctrine. Bridges says,

We must declare our testimony without concealment --not indeed forcing offensive truths into undue prominence; yet not daring to withhold them in their Scriptural proportion--adapting our statements to the spiritual capacities of our people; yet jealous, that we omit nothing from our own or our hearers' disgust to particular doctrines;--"not handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sigh of God." [2 Corinthians 4:2]

Bridges goes on to warn "against over-statements, or an undue partiality for individual points, which is equally unscriptural with an undue concealment."  "Judicious preaching," he says, "implies a clear display of every Doctrine of the Gospel..." (emphasis added)

It is in this section (and at the risk of being accused of ignoring his own warnings) that he singles out the doctrines of divine election as those that go too often by the way side in preaching and presenting the scope of Salvation. In a beautiful balance, he states, 

...in declaring the freeness of the invitations of the Gospel,
we must hide the basis of our effectual calling.
In displaying the riches of grace,
we must not forget to trace them to the sovereign pleasures of God.
We must enforce the obligations of holiness as connected with, and resulting from,
the eternal designs of God.

Continuing the balance, he says these must be brought "forth in their due place and order," and yet to avoid "forced and needless repetition."

Bridges then gives some insight as to the reason these doctrines are neglected. He suggests the following:

Much prejudice against these particular doctrines had doubtless arisen from a controversial and repulsive mode of statement, unconnected with that humility, watchfulness, holy devotedness, and enjoyment of Christian privileges... We must watch against repugnance to the study of any particular portions of Scripture; which is the sure indication of a wrong temper of heart--of a want of "trembling at the word" --and of a disposition even to cancel what our proud hearts cannot receive.

In other words, it's often pride in the heart of the preacher delivering this message that attributes to pride in the heart of the parishioner who will not receive it. But there is also a greater risk of pride for those who refuse to preach these hard things.  Bridges footnotes a section of John Calvin's Institutes on this same topic, from which I quote below:

But for those who are so cautious or fearful that they desire to bury predestination in order not to disturb weak souls--with what color will they cloak their arrogance when they accuse God indirectly of stupid thoughtlessness, as if he had not foreseen the peril that they feel they have wisely met? Whoever, then, heaps [disgrace] upon the doctrine of predestination openly reproaches God, as if he had unadvisedly let slip something hurtful to the church.
Calvin's Institutes, Book III, Chapter XXI, Section 4; Pg. 926

God forgive us for thinking we know better than You what people need to hear from our pulpits.
Help us to preach hard things.

Soft preaching makes hard people. Hard preaching makes soft people. ~ John MacArthur