LIFE TRANSFORMATION IS THE POINT

06/11/2024

My walk with Jesus began when I was a teenager. Shortly after, I began reading and studying my Bible.

I kept reading my Bible and learning more from it through my college years and eventually attended four years of seminary (Dallas Theological Seminary) where I learned lots more about the Bible. I’ve continued studying my Bible over the decades of pastoring Northwest. Learning the Bible has been a significant part of my life’s journey.

I think that increasing in our knowledge of the Bible is important and that it’s good. I’ll bet you do, too. But let’s pause for a historical and current reality check…

Imagine that you are a first century Christian living somewhere in the geographic region of Galatia. You’re a recent convert from either Judaism or paganism.

The best case scenario is that you might have had access to the letter that your friend, the Apostle Paul, sent to you and to your small group of fellow Christians. You likely would not have had access to any of the other twenty-six books that make up the New Testament.

If you had been living in the city of Corinth, you might have had access to the two letters Paul wrote to that church. Or, if in Rome, to Paul’s one letter written to the church there.

In the earliest days of the Jesus movement, copies of the books and letters that make up our New Testament were hard to come by, so most Christians didn’t have access to them. And then, consider that many people in the first-century world didn’t know how to read.

So, given the rarity of the books and letters of the New Testament and the prevalence of illiteracy, it’s obvious that many of the first Christians didn’t spend lots of time studying their Bibles.

If we fast forward to 2024, we find something similar in many parts of our world.

There are large swaths of our planet where literacy is still uncommon.

Many Christians live in these places where literacy is rare. So, if there are Bibles around, they are unable to read them. The other harsh reality is that even if they could read, they still couldn’t read a Bible because very often in these places, the Bible is considered dangerous. For many Christians in many places in 2024, it is illegal to own a Bible.

So, as it was in the first century, for lots of reasons, lots of our brothers and sisters today don’t and can’t spend a lot of time studying their Bibles.

Now, to be clear, I’m not writing this to talk you out of studying your Bible.

I’m writing to simply point out that from the first century until today, there have been many believers who haven’t had the access you and I have to the written Word of God. And yet, by living out the truth they know from the portions of Scripture they may have or from what they have learned from others, they have led courageous, loving, beautiful, fruitful, Jesus-honoring lives.

Would believers in Jesus in ancient times have been overjoyed to have held a complete New Testament in their hands? Absolutely! And do Christians today weep with joy and gratitude when they receive a copy of the New Testament in their own language. You bet they do!

But they aren’t over the top with joy and gratitude for the biblical factoids they can learn. They treasure God’s Word for the life-changing treasure it is.

THAT is what Scripture is. It is the true, relevant, historically accurate, compelling, inspired, LIFE-CHANGING Word of God.

That is what Paul wrote to his friends in Thessalonica:

[1 Thessalonians 2:13] For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of mere men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which also is at work in you who believe.

By all means, read and study your Bible! Learn it. Spend time in it. I have spent a lifetime doing so and will gratefully continue to do so.

I consider that the access God has allowed me to have to Scripture to be one of His best gifts to me. I love the Bible for what it teaches me about Him and life with Him.

As you and I continue to learn more from the Bible, let’s allow its truths to have their life-changing impact in us.

Let’s show our gratitude to God for the gift of His Word by our:

SUBMISSION to its commands.

ALIGNMENT with its worldview.

CONFIDENCE in its counsel.

As we lovingly live out the Bible’s truths we know, God will use our lives to bear fruit for Jesus!

Yours…His,

Dave