“What is the purpose of Bible study?” That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? Because at first it seems like there would be such an obvious answer. Yet, as we stop to ponder it, we see that there might be several arguable answers. One person might answer that studying the Bible is a way in which we serve God, and that therefore, Bible study itself is a righteous thing. Another might reply that we study the Bible in order to prove that our beliefs are true, and that the beliefs of other religions are false. Others might argue that Bible study is all about finding solutions to our everyday problems. Still others might contend that it’s a combination of these things. What we are going to see in our short study on this subject, is that the purpose of Bible study is actually all of these things and yet none of these things, all at the same time. Although these responses are certainly partially correct, they fail to truly get at the heart of the answer. What we hope to do in this article is to peel back the layers and really get at the crucial root answer of our original question: “What is the purpose of Bible study?”
Our devilish little human minds…
If we are going to talk about studying the Bible, the first thing we need to talk about is our thoughts. This is going to seem a little off track at first, but trust me, there’s a spiritual GPS keeping us on the right path. To begin, let’s examine some familiar words of the Lord Jesus:
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man” (Mark 7:21-23).
These verses are pretty convenient because they are so cut and dried. There is no other way to put it — we humans have evil hearts, and a bunch of bad stuff comes out of those hearts. Horrible things. You watch the news and hear about a murder? That came from the heart. Read about a greedy, embezzling banker? Yes, that came from the heart. All of the disgusting things we hear on the news every day, and all the awful things that we ourselves have done and are ashamed of, come from our fleshly, human hearts.
We know this. We know that our hearts are deceitful. We know that we think and do evil things all the time. We know that there is a raging war of the spirit versus the flesh inside of us. The real question is — what does this have to do with Bible study? To answer this question let’s look at Isaiah. I am quoting the verses, and will continue to do so throughout, however, I recommend that you turn them up in your own Bible so that they become more familiar to you.
“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LoRD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LoRD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa 55:6-9).
We already examined how our own thoughts are impure, dark, and full of evil. God calls us to forsake our crooked ways and to forsake our fleshly thoughts and to instead turn to His thoughts! God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God’s thoughts higher than ours. That is to say, God’s thoughts are on a totally different plane than ours. This is a simple point, yet one of the most profound in the entirety of Scripture. It shows us that all evil comes from our own thoughts, and that all righteousness comes from God’s thoughts.
Following Directions
There is a perfect Biblical example of this principle in the story of Cain and Abel. We all know the story: Cain offered “the fruit of the ground,” which was unacceptable to God, and Abel offered a lamb, which was acceptable to God. Both offered an offering, why couldn’t God just accept both? The answer is that one offering was based on God’s thoughts, but the other offering was based on man’s thoughts. Let me explain. If we refer back to the preceding chapter of the Bible, we remember that Adam and Eve attempted to cover themselves with fig leaves. God found this covering to be unacceptable and gave them animal skin coverings instead. Wait a second… doesn’t this sound an awful lot like the two offerings of Cain and Abel? Just like the plant covering wasn’t acceptable, so Cain’s plant offering wasn’t acceptable either. God had already set up a principle for Adam and Eve that they surely would have taught their children; however, Cain decided to ignore what he had been taught. Because Cain ignored Godly principles, he didn’t know how to serve God correctly.
In light of this point it becomes quite apparent why Bible study is so crucial — because looking into the Word of God is the only way that we’ll know what is God’s way. It’s a look into the mind of God! Reading the Scriptures allows us to, as we read earlier in Isaiah 55, forsake our lowly, earthly plane of human thoughts and ascend to the higher, heavenly plane of God’s thoughts. If we neglect the reading and the pondering of the Scripture then we are only left with our own, sinful, dying ways. The familiar passage of Proverbs 3:5-6 is very relevant: “Trust in the LoRD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Perhaps the most critical phrase in that verse is, “and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Anytime we listen to music, travel, eat, drink, choose a home, think about the future, make decisions or anything else, we can either lean on God’s understanding or on our own understanding. Cain ignored God’s way and leaned on his own thinking. In the same way, when we do any of these things without the influence of the Scriptures, we lean on our own understanding rather than God’s. Therefore, if we want to “trust in the LoRD” with all our heart, it is imperative that we are careful to study His divine Word.
But I’m not good at studying!
A common misconception — a misconception that I used to have as well — is that there are a select few people who are intelligent enough to do Bible study, and it’s appropriate for us to just leave it up to those people. It may surprise you to read this, but Bible study is not only for intellectuals. It’s not just for the academic, scholarly, intelligent, smart people. Bible study is for everyone. Let’s check out a passage in the book of Deuteronomy. This is Moses speaking God’s words:
“And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates” (Deut 6:6-9).
God’s words weren’t just for the priests. They weren’t just for the scribes either. They weren’t even just for the adults; they were for the children too! In fact, just one chapter earlier, it says, “And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them…” (Deut 5:1). Moses was speaking to all of Israel. God wants all of us to think on His Word, and He wants all of us to think about it all the time: when we lie down, when we get up, when we hang out together, and even to put His Word on our “doorposts” and “gates”! In modern day terms, that’s just like when we go into our fellow Christadelphians’ homes and see that they have verses hanging on the wall.
If we remember our point from earlier, God’s thoughts are way above and beyond our own. Doesn’t it make sense that God would want everyone to be able to know His thoughts? That He would want everyone to be able to come to Him? Of course it does! God is a merciful, loving, God and it is His will that everyone should come to Him.
Bible “study” is a bad word…
Ok, I’m kidding, it’s actually not a bad word at all. However, I do think that our common understanding of the word “study” has some unfortunate effects on the way we think about meditation on God’s Word. It tends to make us associate “Bible study” with a scholarly, scribe sort of person — sitting at a large wooden desk piled high with books, concordances, notes, and the like. Although this is an important part of Bible study, it isn’t the only part of it. We often feel that we have to specifically be an intellectual person to study the Bible, when really we know that God wants all of us to think on His Book. The word “study” sounds very academic, and tends to make us think of universities and schools. As we already discussed, Bible study is not only about academics, but it’s about knowing the mind of the Father. So when we use the word “study,” we should be careful to realize that we aren’t necessarily talking about getting out Hebrew scrolls, but we can simply be speaking of the reading or thinking about God’s Word. Therefore, in addition to the term “Bible study” I will also use the phrase “Bible meditation.” This will help us keep in mind that “study” of the Scriptures is not an academic exercise, but rather it is a way for us to learn God’s thoughts and make them our own.
Conclusion
To sum everything up, we began by looking at how gross and fleshly our own thoughts are. We then examined how God’s thoughts are pure, and elevated far above our own. Next we considered that the only way to get God’s thoughts to be our thoughts is to meditate on His Word. Through meditation on the Scripture, we can learn the correct way to serve the Father, what His mind and will are, and then can make our minds conform to His as much as possible. We then looked at how God doesn’t just want a select group of people meditating on His Word, but rather that He wants everybody to come and examine it. Finally, we looked at the suggestion that “Bible meditation” is a more appropriate term for “Bible study” because it sheds the associated ideas of textbooks and schools, and is also more Biblical. We therefore see that Bible meditation isn’t drudgery, but really it’s a beautiful action we can take as humble children — that we might know more fully the love of our gracious Father.
In this article we have examined the “why” of Bible meditation, and in our next article we look forward to answering the “what” and “how” of it. What exactly is Bible meditation, and how does one go about doing it? With that little tidbit to whet your spiritual appetite, I bid you farewell. God bless!
With much love in Christ to all of God’s children who read this,
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