This podcast covers Lesson 4 of Perspective Bible Study by Melanie Newton.
Gain the Biblical Perspective from the Bible-S13Ep5
Once you have turned from all your idols and trusted in the living God, the Holy Spirit moves into your spirit and begins to teach you the truth of God. Then you need wisdom to know what to do with that information. Wisdom is “smartness” gained through the experience of making right or good decisions and avoiding the wrong or bad ones.
Wisdom begins with the Word of God.
The Bible teaches that wisdom is directly related to your acceptance of and obedience to God’s Word. 1 Thessalonians 2:13
Like the Bereans in Acts 17, when listening to someone teach the Scriptures, open your Bible and check it out.
There are some who make it their goal to keep us from knowing God’s truth and gaining the biblical perspective on life. That’s why perspective on any subject or issue of life should begin with the Word of God.
Dwell in truth you can know.
To dwell in truth is to make your home there. That means God’s truth dominates your thoughts and attitudes, governs your life, and satisfies your heart.
God gives us plenty of truth in the Bible that we can know and trust. Those 66 books, 1189 chapters are trustworthy. They (the Scriptures) can be investigated to show that the biblical records are trustworthy.
God wants us to know the truth He has revealed to us, to make our home in that truth. Each passage we read or study has plenty of truth that we can know with certainty and allow to govern our lives.
Humbly accept what you don’t know or understand.
Some things we read in the Bible we don’t understand now but might in the future. There is much we can know now. But, there are things we’ll never know or understand. Deuteronomy 29:29
We can do our best to try to understand what is written. When you run across something that you can’t seem to understand from a Bible passage, make the choice to humbly accept what you don’t know or understand.
Discern all teaching through the complete revelation of God’s Word.
1. Evaluate what you read and hear by comparing it with the whole Bible.
We can’t take pieces of the Bible, like a verse or group of verses, and build our thinking on that. And, we shouldn’t let experiences and feelings become our measures of truth. There’s junk out there about God so it’s important to really get to know the God of the Bible and what He says to us. All false teachers through the centuries have taken advantage of people who were not dwelling in the truth revealed in the whole Bible.
Even the best teachers are not infallible. Always check what you read and hear with what the Word of God says.
2. Avoid the “look-imagine-see dragon” when viewing any verse.
The “look-imagine-see” dragon shows up this way: someone looks at a verse or passage, imagines what they want it to say, then in their mind sees what they have imagined through twisting word meanings and interpretations. Once it starts, it’s like a fiery dragon burning truth in its path. Cultural influence on Bible study feeds this dragon.
Tame the “look-imagine-see dragon” by considering the Bible as sufficient on its own, not needing to be “improved” by us.
Tame the “look-imagine-see dragon” by basing your faith on what is in God’s Word, not something you’ve just heard about it and not something you’re imagining to be there.
Another way to tame the “look-imagine-see dragon” is to follow the inductive process for Bible Study. That’s the process we use in all of our Joyful Walk Bible Studies.
- We start off every day’s study with asking for the Lord to teach us. The Holy Spirit inside will give us understanding as we read and study.
- Then, we answer the question, “What does it say?” We have you look directly at the text—what it actually says, not what you have heard it say, or what someone else says about it. Good Bible study reads a verse in the context of the passage where it is found—the paragraph, the chapter, and the book. Each verse is usually part of a continual thought.
- The next question to ask in the process is this, “What does it mean?” That’s not what it means to you or to your neighbor or to your Facebook friend. But, what did it mean at the time it was written. You can examine the original words to see what the writer meant and what the audience likely understood. You can look at other verses with similar content to let the Bible interpret itself. Then, you can understand what it means for you today.
- Once you know what the Bible says and what it means, then you are ready for application, which is learning how to live this out in your life.
"The Bible is the greatest of all books; to study it is the noblest of all pursuits; to understand it, the highest of all goals." (Charles Ryrie)
Let Jesus satisfy your heart with His perspective on life in the present and in the future. Then, live securely in Him during this time of waiting.
Buy Perspective Bible Study at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.