Explore the Bible: Matthew 13:10-17

Jesus used many parables in His teaching, and Matthew 13 has several of them. After He gave the parable of the sower, His disciples were curious as to why Jesus used parables. His answer was that those who had spiritual insight would understand the point of the parable, while those who refused to listen would hear the story but miss the point. He quoted Isaiah 6:9-10 to explain this principle.

The passage Jesus quotes is from the call of Isaiah in chapter 6. Isaiah has his vision of the Lord in the temple, and answers God’s call for someone to go and speak for Him. Even as He commissions Isaiah, the Lord warns him that people will refuse to listen to what he has to say, and will reject his call to return to the Lord. Jesus recognizes that people in His own time were in the same position as those of Isaiah’s time, and that many simply refused to listen to or understand what He had to say.

This refusal to heed the word of Christ goes beyond a few parables taught in the first century. Today there are many who attend churches and who know what the Bible says, but who refuse to accept that it is God’s Word. While there are certainly parts of the Bible that are hard to understand and require some significant study, much of its message is straightforward. The gospel is clearly spelled out, and the way to heaven through Jesus is stated many times in very plain language.

So how do people miss it? Many really don’t. They understand exactly what the Bible teaches, and their human nature rebels against the thought of it truth. They want to believe that they can make themselves right with God, and that there are other ways to heaven. They see the Bible as infringing on their freedom and hopelessly narrow-minded, not a message that fits the world of our day as they see it. It isn’t a question of intellect, but of will.

As we continue to study God’s Word, we have to constantly search our own hearts to see if we are open to hear what the Holy Spirit has to teach us or if we want to make the Bible fit what we already believe. Jesus’ own disciples took years to begin to figure out just what He meant by His teaching, and the gospels make it clear that when He died they didn’t yet comprehend what happened. It took years (and the Spirit!) to open their eyes fully to the full truth of His teaching.

We should be ready to allow as much time as it takes for the lessons of Scripture to find a home in our hearts. You may find that over time you see parts of the Bible more clearly, and maybe you even have to change your mind to match the truth. Some sections you may never fully grasp, and some truths of Scripture are simply beyond our finite human minds. (Just how does the Trinity work, anyway?) The rest of our lives, and indeed all of eternity, await our continued searching of the Scriptures to more fully understand the mind of God.

The Baptist Faith and Message- I. The Scriptures (Part 1)

Ia. “The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.”

In order for humanity to know what we need to be right with God, we need God Himself to reveal the truth to us in a way we can understand it. We believe that the Bible is that special revelation from God, the actual Word of God given to us exactly as God wanted it to be expressed. We call the divine role in the writing of Scripture “inspiration,” which comes from 2 Timothy 3:16 where we are told all Scripture is “God-breathed,” which is translated “inspiration” in older translations.

God did not drop the Bible from heaven already written, or even dictate it to people to be written word-for-word (except in a few instances that are described in the Bible). The Holy Spirit inspired people to write what was needed, using their own personalities and styles (1 Peter 1:20-21). There were about 40 authors of Scripture, and as we read what they wrote we can see the differences between the authors. Yet they wrote exactly what God wanted them to write; theologians use the term “verbal inspiration” to mean that each word of the Bible, not just the general ideas, are from God.

The Bible is the revelation of God’s thoughts, commands, and warnings. While we can learn some truths about God from creation and conscience (as Romans 1 tells us), we cannot know how the universe and humanity began, the extent of our separation from God, or the details of God’s provision of salvation through Jesus Christ without a divine message to give us the details. The message of the Bible centers on salvation (Romans 16:25-26).

Since the Scriptures reveal God’s plan of salvation, they must be completely reliable. We believe that the divine inspiration of the Bible keeps it from all error of fact and make it completely trustworthy in all that it tells us. We can fully rely on what the Bible teaches us about God and about salvation, but also about everything else it touches on. The word for this trustworthiness is “infallibility.” We believe that only the Bible is an infallible source of truth; no person, church, denomination, or creed is reliable except as it conforms to the Bible (Psalm 19:7-10). Through the inspired Word of God we can know the truth that He has given us and find the ultimate truth of Christ.

A look at "The Baptist Faith and Message"

I am beginning a series of short studies on "The Baptist Faith and Message." This is the statement of faith for the Southern Baptist Convention, and has been adopted by my home church as our church's statement of faith. This study will cover the basic doctrines of the Christian faith as well as beliefs that are distinctive to Baptists. I hope you will find this series helpful in understanding what the BIble teaches, even if you don't agree with everything that we Baptists believe. It can be stimulating to our own faith to understand how other Christians look at the truths of Scripture and apply them.

I will post the installments here on my own blog as they are posted to our church's web site.

Explore the Bible: Matthew 12:15-21

Matthew quotes Isaiah 42:1-4 here and applies Isaiah’s prophecy directly to Jesus. Unlike the application Jesus made of Isaiah when He answered John the Baptist’s question in Matthew 11:4-5, here the prophecy isn’t focused on the great works of the Messiah. Rather, Matthew uses the prophecy to point out why Jesus urged people not to spread the Word about Him. His role at this point in His ministry was to do the work He was sent to do, not to draw attention to Himself in such a way as to put the focus on Himself as the divine Deliverer.

In a Jewish study Bible I have, Isaiah 42 is said to refer primarily to the nation of Israel as a whole. It does point out that rabbis have seen it as a description of the Messiah (as well as the prophet Isaiah himself or the Persian king Cyrus), but attempts to make the description of the servant fit the role of Israel in a future ideal kingdom. It requires taking some Hebrew phrases in unusual ways, and writes off “open blind eyes” in verse 7 as another parallel way to say “freeing the prisoners.”

Even from an Old Testament perspective, however, it seems to make more sense of a special servant of the Lord, the Messiah. This Anointed One would not come with violence, and would not cease His work until justice was established over the whole earth. He would Himself be a covenant for the people, and would bring liberation not only from prison, but from the imprisoning conditions imposed by illness or handicap. Yahweh announces that this will, in fact, be something new.

For those of us under the New Covenant, we have Matthew’s divinely inspired interpretation to guide us in our understanding of who the Servant is. Although Matthew stops at verse 4, he would have seen the continuation of Isaiah’s prophecy as also applying to Jesus. Thus Matthew shows that he views this passage as referring to the Messiah, and that he believes that Jesus is that Messiah.

We are certainly to proclaim the truth about Jesus to our whole world today. While Jesus was here on earth, He often told people to keep what He had done quiet, but at the end of His earthly ministry He told His followers to proclaim the good news to all people; Matthew records this at the very end of his gospel (Matthew 28:19-20). Jesus is the justice and hope that both Isaiah and Matthew speak about. On the cross, Jesus made both possible and fulfilled the mission He had during His time here on earth. The ultimate fulfillment will come when He returns to establish His kingdom. We can continue to have a future hope as we read the words prophesied about Him all through God’s Word, and that hope should spur us to share the reason for our hope with all we meet.

Explore the Bible

I'm beginning a weekly series of short studies related to a Bible study that I co-teach on Sunday mornings at my church. We are following the "Explore the Bible" curriculum from Lifeway, which is designed to take you through the entire Bible in 8 years. As such, it necessitates focusing on just a short passage each week, while providing a reading guide that a student can follow to read through the entire book (or section of a book). We're finishing a study in Matthew 1-13, and will begin a study of Acts 1-12 beginning in March.

The studies I plan to do will be short (this is a blog, not a theological journal), and will generally ficus on a passage that we either passed over or had to cover very briefly. I may also bring up some topics related to that week's study that might be a little more tangential but interesting. I hope that these small studies will be of interest even to those who aren't involved in our particular curriculum.

30 Days in the Bible, Day 30: Amos 8:9-13

Our 30 day journey comes to an end with today’s devotional. I don’t think there was a better passage to end with than this one from Amos. In some ways, there is a famine for the Word of God even in churches today. Some churches have ceased preaching the gospel and moved on to a more political or societal message. Others only preach the parts of the Bible that fits what they or their members want to hear, ignoring large sections of the Word. Still others preach the Bible from the pulpit, but in such a way that it makes no impact in the lives of those in the church (and, worse, on those outside the church.)

God chose to give us a special revelation in the Bible that goes beyond what we can learn about Him through nature or conscience. The Bible isn’t just a collection of writings of people who came up with the best religious ideas they could manage. It is God’s Word, inspired by the Holy Spirit and having the authority of the Almighty God behind it.

In our part of the world today, we have been blessed with unsurpassed access to the Word. Sadly, many Christians have multiple Bibles on their bookshelves, computers, and cell phones, but they seldom (or never) actually read, study, meditate on, and memorize those Bibles. They treat the Bible as a talisman, or even an idol, whose presence means blessing even if it’s never used to hear God speak.

In some eras of the church, the Bible was only available chained to a table in the church building, or perhaps only available when the authorized priest or minister read from it. Some Christians today act as if that is still the case, only taking in the Word when they hear it on Sunday. God never intended His Word to be limited to just a professional spiritual elite, who could then dole it out to the rest of the people. The Word of God was meant for all to hear and understand.

So as we finish our journey, I want to encourage you to take advantage of the feast you have. The time may come when we, like many of our brothers and sisters throughout the world and throughout history, face a famine, and will have to struggle to access the Word. Until that time, let’s not impose a famine on ourselves by neglect of the Bible, God’s revelation to us. Continue to be in the Word, and the Word will soon be in you.

30 Days in the Bible, Day 29: Micah 4:1-3

Many teachers and churches today are trying to find ways to make the Bible’s teachings more attractive to unbelievers. This isn’t just trying to find relevant ways to present the Biblical message, which is a process that has been going on for almost 2000 years now. These teachers want to ignore certain passages, emphasize others, and maybe even outright reject certain teachings as old-fashioned or outdated.

In today’s passage Micah looks forward to the time when the Lord will be directly judging the earth. He will be teaching His ways to all the people, and the result will be peace and righteousness. This won’t just be for Israel, or some limited earthly kingdom. This will be a rule and a judgment for all the nations of the earth.

The prophets of the Old Testament often preached a message that the Lord’s love and mercy wasn’t only for Israel. There weren’t many Jews who accepted that. They thought that God worked through His people, and that to follow Him you had to become a Jew first. Even some groups of Christians in the early years of the church taught that you had to become a Jew before becoming a Christian. The vision of a worldwide people of God took a while to catch on.

Micah sees this time as one when the message of the Lord is so attractive to everyone on earth that they “stream to it.” The picture we have here is not of a coerced bowing down before the judgment of the Lord. Rather, the way of the Lord is something sought out by people who are willing to do whatever it takes to hear His Word.

There is a certain truth to the statement that people are not attracted to the message of the Bible, especially the gospel, in our culture today. Then again, there never was a time when the truth of Scripture didn’t offend people. The Bible tells us we are all sinners, that we can’t help ourselves, and that there is only one way of salvation. It teaches us what God expects of humanity, and tells us that going our own way is wrong. These messages will never attract people who are sinful by nature, living for themselves.

But when the Holy Spirit moves, the Word is seen for what it is: God’s communication of His love, grace, and mercy to us even though we are sinners and rebels against His laws. This shows us just how attractive the gospel message is, and how powerful the teaching of Scripture can be in helping us become the people God created us to be.

While we do want to communicate the truth of God’s Word in ways that people in our society understand, we don’t need to make the Bible more appealing to people. If they choose to live for themselves, they will reject it without any concern for what it says. If they are led by the Spirit, they will be drawn to its message. While the day Micah foresaw has not happened yet, we can be sure that the Word of the Lord will continue to draw people of all nations, races, languages, and cultures to Him as they heed the leading of the Holy Spirit.