While I was in Argentina, someone asked me what my college major had been. When I told them it had been Bible, they said, “How can you major in just one book?” I explained that it wasn’t really about one book, that we had studied many things concerning the Bible and what the Bible teaches.
I’ve come to realize that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to major in just the Bible. After more than 30 years studying the Bible, it’s amazing to me how many things I haven’t understood before. Not just the small, obscure things. The big “duh” elements that seem so critical to understanding once I see them. Take, for example, what I wrote a while back about the promise made to Abraham. That’s a pretty central concept that I just hadn’t understood.
Or the fact that “organized worship” really didn’t exist before the establishment of the Passover. And that for a long period of time after that there were no weekly assemblies. Or the significance of Revelation 5. I could go on and on from there.
I anticipate spending a lifetime learning more about the Word of God. The more I study, the more I realize that I don’t know. I guess that’s part of learning to humble myself before God’s revelation, part of letting myself be mastered by God’s Word rather than seeking to master it.
Do you think that’s part of what “through a glass, darkly” means?
Tim, you are right we can learn, and change for the rest of our days, but what bothers me is how do we go back and say to all those we have taught “sorry I was wrong” some we will never see again. I have talked to some pretty famous preachers who have changed their thinking, their regrets are they can’t change what they have done. It is an awesome responsibility when we decide to teach others the bible. The word of salvation. we need to at least be sure of what we believe.
Laymond,
You are very right. I try, as often as I can, to remind people not to take what I say because I say it, but to only take what agrees with the Bible. Still, I think we need to approach the task of teaching reverently and humbly. I don’t know that I always project that.
Grace and peace,
Tim
That is why we must get beyond this idea that our salvation is based upon how much we know and how much we are correct about.
If we share with people the opportunity to enter into relationship with Jesus Christ, and they take advantage of that opportunity, all of our other teaching will only be striving to enhance that relationship and to strengthen their ability to offer that relationship to others. If their foundation is in a relationship with Christ, they will not be shipwrecked no matter how much more deeply they learn the truths of Scripture.
It is the other half of Paul’s clause that is so dangerous: “Always learning, but never coming into relationship with the truth.” When people are taught that they cannot know Jesus unless they know a bunch of other stuff as well — I fear that they will be shipwrecked with every new discovery.
Nick, I actually had the rest of the verse in the title, but decided I didn’t like the implications, especially if you consider the original meaning.
But about the rest of what you wrote… you mean there’s no heavenly entrance exam? What have I been studying for all these years?
Exactly — I completely understand and agree with your title choice!
You’ve been studying? THE BIBLE? Why? Once you know the truth, all you need to do is defend what you’ve always known.
About 10 years ago I knew everything about the Bible. Now I know very little. Some of the guys I went to school with still know everything about the bible, and do TV shows like “Know Your Bible.” They’ve got all the answers. Unfortunately they’re usually asking or answering the wrong question. What did people do before we became so literate? I’m all for Bible study, but as a means to an end, not an end in itself. I’m a big fan of learning the Bible orally, learning the stories, allowing them to shape us. We tend to get lost in the details and are blind to the larger, sweeping themes.
Ben,
I was thinking today about how we tend to overanalyze the Bible, focusing too much on nuances of individual words, etc. It helps to remember that the vast majority of people over the ages HEARD the Bible instead of reading it. They couldn’t do the intricate word studies that we do today.
Grace and peace,
Tim
And when you reach the age of 78 or 80, you still won’t know all there is to know of God’s Word. That is the beauty of it, that His Word is so powerful, so full of meaning for our lives, that we will never, on this earth, understand it all. But that is where God’s grace comes in – He knows our frailty and still loves us.