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Series: Do You See What I See?
Sunday morning message November 30, 2008 Pastor Wayne Mancari Hebrews 12:1-2; John 12:26a; John 10: 27-28; John 12:26; Luke 9: 23-24; Matthew 22: 36-40 Download MP3 Audio by Brett Deal “To develop a lifelong passion for the study of God’s word.” We have answered the questions of why we study the word of God and have seen the delicate balance that requires our lifelong devotion and our enduring passion. Now we can begin to ask the practical question of how. How do we study the word of God? J.R.R. Tolkien in his Lord of the Rings books sets his heroes off on a great amazing journey. And like we have seen over the past months, this is a worthy analogy for looking at our relationship with the Lord. It is a journey from one place to another, filled with exciting adventure and perilous dangers. Reading the Bible is no less a dangerous and enthralling journey. Many have come to its pages and missed the mark of what it has to say. There are essentially four approaches in which people have missed the mark of how to read the Word of God. The Surface Approach: Many times in Scripture the meaning is right on the surface, like the Ten Commandments, but not all Scripture is that straightforward. So, to assume that the prophets are as readily accessible as the parts of the Law will lend us to missing so much that lays under the thin surface. The Spiritualized Approach: Some will try to spiritualize passages that have no more overt meaning than they are given. This is often used when reading the parables of Christ. Like the parable of the Good Samaritan. “Surely,” some would say “the two coins that he gives the innkeeper must be a symbol for the two thousand years before the rapture.” What? This is a ridiculous spiritualizing of the Word of God. It is often done because it is easier to make something up than to search deeply into the Word. The Allegorical Approach: This is often found outside of parables where it is not, what does the symbol mean, but what deeper meanings can we find? An example would be trying to add allegorical meaning to the tent pegs of the Tabernacle, speculating that they are a symbol of Jesus, being half in the ground and half out, dead but raised again. What is so sad about this approach is that it misses the true beauty and symbolism of the Tabernacle and similar passages. The “I Give Up” Approach: Others simply abandon all hope. They give up trying to read and understand the Bible for themselves. They leave their spiritual nourishment for Sundays at church. Reading the Bible, embarking on the lifelong and passionate journey of studying God’s word requires us to step out of our own time and culture and begin to more fully understand that Moses, Luke and Paul were not writing with 21st century American Christians in mind. We must build a bridge across space and time over the current of cultural changes and paradigms shifts to see what was being written to the original audience and how that translates into our day. |
