Has this episode left a meaningful impression on you? Tell us how.
TV Program
Well, it’s the New Year again, and if you are like most people, you are busy making the same promises to yourself that you made last year. You are going to get more exercise. You are going to spend more time with your family. And you are going to spend more time reading the Bible.
So how do you know that this year it’s going to work? Stay tuned, because in a minute I’ll show you how to stick with a good Bible reading plan, and I will show you how to get more out of it.
Mr. George W. Hensley was a man who liked to add a little flair to his preaching. One Sunday, back in the year 1910, he was almost finished preaching on the last chapter of the Book of Mark when he came to this passage (Mark 16:17, 18):
“And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
Now, Mr. Hensley had a real gift for the dramatic. As he finished reading the verses, he paused, and a pronounced silence washed over the crowd. The tension in the room built until he suddenly reached into a box on the stage and pulled out a large rattlesnake with his bare hands. Of course, the congregation was absolutely shocked, but their shock was intensified when the preacher told them that unless they handled poisonous snakes, they risked being doomed to eternal hell.
In other words, he made the ability to handle poisonous snakes a test of Christian fellowship, the ultimate proof that your faith is genuine. Surprisingly, a lot of people believed him, and the practice of snake handling became very popular for a while, even long after Mr. Hensley himself gave up preaching.
People went on handling snakes for the Lord after George Hensley quit preaching to make moonshine, after he went to jail, after the break-up of his marriage, and even after he himself died from a nasty snakebite. Today, even though mainstream churches tried to distance themselves from the snake handlers, there are still about 2,500 people in North America who do it.
Here is how it works: At a snake handler meeting, believers work themselves into a religious frenzy, and then they pass venomous snakes around the room to prove that their faith is strong. Some of them even deliberately drink poison to show their fellow believers that God is with them.
But once in a while, somebody does get hurt. Faithful snake handlers get bit, and some of them die. The explanation given? Well, those who get bit just didn’t have enough faith.
Now, for most of us, the practice of snake handling seems a little absurd, but if you ask a snake handler why they do it, they will use the Bible to show you why.
“Take a look for yourself,” they will say. “It says in Mark 16, verse 18, that you WILL take up serpents, and that’s a command! God is actually telling us to do it!”
And at first glance, some people might be tempted to think they’re right. But when you place this passage of Mark in the context of the rest of the Bible, their argument quickly fades away. In the verse that comes just before it, Jesus makes it clear that He’s talking about carrying the gospel to the whole world.
Let me read it to you again, but this time in its context: (Mark 16:15-18)
“And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.’”
The context makes it clear that Jesus is talking about the work of worldwide evangelism. As the disciples went into the world to share the good news of Christ, they would experience supernatural events that would confirm God’s presence with them. And if you read the list of miracles that Jesus told them to watch for, you will quickly recognize that every one of them happened to the disciples.
In the book of Acts, Paul cast a demon out of a young lady who was throwing public doubt on his ministry. Peter and the disciples found themselves able to preach in languages they had never learned. Peter and John were able to heal a crippled man at the gate of the temple, and Paul was bit by a deadly snake on the island of Malta, and lived.
The context of Jesus’ words seems to imply that He was talking about what would happen as the disciples ventured out into the world; He wasn’t talking about some sort of ecstatic religious experience that takes place behind closed doors.
When you analyze it in the light of God’s Word, the practice of snake handling bears a striking resemblance to the second temptation of Christ, where the devil challenged Him to throw Himself off of the temple. (Matthew 4:6)
“If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”
Now that is a great example of Scripture out of context. Even the devil himself can quote the Bible, but one of his favorite tricks is to lift it out of its context so that its meaning is either twisted or lost. Listen to how Jesus handles the devil when he pulls the Bible apart to his own advantage.
In Matthew four, verse seven, Jesus says: (Matthew 4:7)
“It is written again, you shall not tempt the LORD your God.”
In other words, Christians do not throw themselves off of high buildings or handle deadly snakes on purpose. Instead, by faith, they believe that God will give them victory over tough situations as they need help in the work of spreading the gospel. But to deliberately throw yourself into harm’s way isn’t faith, that is presumption!
George Hensley’s theology was wrong, and it was wrong because it was unbalanced. He took a ‘buffet’ approach to Scripture, loading only the things that looked appetizing or personally useful onto his theological plate. Anything that didn’t fit his personal ideas, like the all-important biblical context of another verse, well, those things he left behind.
And that is a really bad approach to studying your Bible. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what a lot of people do. Instead of reading the Bible for what it actually says, they scavenge their way through the verses, looking for little tidbits that will prop up their own philosophy.
Millions of people, instead of letting God actually speak to them, use the Bible like a magic eight ball, or as a garnish for their own opinion. And while this doesn’t always produce dramatic oddities like snake handling, it does lead to a warped theology and some strange ideas about God.
Pastor John MacArthur tells the story of watching someone explain the importance of something he called a “life verse,” which was supposed to be the entire basis of this fellow’s ministry. He said, “My ministry is based entirely on my life verse, Matthew 19, verse 26. “With God all things are possible.”
“God gave me that verse,” this fellow said, “because I was born in 1926.”
Now, I have to admit, that is a pretty nice thought, but it leads to some real problems. What happens if your birth year doesn’t have a corresponding passage in the Bible? What if you were born in 1999, for example, and there is no 19th chapter of the Bible that has 99 verses? Does that mean that God doesn’t have a special verse for you?
Well, of course not. In fact, that’s what actually happened on the program that Pastor MacArthur was describing. The host got excited and grabbed his Bible so that he could find his own life verse, but he was born in 1934. Mathew 19 had only 30 verses, so he flipped through the Bible until he got to Luke chapter 19 and verse 34, and found that verse says, “The Lord hath need of him.”
Well, he got really excited at this point, and said, “Hallelujah! The Lord has need of me!”
And that’s when his wife read the all-important context of the verse. “Wait a minute,” she said. “You can’t use this verse, because it’s talking about a donkey!”
One of the first rules to getting more out of your Bible is to pay attention to context. Far too many people use their Bibles as a quick way to prop up a personal belief, but if all you ever do is wade through the Bible looking for proof texts to establish what you already believe, you’re not going to do much growing as a Christian.
Instead, begin to read your Bible carefully and slowly, paying close attention to the context of the verse you’re reading, both the immediate context, and the context of the entire Bible. If you approach the Scriptures with this kind of honesty, you are going to find yourself both learning more and enjoying yourself more.
I know that every year, a lot of well-meaning Christians throw themselves into their Bibles with good intentions of reading the Word all the way through, and for a few weeks, they do really well. And then they come to books like Leviticus and Numbers, and somewhere in the middle of the genealogies and descriptions, they start to lose interest until their conscience gets the better of them a few months later and they start all over again.
A lot of Christians are painfully aware that their devotional life could be a lot better than it is. It’s not that we don’t want to study the Bible, it’s just that a lot of people don’t really know how to do it so that it’s both profitable and enjoyable. So today, you might want to grab a pen and paper, because I’m going to share a few suggestions with you that I have found to be really helpful in my own devotional life.
Here they are:
(1) First of all, don’t try to conquer the whole world at once.
One of the biggest reasons why people give up on studying the Bible is that they try to accomplish far too much in one sitting. We’ll sit down and try to plow through 10 or 20 chapters of the Bible, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is a good devotional life.
It’s much better to read just a couple of verses and really understand them than to read 20 chapters and not remember a word of it the next day. Take some time to read a verse carefully. Think about what it means to your every day life. Ask God to show you what He has in mind for your life in that short little passage you are reading.
And then try to memorize that verse. What you will eventually find is that you have put enough meaningful Scripture into your memory banks that it will come back to you when you need it the most. When you are dealing with a sticky ethical situation at work, that verse you really chewed on will suddenly pop into your mind. Or when you’re reading another section of the Bible, and it’s not making much sense, suddenly another passage that you have really understood will pop to your head and make it all easier to understand.
The trick is to only study what you can realistically handle in a single sitting, and eventually, you will find that you can handle bigger and bigger passages all at once.
(2) The second suggestion that I have is to make sure that you study with a definite plan.
One of the reasons that many of us fail to maintain a serious devotional life is that we fail to study the Bible systematically. A lot of time, we’re guilty of “spot-reading,” where we flip the Bible open to a random passage. Now, not only does this keep us from reading the context of the entire Bible, but it also keeps us from developing the kinds of study habits that will help us really get something out of Bible study.
Take your Bible and look at the edge of it, and you might notice an interesting pattern. Sometimes, you can actually see where your favorite passages are by the parts of your Bible that are worn out the most. There are other parts where the pages still look brand-new, and that’s a pretty good indication that you’ve been spot-reading, or that you haven’t been reading the whole Bible through systematically.
Now, there are many good Bible reading plans available, and a lot of Bibles even have one somewhere in the back. These plans are really good, because they help you keep a balanced perspective on the Word of God, and they help you build that all-important sense of biblical context while you’re reading.
(3) All right, the third suggestion that I have for you is to always pray before you read.
The words of the Bible are the work of the Holy Spirit, so if you really want to get something out of it, you should ask the One who authored it in the first place.
The Bible says in First Corinthians, chapter two and verse 14: (1 Corinthians 2:14)
“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
If I were reading a secular book, and I was confused about what the author meant, the best thing I could do is go and ask the author what a particular passage is talking about. It makes good sense to begin each Bible reading with a word of prayer, giving thanks for God’s instruction and asking His help to understand it. Without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, you will never really grasp the Bible’s most important spiritual truths.
And that explains why some people can read through the whole Bible and never get anything out of it. What’s missing is a desire to draw closer to God, and a willingness to sit at His feet and learn. But when you approach the Bible with a humble heart and a desire to hear His voice, you will be surprised at how much more you’re going to enjoy your devotional life.
(4) A fourth suggestion is to keep it simple.
You know, it’s tempting, in a world saturated with information, to make our Bible study time overly complicated. Far too often, we pile up our desk with a million study tools, but we end up spending more time reading every book other than the Bible itself.
Now, I have to confess that, personally, I have a lot of books in my library. In fact, I buy several new books every week, and if I had the time, I could disappear into my study and literally not come up for air for weeks on end. And on top of my library, I have a high-speed Internet connection, which means I have an almost unlimited supply of information at my fingertips.
But even when information is good, it can stand in the way of productive Bible study. In Second Timothy, chapter three and verse seven, Paul describes people who are “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” And there’s never been a time in history when that’s been more true than now.
As it stands right now, there are more than 8 billion web pages cataloged in the Google Search engine. Millions of new books are published every year. Satellite television can deliver more digital programming into your home each day than you could possibly hope to watch in an entire year!
And while I believe the technological age is a blessing from God, it can also stand in the way of a quiet moment in God’s Word.
Think about this for a moment. There is such a glut of information in our world that it literally drowns out the voice of the Bible, even in the lives of well-meaning Christians. One of the devil’s best strategies has always been to try and drown out a knowledge of God.
A few hundred years ago, Satan couldn’t do much about the fact that the Dark Ages were drawing to a close. The invention of the printing press and the outbreak of popular education foiled all his efforts to keep the Bible out of our hands.
But if he couldn’t keep the Bible out of circulation, maybe Lucifer could drown it out with a glut of other information. Check your history books very carefully. At the same time that the Great Awakening was causing explosive Christian revival all over the world, there was suddenly a huge upsurge of new ideas. Darwinism, Russellism, Spiritualism, and dozens of other “isms” all appeared at about the same time.
Have you ever wondered why? Is it possible that fallen angels couldn’t stop the spread of the Scriptures, so they tried to drown it out? Is it possible that we have so much noise and distraction in our world for a reason?
If you want to get more out of your Bible, try turning everything off for just a few days, and I mean everything. Turn off the TV, turn off the Internet, turn off your iPod, and turn off the radio. Put away your other books and magazines, just for a few days.
Now find a quiet place to just read your Bible, and I will guarantee you that something amazing will happen. With all of the distractions gone, you are going to start hearing the voice of God.
(5) My fifth suggestion is to give someone else a Bible study.
One of the reasons we don’t get much out of Bible study is because we’re far too focused on ourselves, and that’s completely out of sync with the basic principles of Scripture. In God’s universe, life is more about others than it is about self.
I can’t think of a better way to plant the truths of the Bible in your own mind than to teach them to somebody else. When people ask you honest questions, you’ll be forced to dig deeper into the Bible yourself. When they challenge you with objections you’ve never thought of or heard of, it will drive you to your knees in prayer, and you’ll find yourself growing as a Christian by leaps and bounds.
One of my favorite Christians authors put it like this: “If you will go to work as Christ designs that His disciples shall, and win souls for Him, you will feel the need of a deeper experience and a greater knowledge in divine things, and will hunger and thirst after righteousness. You will plead with God, and your faith will be strengthened, and your soul will drink deeper drafts at the well of salvation. Encountering opposition and trials will drive you to the Bible and prayer. You will grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ, and will develop a rich experience.” (Steps to Christ, p. 80)
Well, there are lots of ideas that I’d love to share with you, but we don’t have a lot of time today, so I’ll give you just one more suggestion.
(6) Read your Bible out loud and take notes.
Don’t forget that the Bible was written to be read out loud. Many of the New Testament books were actually letters to churches that someone would stand up and read. You’ll be amazed at the way you notice and remember things when you read it out loud, and if you want to get more out of it, then takes notes as you read.
Every morning, I turn on my computer and I write a page about what I read in my Bible that day. What this does is help me organize my thoughts and really remember what I read.
There are many things that you can do to bring your devotional time to life, but the most important advice I can think of is this: Get started now. It’s amazing how just an hour a day in God’s Word will keep you growing and keep you from religious fanaticism. You know something, it might even keep you from handing out snakes in church!
Just before we go for today, I would like to pray that God will bless you this coming year, and really breathe life into the time you spend in His Word. Why don’t we bow our heads together?
PRAYER:
Father in heaven, more than anything we want to know you better. We believe that your Word can breathe new life into our relationship with you, and we ask that you would put a fire in our hearts that drives us to the Bible. Bless us this coming year, I ask, and pull us into a deeper connection with you, for I ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.
Scriptures Used in “Sharpening Your Sword”
“And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
—Mark 16:17, 18
“And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.’”
—Mark 16:15-18
“If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”
—Matthew 4:6
“It is written again, you shall not tempt the LORD your God.”
—Matthew 4:7
“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
—1 Corinthians 2:14