How to Study The Bible Part 2

This is Rodney from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explored manhood within Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Sit back, enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network.

walking Christian men's ministry, where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Welcome to all of the ManTalk Radio listening audience. We're glad to be back. It's amazing, Roy, how fast a week goes.

It really is, and how fast that last show went. If you recall, we were closing out and Keith had to throw his fingers up three, two, one. We didn't hardly get into the second version or second grouping that we wanted to speak with, which was how to read the Bible. We did get the read daily part out of the way.

Exactly. When you approach the Bible, there are certain questions that I think you should ask yourself. One is, what is the main point of the passage that you're reading? What is the thought of the parallel passage or the one before it and the one after it? And then, if you have any obstacles that you see in your understanding of a particular passage or passages, what are those obstacles that you need to overcome?

You need to write them down and identify them. And then, is there any type of potential application that you can pull from the passage to apply to your life? Because ultimately, Roy, when you study, it's all about changing your life. So if you're reading the word of God and your life never gets changed, what does that say?

Well, it's just passing through, right? And you're not committed. That would be my second thought that a person should say, well, am I really committed to this thing called fallen Christ?

Because if it's not changing and you're not changing, then you've got to ask yourself that very question. Absolutely. Am I serious about this walk? And your points were very good because as we move down this path over the next several weeks, we can talk about the need for journaling and that sort of thing.

We may even actually get to a little bit today. And also, part of that journaling process would be that very thing. What's the application? How does this apply to me?

What's the overall theme? Those types of things which you'll be able to help share good guidance for the folks that are listening as well. The other point, number two, and we'll get through this and then we'll take some more from Will's how to teach the Bible study, but is set a regular reading time. Dr. LaHaye says it's really important to set that same time.

And then it correlates to either this section or one other section. But you set a regular time to eat every day, right? Somewhat within a few minutes of the breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

So there's no difference. You're feeding your soul here, so you should be very, very disciplined about setting that regular time each day. And I think what Dr. LaHaye, his intent there is to be consistent.

That's the thing. So if you're consistent in your reading and you say, hey, at this time I normally eat, so at this time I'm ready to study the word of God, then I think that'll keep you on track. And this book was built around a total three-year program, so it lays it out for you very simply, but very effectively. And one of the things he says in here, Will, to that point is, it's been 15 minutes of reading and 15 minutes of studying each day over a three-year period. And that's what it's leading you towards, is that 15 minutes of reading and then the study and back to what you're talking about, meditating on what it is God's trying to speak to you about, what the overall theme is, and how can it apply. What's the applicability in my life in this particular scripture that I've studied? Absolutely, because all scripture, according to 2 Timothy 3, 15, all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

And it's profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness that the man of God will be mature or perfect, thoroughly furnished into all good works. So God is saying, I'm going to cover you completely. You are not going to lack for anything when you get into my word and you allow my word to permeate the mind and penetrate the heart. Ooh, I like that.

Permeate and penetrate. Those are big words, Will. Get out of here. You're doing so good today, Will. I'm proud of you. And folks, he is coming off memory, in case you're wondering. I've stressed that before. God has blessed him in a way that he just starts to roll decks in front of his eyes and it's clicking.

I can see the scripture's getting ready to come out, so it's quite impressive. Good job, my brother. So three, set a regular place to do your study. Set a regular place. And we talked about that on last time, Roy, because you want a place to where you're not going to be interrupted. No distractions.

No distractions. And so you can completely concentrate on the Spirit of God as he's speaking to you through your reading. And I might add, I'm going to throw this in here, Roy, because I know we'll probably talk about this later on, is when you study, there's two pieces of literature, if you will, that you need to have in your possession. One is you need to have a very good concordance. That's number one. And number two, the other thing you need to have is a good Hebrew and Greek dictionary.

So you need to have a good concordance and you need to have a good Hebrew and Greek dictionary. Good advice. Good advice. Number four, read with a pencil in hand. I see your eyes light up. The best way to dial your brain into a vital attitude is to pick up a pencil and be ready to receive a message from God. That very act makes you more alert and expectant that God will communicate something to you today which you need to know. And Dr. LaHayes does a great job of making it very understandable why these things are so important. And see, you can't remember everything.

That's the thing about it. And you have to record things. You have to make notes.

And I think if you go to your local house of worship and you don't have some type of pad or pen, or if you're not using your phone or you have some type of iPad or even a mini computer that you take with you, then you're not doing yourself justice when it comes to completely understanding what you heard because you're not going to remember everything you heard. And there's things that when you go back and you take notes because what I do, Roy, is I just kind of scribble down points in a message. Then I go back and organize those things.

So it's just not scribble. I'm making notes, and then I go back and I say, okay, this, this, this is organized. And then I may even add some other highlights, some other points to that. Well, that's a great observation, Will, and I like the approach and your discipline with that. I do the same thing on Sunday mornings during sermons. I'll have a journal, and I'll just do the header, who the speaker is, and then I'll start making up points. And then I'll write all the scriptures down as the reference is given.

And then I'll actually put a square box around the scriptures so they're easy to jump out when you go back and review the notes later. And one of the things Dr. LaHayes says here as well in this read with a pencil hand is that when you see something special in your reading, write it down. Not only does it record for handy review in the future, but it helps to cement the thought more forcibly into your brain.

And we all know that. When you write something down, for whatever reason, it seems to be easier to remember than if you just hear it and then move on. I think it's the repetition that helps make that more solidified. And you know, I was going to say, Roy, when people learn languages, they always say, you know, I can write it better than I can speak it. And that's because of the visual nature of it. When you see something, you have a tendency to understand what it is when you see it rather than when you hear it.

Why? Because someone may be speaking in some other different type of dialect, you know, than when you learned it, that particular language, or you're learning a new language. And you might hear a word and then you hear it differently over here. But because the dialects are different, you say, whoa, what is this word?

And so then you go to speak it back to the person and you might be saying something that's not appropriate to them because you misinterpreted, you know, how the word's supposed to sound. It's supposed to be used, that's right. So number five, read devotionally. The Bible is a living book written by a loving God to his children and it's profitable, practical. In it, he provides basic principles, guidance, and inspiration on how to live. It was written to people and because human nature hasn't changed in years since its writing, it has a message for God's people today, more than a message, however.

The Bible is true, soul food. And this is a point, when you go to the Scripture and you start reading, just ask yourself again some basic question. Who is speaking? Who are they speaking to?

What's the purpose behind why they're saying what they're saying? And then one we kind of tend to see to forget is the dispensation piece because there are a lot of things that God spoke to the children of Israel under the dispensation of the law. And I think sometimes we allow ourselves to get confused when we take certain things that God spoke specifically to the children of Israel and we try to bring them into the New Testament and apply them to our life. Now that's not to say that certain applications you can make from that. But when you look at the Scripture directly and you say, if God spoke that to the children of Israel, that was meant for me too. We have to be careful about that.

Because again, we're attempting to force something to apply under this dispensation of grace. That's good, Will. So number six, keep a spiritual diary or journal. I think in today's terms maybe a journal might be what more people are referring to. So what's going to be kind of cool is we're going to, on the next second half here, we'll talk about what needs to be included in the spiritual diary. And Will, this is really, folks, if you're listening again, we're just encouraging you to start getting the Word every day.

Regular time, regular place, and a regular quality time in terms of amount of time. At least 15 minutes to read, 15 minutes to study. And then we'll talk about what to put in your journal as we move forward through that here in just a few moments. It will make you a better man.

And as we have been studying maximizing manhood, it will maximize your reading and your studying when you let God bless you. And so you have to let, this is why you hear me say it a lot, let God, because God is not going to force himself on you. You have to let him do, because even though he can, he's not going to do it. The trees were in the Garden of Eden, and God didn't force them to take a bite of the forbidden fruit.

It was there. And he said, if you love me, you're going to obey me. And so they showed their love for him by disobeying what he said. So they, God, we love you enough that we're going to disobey you and eat of this forbidden fruit. And see, this is not love. God wanted their love, and he wanted their devotion. He doesn't need it, because he is love.

But he shows us how to love. And ladies, if you're listening, you know what the result of that was, what you have to go through these days as a result of that. We'll be right back with you in just a few seconds. TAWCMM would love to have you join their community of men for breakfast every first and third Friday of every month. They have Bible discussions and fellowship after the best breakfast in town. The meeting location is at their gracious host church, First Christian Church in Kernersville, 1130 North Main Street in Kernersville.

They have a hard start at 7 o'clock and a hard stop at 8 o'clock. First time visitors eat for free. Join your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Affordable Chiropractic in High Point. As you might tell from their name, affordable chiropractic, even for the cash patient. Dr. Jeff Fricke has been caring for patients in High Point for 34 years. Physical therapy such as ultrasound and spinal decompression for disc conditions such as herniation. Comprehensive care for auto accident injury patients with no out-of-pocket expense. Remember, affordable chiropractic on West Lexington Avenue in High Point.

Call 336-885-1987. Welcome back to ManTalk Radio. This is part two of How to Stow the Bible. As we were closing out right before break, we were talking about keeping a spiritual diary or journal and the need for that. Because it's a good place to reflect, a good place to take your thoughts as they pop into your mind. And again, because you're probably going to be on a little bit of a schedule based on your planning for your day.

It gives you an opportunity to come back and review what you studied in the morning or the next day that you had the night before, that sort of thing. So, Will, let's talk about a little bit what should be included in the spiritual diary or journal. And some of the things we've already been talking about in the last week and this week is, what was God's message to you today?

That should be the first thing as you're reflecting on your study. What was the promise from God? Number two, there should be something if there was a promise from God in that particular scripture you're reading. And then number three as part of this group is, what's the command to keep? What is the command to keep?

So do you want to elaborate a little bit on that, Will? The promise from God, God's message to you today and the command to keep? Well, you know, I think that third one, command to keep, is I would look at that also in the opposite sense and say, depending on where you're reading in the scripture, if you're reading the historical Old Testament and you see how God started to deal with the children of Israel because of disobedience, because of their error, so now you can say, what error should I avoid? So it's almost like flipping that thing around and saying, okay, I'm reading here in the Old Covenant, you know, how disobedient the children of Israel was.

I don't want to go down that road. And of course we know the Old Testament was written for our learning, the Word of God says, and our admonition. So what we, living in this, under this dispensation of grace, we understand that when a person comes to the Word of God, again, these messages of recording and letting God bless you to look for, look for an application, just don't assume, you know, because there's going to be commands, there's going to be promises. Yeah, and that's why it's important to pray before you start reading and ask God to reveal these things to you. What about the person, Will, that's listening and says, hey, I'm covered by the blood, this is New Testament, do I really need to obey any commands?

Well, to him I would say, wherever you were getting your studying from, you need to go back and really make an assessment. Because when the Word of God is specific, it's clear, and even a child can understand it. And Jesus made that point when the disciples started rebuking the kids, and Jesus said, you know, let them alone. But except you come as a little child, you're not getting into the kingdom of heaven.

There's no way you're going to enter in. And what he's saying is you need to come as a child. Full obedience. Absolutely, because when a child is young, you know, and you say, hey, you know, and you brought them up in the right way, don't do this, don't do that. And you explain to them why you don't do that. And, you know, those things will start sinking in. But somebody probably listening to me and saying, Pastor, not my boy or girl. When I tell them don't do that, they do it anyway. You know, what do I do about them?

Well, that's another topic for another day. I think the phone's ringing. I think it's your daughter about your grandchildren.

No, thanks. And then number four, a timeless principle. What is the timeless principle that he's showing you in your study?

And then number five, your application, like we talked about. How do I apply this, what God has revealed to me? And I think that's important, back to Will's point earlier, is that if you're not putting it into action, then it's falling on deaf heart, deaf mind, deaf ears, right?

If you just read it and you pass over it. Especially back to Dr. LaHaye's commentary earlier was that, you know, human nature is human nature. The only thing that's changed over the last 2,000 years has just been our environment and our toys, if you will. You know, the human's still the human.

Absolutely. And rotten to the core until the Father gets ahold of us, right? We're just, that's who we are. And men, I think, some men, I think they just don't want to change. You know, because they want to shift the responsibilities of maybe some of the things that's happening in their life.

They want to shift those responsibilities to someone else and say, oh, it's all my wife's fault. It's, you know, well, we tried this and we tried that and she won't listen to me and things like that. When I hear that from an individual, if you say, okay, have you looked at this?

Yeah, we looked at this already, Pastor. And, you know, she just don't want to change. She just don't want to listen. But it's all she, she, she.

Not me, me, me. Exactly. And see, so what role do you play in that? Because, you know, as the old worldly proverbial saying goes, it takes two to tango. Yeah, I just had that conversation with someone today. I said it takes two to dance, whether you're having troubles or things are in total bliss, right? So you've got to have ownership.

Now one might be weighted a little bit more than the other based on certain things or certain actions, but it does take two to dance. Absolutely. So now Dr. LaHaye finishes this particular chapter up. And folks, again, all credit to Dr. LaHaye. This is How to Study the Bible for Yourself by Tim LaHaye. And then Pastor Will's been quoting from one of his resources. They have How to Study and Teach the Bible by Elmer Towns.

Yes, so we want to make sure we give proper credit. But these are good, solid principles and reasons for keeping a spiritual diary journal. Number one, Dr. LaHaye says it provides a handy method for recording special daily insight from God's Word, which we've been talking about.

Handy method. So number two, it produces an attitude of expectancy. And this goes back to what you were talking about, you know, putting the Word in your mind and your heart. Then you're expecting what God's going to do because you're reading about His promises. You're reading about His armor, His protection, and watch over us and how He's going to take us through everything.

Absolutely. And then number three, it provides a handy check on regularity. Yeah, so what it does is it's ensuring that you're doing those things that you said you're going to do. Or as a representative of God, there are things that I should be doing in my daily walk anyway. And if I'm not doing those things, then again, the Word of God and the Spirit of God is going to come and correct you on those things. He's going to chasten you. And if you don't listen to that chastisement, because again, He chastens you because He loves you. So if we don't listen to that, it's going to come a little bit harder and a little bit harder.

And then again, we're going to go back and ask ourselves the question like we talked about last week, Roy. It's why are these things happening to me, Lord, when I'm doing those things that you called for me to do? I'm going to your house of worship.

I'm listening to the Word. I'm giving of my tithe and offering. Because remember now, we don't pay our tithes. We give our tithes. Because it's His. We're giving it back.

Absolutely. Because it doesn't belong to us. And that's part of the prayer that God had blessed me to incorporate when it comes time to take up offerings in the church.

God blessed me to pray. Thank you, God, for giving us the opportunity to give back unto you that which doesn't belong to us. That which is yours that didn't belong to us.

It doesn't belong to us. And also the regularity piece, it provides a handy check on regularity, Will. That, too, if you're looking, you maybe think, well, I'm reading the Bible regularly and I'm doing my journaling. But if you, at the end of the month, go back and look at your journaling and you've got three or four day gaps every week in there, then you've really not been consistent. And I can't remember the statistics, but it was, I think it's if a person is reading and studying four days or more, that their life and their impact and their kingdom walk was just exponential compared to the person who was one to three days. So basically one to three days is a miss.

Four days or more is where you start getting to run around the bases, if you will. And you start really achieving something in terms of your knowledge and your growth and your closeness with the Father. So really, really these are good tools, good points that we're making here. It provides a handy review, as we talked about before. Once you write it down, it's a better chance to lock it into your memory. Second, you've got a chance to go back and look it up.

If you've missed something or something's on your heart, but hey, I remember I heard that last week, you can immediately go back and have a quick reference. And so you meditate on it. And again, meditation on it.

And of course we're not talking about any transcendental meditation. We're talking about meditating because the Word of God calls for us to meditate on the Word of God. So that's keeping the Word of God in our heart and mind. And as I go through today, I look for opportunities to say, Lord, how can I use this one, two, or three verses that you allow me to put into my spirit? How can I – I look for opportunities. I just don't say, okay, let the opportunity come.

But I look for them. And I think what that does is it says you're putting so much importance on the Word that God is going to bring someone into your pathway to where these verses of Scripture can now be applied. And it's exactly what they need. They've been going through something and all of a sudden you come, you speak the Word of God to them and comfort them with the Word of God.

Perfect time, perfect place. That's when you speak it. When you speak it, God said, I'm going to honor it. And it's Numbers 23, 19 and Isaiah 55, 11. He said, when I say – speak something, it's going to go out. And it's going to accomplish that which I have set forth it to do. That's the Word of God. Great word, Will. Finally, it provides an easy appraisal of spiritual growth. Wow. So if you look at the start of your journaling and then the diary and then by the middle to the end, you should see your thoughts getting deeper, your heart being more reflected in your words and what you're studying.

So that's good. So we want to go back and just do a quick mirror back here as we started last week about how to study the Bible. So let's talk real quick here, Will, if you don't mind.

No, go ahead. And what we will do is what the Bible study will do for you. First, the point we made last week, it will make you a strong Christian. It will assure you of your salvation. It will give you confidence and power in prayer. It will cleanse you from sin. It will give you joy. It will produce peace in your life. It will guide you and make an improvement, important decisions in your life. It will enable you to articulate your faith and it will guarantee your success. And go back and listen to the remainder of the show.

You can review this and we've got about how to read the Bible and then the application piece of what you need to use. So folks, we have really enjoyed being with you, Will. Absolutely. It's been great. It's always good to see you. It's been great.

Thank you so much for your time. And one thing, Will, you were kidding about some of our sayings that we do, things that have locked in with us. Folks, one of the things that we say quite often with our men is that, you know, people have a lot to say, but oftentimes they don't realize what their actions are saying. So one of our sayings is, your actions are speaking so loud, I can't hear a word you're saying. So I want you to meditate on that for a few seconds.

Your actions are speaking so loud, I can't hear a word you're saying. Take that and hold on to that. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, is building a community of men that are Christ followers with the desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk. This is the Truth Network.