Reading the Word

          A lot has been written and said about the study of the Bible. Most Bible colleges will offer a course in “hermeneutics,” the study of the Scriptures. I took one such course in College which used a core book entitled, “The Joy of Discovery” by Oletta Wald. That was accompanied by another book called, “Methodical Bible Study” by Traina. It was a tad bigger and took more time to get through but was exciting and these two books are still a valued part of my library.. Then, during my ministry, I taught several courses on Bible study to different groups of people. There are books, courses, seminars, charts and lectures that can be located to help everyone to discover the truths of the Scriptures. One course that I both took and then later led utilized 19 videos in how to Observe, Interpret and the Apply God's Word to your life. As one man once said, “You can study a lot of books about the Bible and still not study the Bible.” Second Timothy 2:15 says, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

        This verse was the theme verse for Washington Bible College and for Luther Rice Seminary and probably a lot more schools, colleges and seminaries that are connected with the Christian faith. There are many people who figure that the Bible is a very important book and one book that needs to investigated thoroughly in order to find out what it says. At the same time, they feel inadequate to do that for themselves, so they hire “pastors,” “teachers,” and other “educated” people to tell them what it says. It is their idea that if they try to do it themselves, they will mess it up and therefore damage the message. The Apostle Paul, in writing to young Timothy exhorted him to study the Word of God. Any input of the Word of God into our lives is valuable and even the Scriptures themselves exhort us to hear, read, study, meditate and memorize the Scriptures. The sad thing is to go through life with an excellent tool box and never use any of the tools. I have my Father's tool box in the basement. The tools are worn and dirty as wrenches, screwdrivers and hammers have been used to fix and to build various items. He used the tools and we should also be using the tools that we have in our tool box for Bible Study. The people of the church at Berea were able to search the Scriptures to find out if what Paul was saying, was right or not. I know of areas in our world where they do not have their own personal copy of God's Word, but solely rely on the words of fallible men to explain it to them. It was just recently that they got access to the Scriptures for themselves and now enjoy reading it for themselves. So, in your quest to know about the Bible, don't neglect the Bible itself. Praise God today that He has given His Perfect Word.