Special Event – How to Use A Study Bible: Mark Lanier, 12/07/25

How to Use a Study Bible - Mark Lanier
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Mark Lanier: [00:00:00] So here's the deal. Yes. Christmas is a time for giving. we recognize the, the giver of, of the greatest gifts of all, and I wanted this year to give y'all something really special. Now, in the years gone by. I've written books that have come out in just the right time to be able to give you a copy of a book that would be a devotional book that you could read every day of the year.

So last, year at Christmas, I was able to give you all, Baylor published this, the New Testament Letters for Living, where we went through the epistles in the New Testament and I, and I wrote a devotional and a teaching on each one. [00:01:00] With a prayer, and so you got a little scripture teaching and prayer, and we gave those out the year before.

I'd done minor prophets for living, and so we were able to get that out to you, and you were able to work through the minor prophets if you had it. The year before that, I did Jesus for Living, where we worked through the teachings of Jesus and the life of Jesus. The year before that, I did Torah for living.

Where we worked through the Torah and I wrote Psalms for living, but I never gave you a copy, so sorry. Um, this year I've been working on the Old Testament narratives, but I did not get it finished in time to get it published for Christmas. So I've got my final draft done and I'll be sending my final draft to Baylor, uh, probably in the next week or so.

But that means it's, it's gotta go through editors. They've gotta send it to everybody to see if I've lied on what Hebrew says or something like that. So I'll get it back after scholars look at it and everything. It's called, it's [00:02:00] not full peer review, but it's a, it's a of like that. And then, um, I'll make any changes that need to be made and then it'll be published.

So, sorry. So I was sitting there thinking, well, what should I give y'all this year? And I tried really hard to find seven, 700 of these because I knew how much it would be appreciated. My Texas Tech, red Raider Big 12 champion team, but yeah, yeah, you can do that every time they win a conference championship.

And that will be your first time since 1955 to be doing that. Um, but instead we've got you something else. And so I think that they're ready to pass these out. What we've got for you is, um, a hardback of the Baylor. Annotated study Bible. And so this is, and we've got enough, not one per family, I want one per person.

I want you to each get [00:03:00] one, and we're gonna pass these out along with pens so y'all can start passing these out as soon as you're ready. Uh uh, however is best for y'all to do that, but this is what class is gonna be about today. Now, in a way. This is, um, me giving you something. I'm not just hawking this for Baylor though.

I mean, I'd hawk it for Baylor. I, I love Baylor, but this is, if we put it up here, you can see um, one of the editors Is Todd still. And Todd, uh, way back before he became dean of the seminary there at Baylor, Todd w worked in this church. He was, uh, uh, on staff here. And so that's a really cool thing. And because this is an annotated study bible, it's got a lot of study notes in it and it's got, we're gonna talk about what's in it, but of course they are nice enough in the beginning to note.

Uh, that they [00:04:00] were able to get, the editors were able to talk about, uh, all of the different people who contributed to this. Let's see if I can find it. And, um, uh, oh, contributors. And you're thinking, Hey, mark. He's got an entire book in the New Testament. That, but that's a different mark. Um, uh, however, however.

Uh, yeah. Yeah. So in a sense, I'm giving you something I wrote and I wrote the introduction to the book of James in this. And, uh, so anyway, um, I'm giving you something I wrote, uh, but the part I wrote is about a page and a half long. The rest of the book's a whole lot better than the part that I wrote. So these get passed out to you and it's gonna be a bit of a distraction [00:05:00] that they're being passed out, but I'm gonna talk about it while they're going around.

So get yours, get a pen to go with it because of what I want to tell you. This is, by the way, the new revised standard version, and it's written, it includes the apocrypha in the back. Now the apocrypha is found if you are in the Roman Catholic Church. If you're in the Greek Orthodox Church, if you're in the Russian Orthodox Church, all of those would include the apocrypha as well.

Dr. Hank down here is always telling me, don't forget the apocrypha, Dr. Hank. I didn't. It's, it's there. It's at the end after some of the study guides, but this is a, the new revised standard version is one that is used in a number of different denominations in churches. And so it's got the, the, the scriptures that would be considered, not just Protestant scriptures, but those that are Catholic scriptures as well, uh, Catholic in the sense of all of [00:06:00] those different churches.

Now, this is not a coffee table book. It's a working bible. And what do I mean by that? I mean, I'm handing you a pen 'cause I want you to ride in it. The goal behind this is not to give you a Bible to stick on your bookshelf, it's to use this Bible in the coming year. I could give you a gym membership, but if all I did is give you a gym membership and you didn't do anything with it is a useless gift.

I have a friend, Dr. Bob. Dr. Bob told me, he says, I've quit. I've quit the whole thing. And I said, what do you mean? He said, I bought that video Eight minute abs. I said, yeah. He said, I watched it 30 times, never did anything for me. I said, well, well Bob, you're not supposed to watch it. You're supposed to do it.

And he said, nah, that's false advertising. You know, they just said [00:07:00] buy this. And, uh, he says it, it just doesn't do anything. You gotta open this book up and you gotta use it. Okay. Today, the way we're gonna do this class is I want us to learn to study our Bibles better. And so, uh, yes, you'll see the pen is also helpful for peeling off the plastic.

Um, so, uh, uh, feel that plastic off and, uh, have it to go. So we're gonna keep the gym theme. But today what we're gonna do is we are going to Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're getting them, we're getting them. I'm, I'm, uh, just wanna make sure everybody gets one.

Part of me says I should get down there and pass these out too, Jan. Alright, we got, that's, oh, he's on top of it. Look at him. Okay. So here's the way we're gonna divide up class.[00:08:00]

We've got the center section starting with row two. Miss Holly, thank you. We're gonna do three things. First of all, we're gonna do a warmup. It's important how we start working out and if we're gonna do a spiritual workout with our Bibles, I want to talk about how we do that. The second thing I want to talk about are examples of good Bible study, and so we're gonna look at some passages and we're gonna do that.

Number two, I'm still trying to make sure we get everybody covered. If you do not have one yet, would you raise your hand? We've got, we got a whole section back there that's missing. Anybody else? Raise your hand. We've got back here, the front row of that section. Anybody else? Looks like we're doing good.

I'm not as worried about you getting a pen, but if you can get a pen that's [00:09:00] great too. We've got 'em enough for everybody. Um, but uh, let's make sure, so back in that section, in that whole, yeah. Y'all are going there. Good. Alright, let's get started. Enough of you have it to where we can get this show on the road.

Are you ready? Yes. Here's your warmup. There's a passage that Paul wrote to the Corinthians. It's a letter that Paul wrote. We call it First Corinthians, and in that letter Paul's giving the Corinthians a lot of instructions. Now, in those instructions, he says, the following these things God has revealed to us.

Through the spirit capitalizes spirit here, because the, the translators understand pah here is talking about the, the Holy Spirit God has revealed to us through the spirit, for the spirit searches, everything, even the [00:10:00] depths of God. And then a couple of verses later, he'll add that just normal, natural people.

Don't accept things of the spirit of God. They, they just seem foolish. They're not understandable because they're discerned by the spirit of God. When Jesus said he was going to go to the cross, he was gonna die. He was gonna be resurrected. Jesus said, I'm gonna ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit to you, and the Holy Spirit will teach you.

It reminds you the Holy Spirit will convict you. The Holy Spirit works within us to help us discern and learn, and this becomes very important. It it, I was visiting with George, uh, so it, it's fresh in my mind. Um, Friday and, uh, George and Jan, uh, I had a chance to sit [00:11:00] down and Jan showed me this plaque of George Coaching.

Uh, their son's soccer team when their son was four or five years old, and the stingrays, if I recall, or something like that. And, um, George and I never knew George to be a soccer guy, and he said he didn't know anything about soccer. He had gone to the meeting for the kids and somebody said, does anybody want to be a coach?

And he said, Jan, his wife. Pushed his arm up in the air and the guy said, that's great, George. George said, I, I don't know anything about soccer. Doesn't matter. They're five years old. They don't know anything about it either. Y'all just tell 'em go kick the ball. And so George being George goes to the bookstore and Jan looks over and he's sitting in one of the chairs and he is got about a three foot pile of soccer books and he's reading every one 'cause he wants to know it.

See [00:12:00] if we wanna know what God has to say and we wanna know these spiritual things, we gotta read, but we don't wanna read just by ourselves. We would like God's insight. Say, well, how am I gonna get that? It's easy. He wants you to have it. All you gotta do is ask him. So we start every time we wanna study the Bible with a prayer.

And if you've opened your book, I, your Bible, I, I have zero qualms writing in the front cover of your Bible. By the way. You realize most everybody in here is gonna die at some point, and when you're dead they will probably they being. Whoever you have disposing of your chattels, your your life, they will probably dump a bunch of your books all over [00:13:00] the place.

But your Bibles, they'll look at, they won't just throw the Bible away. Let them see that you wrote in the front of your Bible. Lord, open my eyes to see. My ears to hear and my heart to understand your word. Teach me what you want me to learn today. That prayer or some form of it should be on our lips when we are doing serious Bible study.

Let's ask the one. Who speaks to us and in us. Let's ask him to help us see, hear, and understand what he's got in this book for us. [00:14:00] And so I'm a fan of writing that prayer in there and letting the next generation that gets your Bible when you're dead and gone, see that you knew you wanted God's help in understanding those scriptures and pray it.

I, that's not some prayer that I've just made up. That prayer is rooted in Psalm one 19 verse 18, where the psalm is said, open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. Open my eyes. Let me see, but not just see, see with understanding, so, so that I can grasp the richness of what you've got for me.

Now, the Bible, as you've often heard me say, technically it's not a [00:15:00] book technically, it's a library you've got. Well over 60 books in the Bible. And as a library, we need to recognize when we're studying our Bibles that we're studying not simply one book, but many books. And if we went to a library, we'd find them in different sections.

Whoops. Just like we do in a library. We'll find poetry in the poetry section. We will find history in the history section, and we know because we all went to school, that you don't read poetry the same way you read history. That's not a hard thing to grasp. We understand that. I was talking to a friend of mine who's a.

Um, in fact, he [00:16:00] watches the class often. So if you're watching Dennis, this one's for you. Um, he taught up at the University of British Columbia forever in a day. It was just an amazing, uh, professor, an English scholar, a Miltonian, uh, uh, really knew and, and knows Milton better than probably everybody, but maybe a handful of people in the world.

He, he was, uh, recently at Baylor speaking on it. In fact, in his retirement. But he said he had a friend and his friend was convinced that you have to read everything in the Bible in a literal sense. And the friend never could grasp the idea that there was poetry. And I said, well, does your friend think very carefully about what your friend's reading?

And he, and, and, and here's the reason why. One of my favorite psalms about God says [00:17:00] He knit me together in my mother's womb. Now, does your friend think God got the knitting needles out and got inside your mama's womb and started, oh, knit one pearl two, knit one, pearl two, or what? I think that's crocheting.

But, uh, did, did your, did your mom No. That's a poetic expression. That we are wondrously and intricately formed. Go look at the DNA strands, the billions of proteins and and layers involved in that double helix and know that what God has done to bring us into this existence is supremely beyond our ability to fathom, but wonderful.

So the Bible as a library has different kinds of writings. There are what we call the law sections [00:18:00] of the Bible, and those have got some stories in them and a lot of commandments in them. It's basically Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, and Deuteronomy. You've got a section of the Bible that has history.

These are narrative stories. Joshua Judges, Ruth. First and second Samuel. First and Second King. First and second Chronicles. Ezra. Nehemiah. You've got these, these books that are history and you can read 'em. You've got sections that are poetic sections that are what would be called wisdom literature, and these deal with human emotion and deal with philosophical ideas.

And, and, and they're written in, in, in ways that make you wanna just chew on 'em and just meditate on 'em and start to see layers of an onion unfolding as you do. They're books of [00:19:00] prophecy where God sends his messengers out to speak. We've got major prophets. They're called only major because they're, they're, um.

Uh, in the military? No, they're major because they're big. Then you've got the minor prophets and they're just small. But you've got prophecy in the Bible, you've got the gospels, which speak to Jesus' life and his teaching. You've got kind of in its own the Book of Acts, which is history, but it's just history of the church.

You've got these letters that we call epistles. You've got that grand book at the end of the Bible, revelation and some pockets in the Old Testament that we would call apocalyptic. It's like an old movie before they had movies. So you've got all of these different genres of literature, just like a library, and you read them differently.[00:20:00]

Now you get your Bible then and you open your Bible up and you need to remember you're reading something old in a new world. This is a cell phone. This is not,

there is a person in my life that I will not name because I go home with her at the end of this. Whose tendency, because she grew up with this, she would not agree with this by the way. And she would point out how often this applies to me as well as her. So this is truly the pot calling the kettle black here.

But we have this tendency when we're through talking, not to push the end button, but just to set it down. 'cause when we grow up, if you set the phone down, it's over. And so my sweet wife and I'll give her grief [00:21:00] over it and then when I do it, I just tune her out when she's pointing out that I'm doing the same thing she is, but my sweet wife will hang up by just setting it down.

And occasionally I've heard some really cool things 'cause I'm still listening.

But anytime we're trying to read something old in our modern mindset. We, we we're at a bit of a disadvantage, and that's why a study bible is so helpful because other than me, the scholars who wrote this were really good people in terms of academia and they're uber qualified, and what they do is they help open antiquity to a modern reader.

So it's very, very helpful. Reading something old in a new world can be easy or hard. It just depends on how you do it. For example, [00:22:00] I was gonna do an email. I pulled up my email. Two. Well, I got that. I'm gonna send this email to my kids. Cc. That's an abbreviation for carbon copy. Most people today don't even know what a carbon paper is as from young people.

Mr. Weiler, we used to have these things called typewriters and they had these keys that would strike the paper with ink, uh uh, between the paper and the key. And if you put carbon paper behind it with another thing, then you would actually get an exact copy of it that was really hard to read, and you could send it to the person you didn't care so much about.

And if you didn't want anybody to know about it, you took that one and without the other one, you type down at the bottom, a blind carbon copy. Now why? That's [00:23:00] on an email form now. And cc, did you CC No. Anybody? No, I haven't CCed anybody since 1986. I seeded them or I CCed them. I copied them. I didn't carbon copy, but that's what we've got.

We've got to try to get into that antiquity mindset now with this bible that you've got. You've got, this is a different translation than most of you will use. It's the new revised standard version, if I'm not mistaken, that came out in the early nineties or late eighties. But translations happening with almost every Bible, unless you're really good at Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, because those are the languages the Bible was written in, and not just like modern Greek.

It's a classical, well, it's coin a Greek. It's, it's, it was the Greek in vogue among normal people of the streets [00:24:00] at the time. The New Testament was written, and it's not so much modern Hebrew, although modern Hebrew is based on biblical Hebrew and was resurrected as a. 125 years or so ago, but we've got a translation here, and every translation you've got is always gonna have some positives and some negatives with it.

The positives of the new revised standard version that's in the Baylor Bible is that it's highly accurate. Uh, they do a real good job with the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Aramaic. And that's why you'll find it used by scholars across denominational lines. That's not a Baptist Bible or Catholic Bible or Presbyterian Bible, or a Methodist Bible.

It's, it's good. Now, it also tries really hard, another positive to translate gender language in a way that's accurate. So sometimes in [00:25:00] antiquity. Paul, for example, would use the word brother, but he means brothers and sisters. Sometimes the word man means men and women. And as a fellow with four daughters and eight granddaughters, I don't ever want any of them to say, well, that doesn't apply to me.

That's just written for boys. No, it it, and, and so. That's a positive. Now, negatives one, it tries to translate the gender language. That positive can be a negative as well because they're making that decision instead of letting the reader make it. And sometimes they may decide something is gender open, that that is not as open.

Or maybe not, I don't know. Some people don't like it. They say, well, that's destroying script. It was good enough for Shakespeare. It's good enough for me. You know? And so you've [00:26:00] gotta just know that that's there because it's so accurate to the language. It can be a little bit more formal and less readable than the NIV translation or the English Standard version translation.

And like every Bible translation, occasionally you're gonna debate how they did stuff. Okay? I wanted to get through that while the Bibles got passed out, they're passed out. We're all tuned in. So that's your warmup. You need to know that. Now let's just do some Bible study together. I've pulled out a couple of genres.

And I thought we'd talk about 'em. So first, let's talk about studying the Psalms. Now, the Psalms, there are 150 in the English Bible. And I say that because there's different numbering in the Hebrew Bible, but the Psalms are basically kind of in the middle of the Bible. And some of them are short, and some of 'em are long.[00:27:00]

Most of them are in the middle. But you've got the Psalms now, the Psalms. Were Israel's prayer book and, and hymnal. Now you want to know two very important Jews in your life. One is named Jesus and another is named Paul. And I say that because I can't tell you how many of my friends have told me. I don't really do the Old Testament.

It makes me wanna pull my hair out, not just 'cause I spent a lifetime trying to learn Hebrew, but, but it makes me wanna pull my hair out because I just say to him, wait a minute. You understand? You're dissing Jesus's Bible. You're dissing Paul's bible. That's what they had. That, that's, that was, this was the [00:28:00] hymnal, the prayer book.

The When Jesus is on the cross, he says, my God, my God, why have you forsake? That's Psalm 22, 1. That was his prayer book. He knew this. He's in agony and his language is calling to mind those passages from his prayer book. S the Psalms. The Psalms cover every human emotion You'll find Psalms of joy, Psalms of anger.

Oh, there are Psalms that say, God, that guy has just cheated me royally. APOs on him in his house. Destroy him, tear him apart. Rip him to shreds. I want you to not just kill him. I want you to dance [00:29:00] on his grave. Please, God love you. They're called him. Preparatory psalms by the scholar. And, and, and sometimes if you don't understand what you're reading, you read those and say, oh, this is the problem with the God of the Bible man.

He could be a really mean, toasty guy in those Old Testament passages. No, this is, this is expressing human emotion to God, and it's raw and it's authentic and it's real. You can find confusion. Lord, I don't know what's going on here. This is not making sense. I do not understand why the wicked people are just rolling in the hay, all the money, all the success, all the popularity, and I'm trying to be holy and righteous, and my life stinks.

I'm confused. Bring me clarity. You'll find Psalms of [00:30:00] praise. Oh, praise the Lord. Do you know the word? Hallelujah is the first word in a bunch of psalms, but did you know the word Hallelujah isn't an English word? It's two Hebrew words, hallelu, which means it's an imperative. It means praise and yah, which is an abbreviation of the name of God, Yahweh, hallelujah.

It literally means praise the Lord, and you'll find some older Bible translations that don't translate it. Praise the Lord. They just translate it. Hallelujah. You'll find Psalms of despair. Psalm 42, in Psalm 43, why are you downcast on my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? I, why is my life so bad?

Seeking God to help. Celebration and excitement and joy. All of those are wrapped into the Psalms [00:31:00] now. There are 150 Psalms and there are 30 days in a month if you wanna. Now look, pastor Jarret, good guy. Love him to death. Truly do. Lo couldn't, couldn't, couldn't love him as a brother anymore. He does that three psalms a day so he can get through the Psalms four times a year.

Now he's a slacker. Um, I wanna suggest to you, you can get through the Psalms each month, which is 12 times a year, and here's how you do it. You read five Psalms a day, he said, well, I can't even keep track of that. Yes, you can. There's a great way to do it. Let me show you the way to do it. Whoops. Five Psalms a day.

Here it is. What's today? Seven. December 7th. Read Psalm seven, [00:32:00] then add 30 to it. Read Psalm 37, then add 30 to it. Read Psalm 67. Then add 30 to it. Read Psalm 97, then add 32. It read Psalm 1 27. Say, well, no, I do want Psalm 1 57 next. No, you're done. There isn't a 1 57. It will automatically stop if you just keep adding 30.

When you run outta Psalm, you did your five. It's easy to count. It's easy to do it. You'll be stunned at how they kind of flow together really well. So this morning, as I was reading through my quiet time. I read Psalm 67 as one of those Psalms, and it's really cool, and so we're gonna use it as an example and I'll get to it in a moment.

But first, let me tell you this, if you're making notes worth writing down, four questions to ask when you're [00:33:00] studying the Psalms, when you're reading the Psalms. Four questions. Question number one, what emotion is being expressed? Is this joy, confusion, anger, uh, celebration. What emotion is being expressed?

Question number two, what is being revealed here about God? Question number three, can I determine what prompted the psalm? What caused the psalmist to write it? And then the fourth and last question is, how can I pray this in my situation in life? Now, as I went through this with, uh, pastor Jarrett be, before I taught, pastor Jarrett said to me, he says, notice we don't say, what does it say about me?

We have a [00:34:00] tendency to be narcissists when it comes to reading the Bible. And I'm always reminded of the fella who, Lord, give me a word.

Judas went and he hung himself.

Lord, give me a word. Go thou and do likewise, that that is not what we wanna do. It doesn't mean God won't speak to us because he will, but it means our focus shouldn't be. I wanna know what this says about me. Our focus needs to be, what does this say about God?

What prompted it, and then we'll understand [00:35:00] how I pray it in my situation in life. But if we don't walk through that process, we're gonna be in trouble. So let's just look at the Psalm that I looked at this morning with those questions in mind. Um, Psalm 67 is the shorter one that I had today, so it was an easy one question, what emotion is being expressed?

What's revealed about God? What prompted it? We'll look at it together. Psalm 67,

may God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us now. This is great. What prompted the psalm pretty clearly, a desire for God's blessings and God to shine. And, and, and there's an introduction here. And what does this say about God? That God is the source of [00:36:00] blessing. God is the one who, who can make his face shine upon you and transform your life.

So it continues that your way. May be known upon the earth your way. So God's got a way. What does it say about God? He's got a plan. He's got desires. We want his way to be known among the earth that you're saving power among all generations. Let the people's praise you, oh God, let all the peoples praise you.

Well, how can I pray this in my situation? Praise the Lord. Say, yeah, but right now my situation stinks. That's when you really need to praise him because that will put into perspective everything, and that will call upon the Almighty to come to your aid and rescue. God [00:37:00] inhabits the praise of his people.

Alright, let's keep going. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy for you. Judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon the earth. This is oh strange because this is being written by the Israelites who know they're God's chosen people. And it's being written at a time where people thought that God would be a tribal God and here's our God, and if we go fight them, we're fighting their God and which God's stronger, ours are theirs.

But the psalmist recognizes that the one true God is the one true God and he's the true God overall. The nations, and this is when the nations don't even know it. They're a bunch of pagan idolaters. But the psalmist understood that God guides the nations upon the earth. The Hebrew word for the nations [00:38:00] there, goem.

These are the nations. So he continues. Let the peoples praise you, oh God, let all the peoples praise you. The Earth has yielded its increase. God, our God has blessed us. May God continue to bless us and let all the ends of the earth revere him. That's it. That's it. God has blessed us. This is a Thanksgiving psalm, what's prompted it, A desire to praise God, to, to thank him for his blessings and for his provision, and it's a marvelous thing.

And how can I pray this in my situation? Let me pray it. Thanking God for what he's done in my life and not just moaning about what he hadn't done about anything about notice, it doesn't say. Got it. Alright, number two. Oh, we don't have a lot of [00:39:00] time, so we're gonna, sorry. Uh. We got, we got as much time as God gives us in Bible study in the future to go through these.

But let me just walk through in a very quick fashion without so much, uh, illustrations. So you get some genre ideas if we're gonna study Proverbs, Proverbs, or Wisdom Literature, that was an entire kind of writing in the ancient Near East at the time. These were written, they're short, memorable sayings about how life generally works.

Now there are 31 chapters of Proverbs. You wanna read 'em each month? You read the one for the day. Today's the seventh. You read Proverbs chapter seven. By the way, Proverbs chapter seven teaches you to stay away from the adulterous woman or man. That's, I mean, the whole, the whole chapter's basically about that.

You read that once a month.[00:40:00]

I mean, it's got the passage in there like, oh, she's so sweet in her song. And she'll get out there in the street and she'll just, oh, come on in here. I mean, it reads like the spider in the fly. Okay, come on, come on. And then it's got this little verse in there and says, and so the guy just goes and like an ox to the butcher, wham.

Now remember, so you can, you can do that. But remember the proverbs, by and large, these aren't promises, they're principles. So you get to the proverb that says, train up a child the way he should go. And when he's old, he will not depart from it. Well, I know a lot of godly parents who trained up a child in the way that the child should go.

And when the child got old, he, he did depart. I know parents who have felt horrible guilt. Oh man, we must have really blown it because the [00:41:00] Bible promises if you train up a child. No, that's not a promise. That's wisdom literature. That's a principle, and that's generally how it works. So when you're reading the proverbs, here's my recommendations to you.

Read the whole chapter. This is a five stepper for Proverbs. Read the whole chapter. Look for themes in the chapter. Ask what principle is being taught. Ask how does this apply to my life today? And then pick one to chew on. You know, one of my favorite Proverbs is Proverbs 26, 4 and five. And this is why I say read a whole chapter.

Lemme show you. Proverbs 26, 4, and five. This is, uh, Proverbs 26 verses four and five.

Do not answer fools. Do [00:42:00] not answer fools according to their folly. Or you'll be a fool yourself. It's the stink will get on you. Answer fools. According to their folly, or they'll be wise in their own eyes. Well, which is it? Don't answer 'em. Or you'll be foolish yourself. You better answer 'em. Or they're gonna be wise in their own eyes.

Do you know what that says to me? When they nestle those two right up together, like that says, if you mess with a fool, you will not win. I mean, that's lose lose. If you answer 'em, lose you, don't answer 'em lose, stay away from fools. That's just not useless. Now, fool in the Hebrew means also a morally degenerate person.

And so, uh, bad company corrupts good morals, I guess is the way we would say it. Um, we're running out of [00:43:00] time. And it's a pity because the gospels are biographical narratives that are focused on Jesus, but they're not exhaustive biographies. Don't read 'em like a biography. Read it as a theological portrait.

This is one of the paintings in our chapel. Of the gospels. We've got four of them. This is one of the four. And, and it's, it's, the idea here is a theological portrait. And so for example, we're thinking of the nativity, the, the portrait here in the nativity is one where you see Mary, she's holding the baby.

He belongs to another picture. Ignore him. She's holding the baby Jesus. And here's Joseph. But notice what Joseph has in his hands. It's an Easter lily because I wanted to try and portray in the painting the truth that the birth of Jesus is significant because he was born to die and so, and be [00:44:00] resurrected.

So Joseph holds over the baby, the promise of Easter. Under the Star of Bethlehem, as heaven shines down, it's an effort to try and do some theological ing, which is what the Gospels themselves do. So each gospel writer portrays Jesus. You, you and people will read it like, oh, hey, this one contradicts that one on, on.

You know, uh, did the Lord's Prayer have, uh, uh, this end on it or that end on it? Or did, uh, uh, what was the order of the temptations of Jesus? The one in Matthew or the one in Luke? Look, you're reading it differently. You're reading it like a biography, not a theological portrait that's being written in a way to convey theological truth.

And so I've got a checklist, but we're out of time. And so you don't get to know what, uh, you should be asking when you read the gospel. Sorry. You can take a picture of it real quick, but, uh, man, we had a [00:45:00] bunch to do studying the Old Testament narratives. I was gonna do a little David and Goliath. Um, can you tell which ones which and how to read that?

And then I was gonna promise that I'm studying epistles. Just come back next year. 'cause we'll start right back into Romans and we'll study those together. Um, let me just give you three last things, and I'm going a minute over and I apologize. Choose a reading plan, just decide I'm gonna do this. You'll, you'll probably stub your toe and you won't do it all the time consistently, and that's okay.

But just do your best. Get a reading plan. Say, I'm gonna read through the psalms. Or I'm gonna read through the gospels, or I'm gonna read the proverbs, but do yourself the blessing of getting a reading plan in. In two Timothy two, Paul told Timothy to do your best, and I like the King James translation of that, which was study to show yourself to God as someone [00:46:00] who rightly handles the word of truth, you want to rightly handle the Bible.

So read, pray and read. Pray before you study. Open my eyes that I may be hold wondrous things of your law and then make notes. That's why you get the pen. Because we don't want to just be hearers of the word. We want to be doers. And you can find things and you can say, I'm praying this for my son, or I'm praying this for my daughter, or I'm praying this for my spouse, or I'm praying this for the person I really detest at work that I want to see get fired, or I'm, that's the preparatory psalms, or I'm praying, you know, whatever it may be.

But let God minister to you through his word and he will. Okay. So thank you guys for being here this morning. Merry Christmas to all of you. Um, uh, and let me say a prayer blessing over us and [00:47:00] then, um, I'll see you guys soon. Thank you. Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Nah, um, it came out of Becky's budget, so I, I was easy.

Um, Lord, we thank you the name of Jesus for your love for us, and I pray that you will speak to us through your word, that your spirit will illuminate what you want us to know and hear, and that we will be in awe over the wondrous ways you have chosen to reveal yourself to us. Bless everyone who hears this message.

Father, in Jesus name, amen.