ARME 6: Spangle, WA - July 2011

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ARME Bible Camp

Alan Parker

How to bring God’s Word to Life

And we want to take a look at how to bring God's Word to life.

And we want to take a look at what does the Bible say and how can we really bring God's Word to life.

And I'm inspired about what is happening here at Army.

How many of you were here for the Bible training session earlier today?

And as you begin to get into God's Word and find out what God's Word means for your life, it really begins to change you.

And so today we're going to be taking a look at how to really bring that Word to life.

But Before we open the Word, what is the 1 thing we must always do?

So let's pray that God and His Spirit will lead us.

Father God, we thank You that You are here, You are present.

Help us to understand Your Word, to let it come to life.

And I believe that you are going to do that for us this afternoon.

We also ask, Lord, that you take our attitude of commitment and turn it into service for we pray this in Jesus' name.

Number 1, I want to look at why is it that we have a problem with Bible study.

Number 2, what is the purpose of Bible study?

And number 3, How should we practice Bible study?

So we want to take a look at what problems do we have with Bible study?

And then we want to spend some time on the practice of effective Bible study.

Now, I have a lot of students and I hear various things when they speak to me, they say things like, you know, when I study the Bible, I find myself easily distracted.

You know, you start studying and next thing you get distracted, particularly if you're using the computer.

And because as you start studying the Bible, up pops a little message from Facebook or email and you're distracted.

Others say, I really don't get much of Bible study anymore because I find it somewhat irrelevant to my life.

And I'm reading it and it just feels so long ago and far away.

How many of you have tried to read through the whole Bible?

Leviticus, you know, and they placed this, you know, piece of equipment in the tabernacle and it was this long by this high, and you're like, I don't understand Lord, and you gave up.

What's the very first chapter of Matthew?

And so and so begat so and so who begat so and so who begat so and so who begat so and so who begat so and so who begat so and so who had a begatment.

And so you start reading through and you say, is this really relevant?

And some people just say, look, I used to be excited about the Bible, but to be honest, I simply find it boring now.

I remember feeling when I was reading the Bible at 1 time, but it just seems so dry.

It was like I was trying to read it, but it wasn't reaching my heart.

You know, when you're a kid, it's kind of exciting.

You know, for my kids, they didn't know that Moses was going to make it through the Red Sea.

It's exciting the first time you read that.

But over a period of time, it lost some of its appeal.

And then, you know, you go and sometimes you just seem to be learning fact after fact after fact.

So I have to ask, why do we find our Bible study so dry?

Why do we find it so hard to really get into the Word?

And I want to suggest to you that the reason is our motivation, is our approach to the Bible.

Some of us see the Bible as an answer book.

It's kind of like you have a question, you go to the Bible, you can find an answer.

You know, you can go and you can find Wiki Biblios.

And you can just, you know, punch in a question and out will come an answer.

And so people start treating the Bible that way.

And I thought, you know, if God really wanted the Bible to be written that way, wouldn't he have done it as a Q&A?

Or wouldn't he have done it as a searchable database with answers to any question you could imagine?

But more than that, the problem is when I start seeing the Bible as an answer book, I start treating it like an encyclopedia.

How many of you love to read encyclopedias?

But for the rest of us, we find an encyclopedia a little boring.

The other problem with it is that that tends to be pretty selfish.

Let me flip open the Bible and find an answer.

And you all heard of the guy who tried to do that, right?

You know, he opened the Bible, and the first thing he read was, and Judas hanged himself.

So they said, let's try it again, Lord, and they opened it up again.

So is that a good way to approach the Bible?

Should we approach the Bible as an answer book?

And I'm going to suggest to you that God is something much more deeper in mind.

Now, of course, does the Bible give us answers?

The Bible is a great book for giving us answers, but it's so much more than an answer book, and that's what I want to suggest to you this afternoon.

Secondly, some people treat the Bible as a storybook.

This is a way in which they can read these fascinating stories.

And as I mentioned to you earlier, for my daughter, she loves Bible stories because she doesn't yet know what's going to happen next.

You know, there they are standing before Pharaoh and who is going to win?

But as you get older and when you've heard the story 5 or 10 times, you already know the outcome.

And so treating the Bible as a storybook does not make it very interesting.

There's another problem with the storybook method, and that is when you read a novel, it's deliberately designed for suspense and drama.

So when you're reading a novel, it goes something like this.

And then his heart beating inside of him, he crept up to the door, opened the door, and it made a strange creaking sound as he opened the door and looked inside and could not believe what his eyes saw.

You all want to know the end of the story, don't you?

I don't know what happens next, I Never got that far.

But when you read the Bible, it's not written like that.

In fact, the Bible is written quite differently.

The Bible only puts in details that are important to its theme.

Now, if you were hand copying a document, you would not write in all of those details.

And then his heart beating, he was thinking inside, should I really be doing this?

They don't have time to write all that down because people need to copy this.

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How to bring God’s Word to Life

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