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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eugene Prewitt

Building Bible Experts

This is from Daubigny, book 9, chapter 11.

If you've never heard of Daubigny before, it's okay.

But he wrote some beautiful materials about the 16th century reformation.

He says, opposed to the old champions of the hierarchy who had neglected the study of languages and the cultivation of literature were generous minded youth devoted to study, investigating scripture, and familiarizing themselves with the masterpieces of antiquity.

Possessing an active mind, an elevated soul, an intrepid heart, these young men soon acquired such knowledge that for a long period, none could compete with them.

Accordingly, when these useful defenders of the Reformation met the Romish doctors in any assembly, they attacked them with such ease and confidence that these ignorant men hesitated, became embarrassed, and fell into a contempt merited in the eyes of all." Now I know when Daubigny wrote that, You never thought anyone would read it in English in front of a group of people.

It's the kind of writing you need to have in front of your face so you can go slow enough through it.

But let me just translate it into like 21st century English.

In the days after Martin Luther and Zwingli and Farrell, 500 years ago, there were a group of young people raised up in Europe that were so thoroughly familiar with the Bible, so thoroughly familiar with the writings of the church fathers in apostolic ages, so familiar with the dead languages of Greek and Hebrew and even to quite an extent, Latin.

Men who were so studious and thoughtful that when they would end up in a public meeting discussing policy or truth related to the Bible, they would end up of course in conflict with the religious leaders of their time.

But those religious leaders, those leaders had their positions, they'd gotten those positions by some means other than careful, continuous study.

They had achieved those positions by hook or crook or inheritance or by in, being in with the right people.

The point is that they really didn't know their Bible so well at all.

And so The contrast was middle-aged church leaders discussing with young, bright, reformed-minded youth, these men came out on top.

And this was in an age when Often discussion of religious ideas was done in the form of debate.

And so in these kinds of situations, these young men were winning all the time.

When you have the truth, you can win a debate even if the guy that you're debating with is a little more skillful than you are.

Because debate lends itself, having the truth lends itself to winning a debate.

I don't know how to say that any other way.

The difference between truth and human error is that truth, the deeper you investigate it, the more true you can see it to be.

Whereas human theories and ideas that sound really good at the surface, as you begin to investigate them, the more you investigate, the more chaotic, inconsistent, and untenable you find them to be.

So if at the surface, both men look like that they know their stuff, yet the more you listen to them talk, the more you can see the conflict between them.

I've taught church history for a while, about 20 years, and I love that statement for what it says.

In the last few weeks of doing Bible work, I have experienced something that seems to me supernatural.

And that is that when I'm dealing with these souls who are finding their way to the 3 angels' messages, frequently they ask questions about the Bible that match my niche of knowledge.

Say that there are 100 ideas in here that you can know and say that I personally am quite familiar with 6 of them.

So now I'm studying with a group of 40 random people and as they bring up random questions, nearly every 1 of these questions ends up coming from the 6 instead of from the 94.

Do you understand kind of the illustration I'm giving you?

Almost as if God is utilizing me like a tool in his hands, but not me ambiguously, but particularly he's using the part of the Bible that he's managed to get into me.

What it tells me is that my investment in studying this book makes me a more polished instrument, something more useful to him, not just in some public speaking situation, but even in the delicate personal work of sitting with someone inside their own home and talking about spiritual things.

I'll give you an example of something that came up last week, maybe it's 2 weeks ago, time goes really quick.

A young man brought up the question about babies.

It was the man that I called Brody this morning.

You might remember about that man that his first baby died a few hours after birth.

And so his question was, or is, can babies go to heaven?

Can you see how that might be a real relevant question to his own walk with God and issues in his life?

And the Bible has quite a direct answer to that.

No, direct is the wrong word, but quite, it has an answer that satisfies me.

Jeremiah 31, where it speaks about Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted.

And if you find the verses, just tell me so I can just see it right there at the same time.

Thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping.

Rahel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children because they were not.

Now you know from the gospels that this is a prophecy about the slaughter of the innocents, right?

And the slaughter of those when Jesus was just a child.

So Rachel is weeping because her children have been killed.

I think you understand the metaphor because if her husband, Israel, represents the faithful, then his wife, Rachel, would represent the faithful mothers.

Can you see the simplicity of that metaphor?

And here's Rachel weeping for her children.

You can't comfort her, she is grieving terribly.

Verse 16, thus says the Lord, refrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded, says the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the Enemy.

And the comfort that God offers to them, it's not that he doesn't say every baby is saved, but he says their what will be rewarded?

That's the work of faithful mothers under the figure of Rachel.

I think that if I didn't know that, that that man likely wouldn't have asked me that question.

I don't know that, and it might not be true.

He might have asked anyway and left me kind of stammering around and hoping for something to say.

But What I'm trying to express is that as we invest in a serious study of the Bible, in connection with our work of personal evangelism, God can develop in us a knowledge of the Bible that is far more practical than the knowledge you get in a academic setting.

I think that sentence deserves restating.

You will not find that the debate about the, which parts of Paul's writings are really written by Paul, that kind of thing that you could study endlessly among learned doctors, that really isn't expert knowledge of the Bible.

That is expert knowledge of learned doctors.

And learned doctors are much more difficult to master, because there are far too many of them.

But the nice thing is that if you just learn the most prominent ones, people think you're really smart.

And so if you quote a few of the most prominent doctors, you look like an expert, even if you know very little about the holy book.

Turn in your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 4.

1 Kings chapter 4, and Looking at verse 29.

Of course, you remember the experience where Solomon was invited to make a wish.

It was for wisdom, and it wasn't for wisdom for his own honor, but wisdom to do his work well.

I really think that's wisdom that we could ask for more if we tried more to do the work.

Verse 29, And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart.

I think in modern English we would take that to mean he was a really nice guy or benevolent, but I think here it probably means he was really bright.

Even as the sand that is on the seashore.

So if you're trying to quantify how much Solomon knows, you know, it's like the seed of Abraham.

Verse 30, And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the East country, and all the wisdom of Egypt.

For he was wiser than all men, than Ethan the Ezraite and Heman, and Chalcol and Darda, and the sons of Mahal, and his fame was in all nations round about.

And he spoke 3, 000 proverbs, and his songs were 1, 005.

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Building Bible Experts

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