Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Erik Thoeness - How do we Read and Study the Bible?

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

Jonny Ardavanis is the Lead Pastor at Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, TN and the President of Dial In Ministries. He formerly served as the Dean of Campus Life at The Master’s University and as a Camp Director at Hume Lake Christian Camps. Jonny’s heart is to see people understand and love the Word of God and more so, to love the God of the Word. Jonny is married to Caity Jean and they have two precious daughters.Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis: Big Questions, Biblical Answers, is a series that seeks to provide biblical answers to some of the most prominent and fundamental questions regarding God, the Gospel, and the Bible.In this episode Pastor and Professor Erik Thoennes answers the question: "How do we read and study the Bible?"Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. I want to thank you guys for your patience as over the last few weeks I haven't released an episode. As some of you guys know, I recently with my wife moved to Franklin, Tennessee as I took on the role of lead teaching pastor of Stonebridge Bible Church here in Franklin. And over the last number of weeks, we've been getting settled in our new home and our new church community and are so thankful that the Lord has led us here. Additionally, last Sunday, we welcomed our second daughter. Her name is Scotty Joan, and so we're so thankful to be parents once again. Well, in this episode, I sit down with one of my favorite guys.

I had released some episodes with him a couple years ago. His name is Dr. Eric Tonnes. Previously, we had talked about how we are to approach God's Word. But in this episode, I asked him, just practically speaking, how do we read and study the Bible? In this episode, Eric's going to make an interesting observation. He says that many people want to call Christians Bible thumpers, but interestingly, very few of them are Bible readers. And so maybe you've asked, and maybe even you would want to know for someone else, how can I actually read and study the Bible?

Dr. Eric Taunus is going to help us. Let's dial in. Thanks so much for sitting down. A couple of years ago, we had a conversation about the attitude we should have as we approach the Bible, meaning that we shouldn't live our life with trying to question the Scripture. We should evaluate our own lives as we submit our life to Scripture and we view it as the highest authority in the world because it's the revelation of who God is. But even in that, I think that there's something more that needs to be compounded on top of that. Not only that we need to have this attitude of humility as we approach the truth, but also I think just the practical question of

how should I even study the Bible at all? I think there's a lot of people that have potentially a superficial relationship with God because they have a shallow relationship with His Word. They've been encouraged to pursue a depth in God's Word, but maybe they're just wondering, well, how can I do that? And so I'm just wondering from your both professorial and pastoral perspective, what's your counsel for someone that wants to be a studier of God and not just a studier from an academic perspective where they fill themselves up with knowledge, but they're filling themselves up with the wisdom that comes with God, which also I think necessarily includes meditating on Scripture, praying the Scripture, and even a community where you study the Scripture together and sharpen each other's lives.

Well, I think it needs to start with knowing how desperately we need God's word feeding our souls and our minds and guiding our lives. If we don't start with a desperation, realizing that I will be a complete fool without the word of God guiding my life, I won't have the kind of motivation I need. And then the second thing I think we need to come to grips with is the biblical illiteracy in the American church in particular, which is odd because I think most Christians would say, if they've been a Christian any length of time,

I think I know the Bible pretty well. But when you actually start asking them questions, that's basic Bible knowledge, they don't. And the fact is, I believe most Christians spend more time on social media than they do in the Bible. And they spend more time on things that don't feed your soul than the word of God. And so we just need to come to grips with the fact that the Bible, the media will tell us that we're a bunch of Bible thumpers, but most of us aren't even Bible readers with any regularity. And so we need to know how desperately we need it. And then we need to be honest about how much we really are Bible saturated. We'll never have biblical discernment without knowing the Bible. We can't

live out the Great Commission or the Great Commandment to love God and others as we love ourselves unless we know what that even means. And we won't know who God is, who we are, what love is, what a meaningful life looks like apart from God's Word. So we need desperation for it, honesty about how much we really are in the Word, and then get after it with simple daily regularity that we become men and women of the Word as we become friends with the Bible, realizing that it takes work. We're talking about a very different culture in a very different time in history. And one of the challenges of the Bible, one of the greatest challenges, is one of the great blessings too,

in that it's not just these propositions drop from heaven, these wisdom statements, although there are some of those in the Bible, it's God's record of Him relating to real people in real times, in real places, which means we need to do the hard work of entering into those contexts where he's meeting with people and understand it in that context as the story of

the Bible unfolds. And so we can't just parachute in wherever we may want to feel like going in that day, unaware of where we are in redemptive history and think we can understand it. And so we've got to be devoted to it in a simple daily faithfulness, but aware of the overarching story the Bible is. You wouldn't read any other book just jumping in wherever and think you could understand it. And so to both have a micro and a macro understanding of the Bible is so important that you understand the parts in light of the whole and the whole in light of the parts you can't disconnect those which is why we need to be grounded in good exegesis of passages drawing the correct meaning out but I find that word yeah it means to draw the right meaning out right it doesn't mean putting meaning in there it's it's it's

pulling meaning out of a passage of scripture that's intended to be pulled out of there, not with fanciful. Which means you're not asking the question, what does this passage mean to me? Right. You don't rush to that. You want to get there, but you want to get there patiently. And patience may be my biggest concern, both in spending time in the word. And then once you're in it immersing yourself in it meditating on it memorizing it mulling it over prayerfully worshipfully and in spending time in the word like a friend you're getting to know always on a character of god hunt saying how does this point me to jesus how does jesus answer the question that's raised here the problem presented here

and and and so you learn the scriptures according to Christ, and then you learn Christ according to the scriptures. And so you do good focus study in passages, but also working hard to be aware of where this passage is in the grand redemptive history we find in the Bible. Yeah, that's so helpful. Like even, let's just say practically speaking, someone's coming to you. You're a pastor, professor.

You teach the Bible almost every single day. But what is your personal study? You know, I've heard you say before that you sing a hymn in the morning because I think you told me you wake up grumpy. That's right. You know, so what are those things that you do to, our souls are meant to eat. So what do you do just from a morning perspective throughout the day? What do you do with your wife? What does that look like? Yeah. I think it's important to realize you don't miss something until you're

really familiar with it. And so we can not miss the word. So some people, if they don't exercise, they really feel the absence of that. If they don't spend time with their boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse, they really feel the absence of that. Until we become well acquainted with and the Bible becomes a regular part of our lives, it can feel like it's unimportant because we just haven't become so accustomed to being part of our life that we can go without it, without feeling the effects of that. And the effects often aren't felt until some time goes by and we see the erosion of our souls and our biblical discernment or our wisdom. But to make the Bible a regular pattern and something we take more seriously than physical food. I remember when I was in college, consistent time in the Word was just so hard for me to

get to the point of having that. And I said, all right, if I really believe spiritual food is more important than even physical food, I'm not going to take any physical food until I've taken spiritual food that day. And I disciplined myself to do that. And it was hard. There were days where I would get up late. I have to rush to class and I wouldn't let myself eat because I wanted to spend time on the word first. But after about six or eight months of regular being in the word, it actually started to take less discipline. And I started to

long for it. I started to miss it if it wasn't there and and so I don't do that anymore I'll eat before I take spiritual food but but it was almost necessary for me to have that sort of imposed discipline to get to the point where I even miss the Bible when I didn't spend time in it but then when it became part of my life where I saw how helpful it was by just setting time apart with the Lord like that, so important, so I just read my Bible. Sometimes I'm reading through the Bible in a year.

Sometimes I'm settling down in a portion of it. Sometimes I just feel like I need to be refreshed by a certain section of the Bible. But I wanna have it be regular time in the Word that's prayerful, but that's worshipful, which is why I sing. I mean, I'm not a good singer, and sometimes I'll make up a tune of a hymn I have in there

that sounds horrible, but unless my affections are expressed as I take in the Word and as I pray, something's really short-sighted in my approach to the Bible because the Bible should lead me to God. I should be on a character of God hunt. Who are you, God, as I read His Word, wherever we are in the Word? And so I find greater intimacy with Him as I find Christ,

which is ultimately what the Scriptures are all about. That's helpful. And maybe just one final thing. How does that study in God's word shape and fuel your prayer life? You kind of already touched on it, but how do you pray the scripture? When you're reading something, do you go, God, help me to be this man? You know, how does that look for you? Yeah, prayer is a battle for me.

I think it is for a lot of people because I think prayer requires great faith. Most everything we do in the Christian life has some residual benefits, socially, personally, emotionally, singing, time with people, even studying the Bible can make you an educated person, right? You can understand Western culture. Otherwise you can't. But prayer, if God isn't real, man, that's stupid. Just talking to the ceiling. And so it really tests our faith and requires patience. And so approaching the word prayerfully is massive. So I go into it and say, Lord, open my eyes.

Give me a receptive heart to what you have for me in your word this morning, today, whenever I go to it. And throughout, I'm praying, Lord, I don't understand this, or I have no idea how this might be helpful to me or anyone else. Would you help me to be patient and continue to put deposits of your word into my heart, trusting that it'll have benefit, even if I can't see how that is now. And then so I prayerfully, and then come out of it and say, all right, Lord, how does this engage my life? How should this bring conviction of sin?

How should this help me to see you differently? And ask Him over time especially, not just impatiently today, this needs to apply to my life. But over time, how do I know you better? How do I have greater intimacy with you? And I understand in Leviticus how much you hate sin and how much blood sacrifice is required to approach you because of our sin in light of your holiness.

And these sorts of things where you can read and say, this is just weird. And say, no, Lord, give me patience and grow in my knowledge of you and my intimacy with you as I understand who you are in your word and who I am before you. Eric, that's so helpful. I think both those elements of the Bible and prayer are obviously so important in our life. And even to your own point that many people, culture claims, we're Bible thumpers, but the church predominantly at large is biblically illiterate. And if we're going to both not just reach the people around us

but change and transform our own hearts through God's Spirit we need to be those who love the word and who end up missing it when it's neglected so Eric thank you so much for your help and perspective in this regard you're welcome