Looking back over the past year or so I realize that I have taken a big step in Christian maturity as I have learned to handle the Word better. Having grown up in a church with a high view of the Bible the idea of studying the Bible to learn God's authoritative Word on everything was never really new to me. However, I did not really know how to do this at all until I was in college. I learned an inductive study method as a freshman and began using it. This was enough for a while, but in the last year and a half I had a building conviction of my need to begin studying the Word at a deeper level. If I hope to be used by the Lord I had better be able to use the primary tool He has given me.
At a conference a year ago I heard what has turned out to be a revolutionary idea in my understanding of scripture. A speaker explained the need to first understand the Biblical author's original meaning and then to address the present importance of the author's meaning to our lives. This two step process forces us to understand the context, audience, author, etc. This approach also emphasizes application, bringing the Word to bear in our lives. This is a rather simple concept, but I guess I had never heard it put so clearly before and it really clicked in my mind.
It can be tempting and easy to read the words off the page of your Bible and take the most obvious, favorable, controversial meaning. Much of the Bible can be easily misunderstood because it so different in form and content than our modern literature. When we are seeking to understand what the author is saying we can avoid a lot of these problems because we are actually seeking to understand what God is saying through His inspired servant/authors.
All of this is not to say that the Bible is meant to be an opaque piece of literature. The meaning of many parts of the Bible is quite plain and certainly all of the crucial points of the Gospel are evident. I do however see, as I study and read more, that some of the richest truths that the Lord offers us in His Word take some work to get to (check out the previous post for examples). This encourages me to continue laboring in the Word.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
First John Recap
Over the last five months I've been studying 1 John with friends here. It has been a big project, but we've wrapped it up now and I've been taking some time to collect my thoughts and boil down five months of thoughts into a few take-away points.
John wrote to a group of churches in southeast Asia Minor. These churches had been battling Gnostic heresy which was a teaching that, among other things, claimed that Jesus was not divine. As a result, in and around the churches John is writing to there were many people who had been caught up in this heresy. It wasn't clear where they stood with God. They claimed to be believers, but were influenced by this incorrect teaching. The faithful among these churches needed to know how to sort out who the real believers were.
I understand John's first letter as his attempt to define what it means to be a true believer and, through three tests, help people to assess their own hearts and then to test the teaching and teachers surrounding them. According to John, true believers are born of God and as children of God with a new nature and new spiritual life they believe in Jesus as the Christ, their Savior (Doctrinal test), they obey God's commands (Moral test), and they love other people (Social test). John does not set out an expectation of perfection in these tests, but instead that they would with live out a pattern of obedience and love. As true believers we can be reassured because of the reliable apostalic testimony that we have of Christ's coming, the evidence of new life in us as we "pass" the tests, the mutual abiding of us in God and God in us, and the certainty that God hears us.
In terms of application I see John's letter primarily as a call to live as a son of God. As a son of God I will be affirmed in the doctrinal, moral, and social tests as I live out the new nature that is mine through being born again. I live out this new nature by cooperating with the Holy Spirit in the mutual abiding. As I do live this out I ought to be confident of my standing before God, loved and righteous just like Christ, belieing God for what He says about me.
John Stott's "The Letters of John" was a helpful resource throughout out study.
John wrote to a group of churches in southeast Asia Minor. These churches had been battling Gnostic heresy which was a teaching that, among other things, claimed that Jesus was not divine. As a result, in and around the churches John is writing to there were many people who had been caught up in this heresy. It wasn't clear where they stood with God. They claimed to be believers, but were influenced by this incorrect teaching. The faithful among these churches needed to know how to sort out who the real believers were.
I understand John's first letter as his attempt to define what it means to be a true believer and, through three tests, help people to assess their own hearts and then to test the teaching and teachers surrounding them. According to John, true believers are born of God and as children of God with a new nature and new spiritual life they believe in Jesus as the Christ, their Savior (Doctrinal test), they obey God's commands (Moral test), and they love other people (Social test). John does not set out an expectation of perfection in these tests, but instead that they would with live out a pattern of obedience and love. As true believers we can be reassured because of the reliable apostalic testimony that we have of Christ's coming, the evidence of new life in us as we "pass" the tests, the mutual abiding of us in God and God in us, and the certainty that God hears us.
In terms of application I see John's letter primarily as a call to live as a son of God. As a son of God I will be affirmed in the doctrinal, moral, and social tests as I live out the new nature that is mine through being born again. I live out this new nature by cooperating with the Holy Spirit in the mutual abiding. As I do live this out I ought to be confident of my standing before God, loved and righteous just like Christ, belieing God for what He says about me.
John Stott's "The Letters of John" was a helpful resource throughout out study.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
