Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Read Your Bible | John 5.30

Episode Date: January 7, 2021

Is reading the Bible a struggle for you? You want to do it, but it's hard to actually put into practice? Get more motivated with some practical tips from https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/ (Pastors Keith Simon) and https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/patrick-miller/ (Patrick Miller). Interested in more content like this? Scroll down for more resources and related episodes, including https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/12-ways-to-kill-your-bible-reading-resolution-in-2021/ (12 Ways to Kill Your Bible Reading Resolutions in 2021) and https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/can-modern-people-get-anything-out-of-leviticus-questions-youre-asking/ (Can Modern People Get Anything Out of Leviticus?) Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TenMinuteBibleTalks.  Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to Tim Minna Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. My name is Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. I hope you're reading through Mark with us, and if not, at least you're following along in the podcast. We're all trying together as a community to read through the Gospel of Mark. And you can find the study guide to do that to kind of help you through that in the show notes. But today what we're going to talk about is just how do you read your Bible? And I remember last episode, Patrick, you told us that reading your Bible consistently has never

been that difficult for you, which I still think is one of the most private school moments in the history of Timit Bible Talks. But why is that? Help us understand. Well, to be honest, I think it's that I've always felt a sense of hunger for reading the Bible. And again, as I pointed out, there's lots of other things that I struggle to be hungry for. One of my favorite example, This is probably five, six years ago. It's beginning of January. People are making resolutions, and I decided that I was going to do the whole 30. That's the thing where you cut out all the fun stuff out of your diet, sweets and carbs, the stuff that I love.

Why did you get motivated to do this? Just like curiosity, because I've never been motivated to do the whole 30. I mean, I wanted to lose weight. I heard that it makes you feel better. All of those kinds of things. I said, okay, I needed to lose some weight. I wanted to feel better. So I'm going.

So I get going. And the first week is hell on earth. I mean, you don't realize that you're addicted to sweets until you just try to stop for seven days eating sweets. And all you think about are brownies and cookies is just nonstop. But I get through the first week, and I'm told that that's the hardest week. And then the second hardest week is obviously the second week. So I get through the second week.

I survive it. I don't eat anything I'm not supposed to eat. I'm making tons of fish and chicken, but no sweets, no carbs, none of that stuff. Were you married when you were doing this? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Is Emily doing it with you? Yes, and let me get there. So Emily's doing this with me.

And then we get to day 15. And I was at a lion's choice with some people that I worked with. Now, you might not know what lion's choice is if you're listening. It's this place that has these delicious roast beef sandwiches, but they are especially famous for these 10 cent ice cream cones. And those, have you had one of those? I have, but they're just soft-surfino ice cream cone. I mean, this is where...

They are not... Okay, would you have any sweets for 15 days? they are not just soft-serve ice cream cones. They are chocolate-dipped glory. That kind of makes the whole point that when you're in the middle of the desert, you start seeing mirages hallucinating, and you were in a carb desert. Yes. Yeah. I mean, of all the things to blow this on, a 10-cent soft-serve ice cream cone. So what happened was the people I'm there with, they naturally, I mean, they do the sensible thing. They all get these little 10-cent ice cream cones. Because they're not on the whole thing. and they're eating them right in front of me, and I'm watching them longingly.

And then, I'm sure from their perspective, I just suddenly disappear. Would you go to the bathroom and eat one? I go up to the line. And I pulled the trigger. I'm like, I have to have one of these. So I order the ice cream. I eat it shamefully by myself in the corner. So no one sees what I'm doing.

And so I like to say I did the whole 15. That's how far I got. How many did you eat? I think I ate three or four. I would have just gone for it. It wasn't just, I mean, they're 10 sets. What's the harm in that? So how does this get back to Emily?

Well, she did the whole 30. She actually accomplished the goal. So did you had to kind of tell her in a shameful head hanging kind of way? Yeah, and I stuck with her at home and continued doing the whole 30 thing when we were eating. But when I wasn't with her, I was going full Monty back into sweets. I think I probably started eating more sweets after that, unfortunately. Now, the point of telling the story was you will do what you are most hungry to do. And if I was most hungry to lose weight and feel better, I don't think it would have been as much of a challenge to do the whole 30.

The truth was, I didn't have that much weight to lose, and I didn't really feel that bad. And so it wasn't a big urgent thing for me to do the whole 30. And so it's natural that by the time I got the day 15, I was more hungry for ice cream than I was for weight loss. And, well, the ice cream won. And when you think about reading your Bible, what's going to drive you to do that day after day after day? what's going to drive you to pick up your Bible to spend 10, 15 minutes reading through it, praying? And what I've found in my life is a lot like Patrick's. It's not duty or obligation that's going to cause me to read my Bible consistently.

It's need, it's desire. When I'm in my better spots, I think through John chapter 5. When I say better spots, I just mean when I'm thinking clearly spiritually. I think through John 5 and twice in that chapter, Jesus says that he can do nothing by himself. He says it in John 519, the son can do nothing by himself, talking about himself in the third person. And then in John 530, he says, by myself, I can do nothing.

And when I think that way, when I think like Jesus has taught me to think, then I go, okay, I can't parent by myself, I can't be a husband by myself, I can't be a friend by myself, I can't fight sin by myself, I can't walk into this meeting by myself. and it causes me to say, I need Jesus. And where do I find Jesus? Well, one of the primary places I find them is in the Bible. Today, we're going to be talking about how to read the Bible, and you might think that that's just a methodology.

You just need a nice little methodology to be able to read it. But I think the first key to reading your Bible is having a sense of hunger, like Keith just said. And maybe you don't have that sense of hunger yet. But I don't think that there's a person in the world who isn't hungry for God. someone said, no one knows who actually said this, that every man knocking on the door of a brothel is looking for God. You're looking for God right now, even if you don't realize it. You might be looking for God in TV and video games, online shopping. Maybe it's your exercise obsession that's you looking for God. It's

happening in your work. You might be looking for God in alcohol. You might be looking for God and buying more stuff. Everybody is looking for God. And so you need to find that area. Where are you looking for God and take that hunger, instead of feeding it with all the fast food cheapness of television and video games and online shopping, feed it with real food, the food that your heart is longing for, which is the Bible, God's Word. Patrick, do you know what Stan is, or have you heard that term? Stan? Stan, St-A-N, but it's short for Stanley. You're familiar with it? No, no idea. So you're talking about how people all desire God makes me think of this New York Times article I read the other day. And for whatever reason, the headline caught my attention. Here it is. How pop music fandom became

sports, politics, religion, and all-out war. And so, of course, this relates because you're talking about how we all have this sense of which we hunger for God, even if that hunger is hidden behind shopping or alcohol or whatever. But it turns out that one of the places that our hunger for God is hidden is inside of music wars. And Stan, I've learned about all this. Maybe you know far more about it than I do probably, but Stan is a reference to an M&M song about a guy named Stan who was a huge fan of Eminem and then ended up becoming a murderer. And the whole idea is that these people who are huge online fans of a particular musician group, whatever, end up becoming so obsessed that they just do crazy things. And from what I can tell, Stan was not a real story. He did some horrible things

in Eminem's song, MTV had to delete out or censor a lot of it. And if MTV is censoring it is going to be pretty bad, right? So anyway, the point is that I'm not sure it's necessarily a true story, but it represents people who are committed to promoting their favorite musician and trolling their favorite musicians' competitors, at least how they see them. And in this article, it talks about people who have evangelical or religious devotion worship of Lady Gaga or Andrea Gondra. No, I'm going to say Ariane Grande, right? Is that right? Let's keep this one in the podcast.

We don't actually know of her, right, which does a lot about the both of us. Well, I know. I just can't say it. I can't say because you messed it up. It's Grande's her last name. Yeah. Anyway, Mrs. Grande. Vente.

Whoever your musician is, you're just so committed to them. So here's my point. This is a little bit of a tangent that people are hungry for God. And if you don't fulfill that hunger in the God of the Scriptures, you're going to fill it in some other way. Your soul is crying out to know God. Your soul wants to know God. And the Bible is the place where you come to know them. So we're not telling you to read your Bible because it'll make you good Christians or make you more religious or make you follow the rules or give you a better life.

We're saying this is what you were created for to know God. This is what you desperately want whether you realize it or not. Keith's right. Only God can satisfy your hunger. If you're hungry for energy at the end of a long day, do you know what Psalm 19 says? The law of the Lord, that's the word of God, is perfect, reviving the soul. This is where you get the energy. Are you hungry for guidance in your life? The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. Again, God's the only one who can give it to you, and he gives it to you in His word. Are you hungry for joy right now? The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. Are you hungry for a purpose that will outlast time? Well, the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. Are you hungry for truth, hungry for justice? The rules of the Lord are true and just altogether. Whatever hunger you have, God's the only one who can satisfy it, and he satisfies it in his word. So maybe you're sold. And you're like, yeah,

I want to read my Bible, but guys, we got to get more practical. We can't stay up in Patrick's Ivory Tower. So what do we do? Why is it by Ivory Tower? You're the one talking about Stan. I don't know. You're the private school kid. All right. So anyway, you got to get a plan set up, not a stand-of-plan. And you've got to have a time. Let's start with that. When am I going to do this? Where am I going to do it?

What am I going to do? If you don't have those things figured out beforehand, or at least if you're like me and you have to figure that out at the moment, then you are sunk. The first place that this battle to read your Bible is fought is before you ever get to that point in time. So, for example, I'm going to read my Bible the first thing in the morning in my living room chair, I'm going to walk through Mark chapter 1. Okay, that's a plan. Now, what do you want to do? Well, put your Bible in that chair. Or I'm going to read my Bible as I drink my first cup of coffee. Okay, so that's a great plan. What am I going to do? I'm going to put my Bible next to the coffee pot to remind me that this is

what I need to do in the morning. While my coffee is brewing or while I'm drinking it, I'm going to read through Mark chapter one or whatever it is you're on. I would suggest not so much having a time, like I'm going to read for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or five minutes, but more of a section of scripture. I'm going to read one chapter. That to me is an easier way to do it, but of course, you do you. And if you've got a way that works for you, then by all means, keep doing that. So how do you read the Bible? What's a good methodology that someone can use? Well, I think there are countless ways to read your Bible. There's not any one right way to do it. The key is to have some sort of plan so that you develop some consistency in doing it. What do you use, Patrick? I mean, I do a ton of different things, just like you said. In fact, I found that keeping things fresh using different methods is really important. One of my favorite most simple methods, which I find myself going back to, and I'm guessing there's some people who would judge this for its simplicity, but I found it to be powerful is called the Swedish method. I have no idea by the way. Swedish fish? Yeah I, I,

no, the Swedish method. I don't know why it's called that. I love me some Swedish fish. Maybe a Swedish person invented this method. But it's really simple. You just need your Bible and a pen. And what you do is you write a question mark next to anything that you find confusing. In your Bible? Uh-huh, in your Bible. Write in your Bible. Heritage. You'd hate to write in your Bible, huh? No, I'm kidding. You write a question mark next to anything that's confusing, an exclamation point next to anything that's interesting. Maybe something just stands out to you. a big bright light. Oh, that's fascinating. And then you write an arrow next to anything that applies in your life. And then when you're done, what you do is you confess any sins that this

passage brought up. That might be where some of your arrows are. And you ask for grace to obey God and application. And if you get some of those question marks, you don't know what to do, well, those are things that you can bring up to a spiritual mentor, maybe a pastor, or Keith and I are always happy to talk to you. You can send us an email or reach out to us on social media. And we'd love to be a help to you in your Bible reading. That's why I like the question mark. It creates community. It forces you to talk to people about what you're reading in your Bible. So that's a really simple way of doing it. Question mark next to anything confusing, exclamation mark next to anything interesting, and arrow next to anything that applies, and then pray afterwards and ask questions.

The key here is not the plan. In other words, there's not a fail-safe plan that if you just do this plan, it'll all work. The point, I think, is to know what you're going to do so that you don't get sidetracked. And it can be as simple as I'm just going to pray. God, open my heart and teach me from your Bible and then read the chapter in Mark or whatever chapter you're going to read that day. And then at the end of it, just pray that God would use it in your life. So the simpler we make this, probably the better. And then once you get that established, then there's all kinds of different directions that you can go with it personally. Ezra was a prophet in the Old Testament. And in Ezra 7, verse 10, it says this about him, for Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the law of the Lord and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.

So what I like about that is that Ezra had devoted himself not just to study, but to obey what he studied. In other words, we're not trying to learn facts for a game of trivia. We're trying to be shaped into the people that God wants us to be. And so to know more in your head, but not to live any differently, well, it's kind of pointless. The whole point of knowing more is so that we can be shaped by God's truth, shaped by what we know. It'll change our life. We need to obey what we learn. So there's a story that always sticks in my mind when it comes to this topic, and it's a true story.

It's the raid on Entebbe. So, 1976, there is an Israeli plane captured, hijacked. and it goes for a little while to Libya, and then the hijackers take it to Uganda, and it's on the tarmac there, and Israel's force, the Mossad, is going to come in and raid the plane where the hijackers are. They're going to try to take all the prisoners out of this hangar and help them escape. So when the Mossad comes into the hangar where all the captives are with all the foreign soldiers, they yell in Hebrew and English who they are. So they announce who they are, and they tell everyone to get down, but only in Hebrew and English, so they're

that the captives will understand them, but the people who are holding them captive, the terrorists won't necessarily. And so it will be easier to pick out who to shoot, who to kill, and who not to harm. Well, when they yell this out one 20-year-old guy, and I don't even know if I'll try to say his name, well, here we go. Jean-Jacques, you want to help me with that last name, Patrick? No, I don't speak French. Okay, so anyway, so it's July 4th, 1976. They break in and they yell, get down, get down, we're the Mossad and this one kid, he doesn't do it. Jean-Jacques, and I won't say his last name, he hears it, he understands it, but he doesn't

obey it, and so he dies. So if we hear and we understand God's word, but we don't obey it, well, then in some sense over time, we spiritually die. We need to obey what we hear. And so one of the biggest things you can do when you read your Bible right is not so much have the best plan out there, but to have a heart that says, God, I want to obey what you teach me. One great way to do this is meditation, not the Zen, emptying yourself of thoughts,

meditation, but almost the exact opposite, filling yourself up with thoughts from the Bible. When you read a chapter, it could be a great idea just to focus in on one verse and meditate on it. Think really hard about it. Maybe you write it on a note card and you set it somewhere, you know, in your car next to your speedometer, not in front of the speedometer, but next to the speedometer. Officer, I couldn't see the spedometer. I don't know how fast I was going. I was meditating on Scripture.

What's wrong here? And meditate on it. I love the Hebrew word for meditation. It has a sound that is, I don't even want to try to imitate it, but it sounds like growling, like a low humming. I'm not going to do it. And what's cool is that this same word is used to describe the sound that a lion makes when it's sitting over its prey and it's kind of purring and growling and devouring and

eating it. And I think, yes, that's what it's all about. Meditation is about being so hungry for God that you, Find your prey, this verse, this passage. You get over it and you think about it and you eat it slowly. You enjoy it like a lion over a zebra. Okay, so one more story. September 11th, 2001, the trade towers have been hit.

People are trapped in a smoke-filled building. They can't see. They don't know where to go and how to get out of their offices to the stairwell. And they hear a voice. They hear a guy's voice saying, come here, I'm by the door. Come this way. Over here. And everybody's screaming.

it's panic. People are yelling. They're scared to death, but they hear this lone voice. They can't see their hand in front of them because of the smoke and the debris, but they hear the voice. Come over here. Come follow me. Let's get out of here. And they have to trust that voice. And if they trust that voice and make their way to the door, they were able to escape. But if they didn't, if they didn't trust that voice, if they listened to one of the other voices, well, the consequences were dire. That, in a sense, is what I feel like our world is. There's. There's all these voices, voices from the television, from the radio, voices from social media, voices from your friends, voices inside your own head, all kinds of voices telling us things,

what's true, what we should believe, how we should live. But there's this other voice saying, come, follow me, and I will give you life. I have abundant life for you. And that's the voice of Jesus found in the scriptures. But we must listen to his voice. How do we hear that voice? Well, we open up the Bible and we read. because when we read, we hear the voice of God, we hear him speak powerfully to our hearts

and tell us where real life is. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.