“How Much is Enough?”
As many of you know, our church has been involved in a process to gather information and to hear opinions about the starting of a Lutheran school at our church, called the Genesis Project. The process is now finished and we will have our final report in January.
One question that has come up because of and throughout this study, especially in my own mind, is the question, “How much knowledge of the Scriptures is enough?” Well, that’s a trick question, and an incomplete one at that.
First of all I have to ask, enough for what? If we are speaking of enough for salvation, one need look no further than one verse, or even one word, in the Bible, the verse John 3:16, the word Jesus. At the same time, we need to know what to believe about this guy Jesus. How many of you do?
On the other hand, if we are to answer that question in terms of enough to know about God, to learn his will for lives, or to grow in our faith and life, the answer is a little different. The Bible tells us all that we need to know about God. It tells us his will for our lives. It gives us the means by which we are able to grow in our faith and our life. In this case, there is never enough of learning the Scriptures.
On the first hand, we have everything we need for eternal life in the person and work of Jesus Christ our Lord.
On the other hand, if that is all we ever learn throughout our lives, we will never grow from an infant faith. The writer of the Hebrews chastises his readers in this when he says in chapter 5:12 “In fact, though by this time some of you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s Word all over again. You need milk not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, still being an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
Unfortunately, as human nature shows very clearly, most people want the bare minimum. They want to know what they need and nothing more, to keep their heads above water, to keep from going to the hot place. Beyond that, interest seems to decline rapidly.
Did you know that the Scriptures clearly tell us how we should have voted on Amendment 2 this past Tuesday? Did you know that there are diet secrets in the Scriptures? Did you know that there are very clear and good instructions on how to have a happy marriage in the Bible? Did you know that there are tons of good, nonfiction, stories to read for entertainment in the Bible, take the book of Esther for instance? I bet there are a few of you reading this today who didn’t even know there was a book of Esther. Did you know that you can teach reading, writing, and arithmetic through and with the Scriptures? I don’t know about advanced calculus, but I think you get the idea.
The Scriptures are God’s Word to us. God didn’t simply dictate to the Apostle’s and prophets what they were to write, he put his Words in their hearts and wrote it on their minds.
Shouldn’t we want to know as much as we can about them and learn as much as we can from them? Shouldn’t we want to make it the basis for our life and not simply use it for one or two things and then put it on the shelf? We should be hungering and thirsting for God’s Word. We should be people who just can’t get enough of it, who can’t put it down.
Instead our lives are full of so many meaningless things. I say our, because I too often forget how important and useful the Scriptures are for me and for my life. I forget what Paul says to Timothy in II Timothy 3:14-16, where he says, “But as for you , continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. All Scripture is God-breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” We forge the simple reality that if we want to know the truth we need to go where the truth is found.
I urge you, then, to go to that book shelf of yours and get that old Bible off the shelf. Don’t just start reading it. Pray beforehand. Have a study guide with you. Most importantly though, read it always knowing that it is all about Jesus Christ, from beginning to end. The whole Scriptures center around Christ. In other words read it all with Christ in mind.
I think I have mentioned before that I have several different Bibles for several different purposes. I have a daily Bible that I use for devotions. It goes through the whole Bible in one year. I have used it for the past ten years in a row. I also have a study Bible with many notes in it. I use that to prepare sermons and Bible studies. I also have several different translations so that I can sometimes check to see if what one translation says is different than the version I am reading. I also have a Greek New Testament and a Hebrew Old Testament so that I am able to go through things in the original texts and see how things were originally expressed.
I have read through the Bible many times. I have studied it for the last 33 years, from three years old on. I went to schools where the Bible was taught every day. Still, every time I read God’s Word I learn something new about the world, about him, and about my own life. It has definitely made me “wise for salvation.”
So how much is enough? The answer: there is no such thing as enough learning of the Scriptures. I for one will be reading and learning from it till the day I die, at which time I will see God face to face and will finally know it fully and completely!
Won’t you join me in renewing your zeal for the Scriptures? Go to your church’s Bible studies. Start a Bible study of your own. Ask your pastor to help you study it, or at least get you started on your own. Offer suggestions for new and inventive ways to do group and individual Bible studies. It’s just like anything else, you just have to start doing it and keep it going!
God’s blessings as you get back into God’s Word!
