Helpful Hints To Better Understand The Bible

I talk to many people in church and out of church who say they either don't read the bible at all or they read it very little. The primary reason I hear is not lack of time, it is lack of understanding. Many have said they try to read the Bible and give up shortly after they start because they don't get anything out of it and they don't understand what they read. I know, because I used to be one of those people. My Bible had more dust on it than a TV screen in the same room with a fireplace that hasn't seen Windex in a month.

I'd like to share some things I have learned about getting more out of reading the Bible and hopefully these will be helpful. I found from personal experience that once I understood the Bible more, I wanted to read it more. By reading it more, I understood it more, etc.

The scripture reference I'd like to use is in James 1:21-25

"21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror:
24 For he beholds himself, and goes his way, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was.
25 But whosover looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed."

When looking at scripture it is important to know who is writing, who is being written to and why. James (a Jew) is writing to his fellow Jewish believers telling them how to be saved, but we can certainly still learn from it. Now you may say, hold it. What do you mean James is writing to fellow believers telling them how to be saved? If they are believers they are already saved. Well, yes they are. However, salvation comes in 3 tenses... past, present and future. You may ask what's the difference. I'll see if I can explain it and let the answer begin with the letter "P" for easier recall.

Past Tense Salvation - This happened the instant you trusted Jesus Christ as you Savior. You will never have to die and go to Hell because Jesus paid the price for you. Past tense salvation means you no longer are under the Penalty of sin.


Present Tense Salvation speaks of being saved from the Power of Sin. Look at the end of verse 21 "... which is able to save your soul." The greek word for soul is 'Psuche'.. which roughly speaking is your mind, emotion and will. James is telling us how to keep our mind, emotion and will in check and in line with God.


Future Tense Salvation comes when Jesus returns and we are changed into a new sinless creation. This is being saved from the Possibility of Sin. Once Jesus comes back and we are changed in a twinkling of an eye, we will be perfect and there will be no sin in us or even the possibility of sin in us because there is no sin in a Holy Heaven. What a time to look forward to.


Ok you say, that's nice and all but how does that help me better understand the Bible? Well this passage in James gives 4 ways to better receive God's Word when you read it. Instead of the letter "P", I am going to let each of these begin with the letter "R".

1) We should welcome the Word with a Repentant Spirit

Look again at verse 21 "Lay apart all filthiness and superfluidity of naughtiness." The word translated here as filthy is "rhuparia" and it is closely related to the term used for ear wax. James is telling us to get the spiritual wax out of our ears. How do our ears get this spiritual ear wax and how do we get rid of it? This wax comes from unconfessed sin in our lives. That's why it is important to repent of the sins you recognize or "come clean" before you attempt to hear from God through His word. Another analogy could be having spiritual weeds. Remember the parable about the sower. God's word is seed and any farmer knows before you plant the seed, you have to weed the garden. If we expect to hear from God, we have to do a self examination and come clean with or repent of those sins which hurt our fellowship with God. That is why the first step to better understanding the Bible is to approach the Bible with a Repentant Spirit.

2) We Should Welcome the Word with a Receptive Spirit. Look again at verse 21 "... receive with Meekness.." What is meekness? Meekness is not weakness. It is power under control. We can not dig into the Bible and treat it like a math or science book and try to draw truth out. Notice the word "receive". There are two words in the Greek for receive. One is "Lombano" which means to grasp, to reach out and take for youself. James does not use that meaning here because we can non just snatch truth out of the Word of God. James uses the other word for receive and it is "Decomai" which means to welcome, to openly receive as you would receive a guest in your home. We must come to the Word of God with a receptive, meek spirit and ask God to show us the truths He would have us to see. God is under no obligation to show anyone His truths if they don't first come to the Word with a repentant spirit.

So the next time we sit down to study the Bible we need to ask ourselves, are we meek? First question is are we clean, second question is are we meek and the two go hand in hand. If we are not meek we are not even going to admit when we are not clean.

3) We must welcome the Word with a Responsive Spirit. Look now at verses 22-23... "be doers of the Word and not hearers only." We can be clean and meek but if we are not obedient to what we read, God is not going to reveal any new truths to us. There a couple of scriptures that address this.

Matthew 7:26-27 "And every one that hears these sayings of mine, and does them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."

Luke 11:28 " blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it."

If we want a blessing, if we want to build our faith on a strong foundation, we need to be obedient to what we read. Once we do that, God will then trust us and reveal more truths to us.

Here is a practical example of what I mean. Suppose you had a young child and you assigned them certain household duties to perform in order to earn an allowance. The more difficult the job, the more allowance they would earn. You assign them to clean their room. They don't do it. Then later, when there is a new video game out that they want to get and need extra money, they come to you and ask if they can mow the lawn with the new fancy riding mower that even you have to read the manual to figure out how to operate. What would your reaction be? Would you say sure? Not hardly. What you would probably say is "why should I teach you how to operate this complicated mower when you didn't even do the simple task of cleaning your room?"

The Best way to understand the parts of the Bible that we don't understand is to obey the parts we do understand.

4) We must Welcome the Word with a Reflective Spirit. Look at verses 23-24: "For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror: For he beholds himself, and goes his way, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was."

So many of us are guilty of reading the Bible with a cavalier, casual glance. We are much like the person who looks at themselves briefly in the mirror and soon forgets what they see. Many times we read the Bible and may come across an interesting new truth but later on forget what it was. It is a good idea to have a pen and notebook with us when we read. Much like in a classroom, doing this shows God we are expecting to hear from Him and are ready to write down and meditate on what is revealed to us.

The Bible is not like any other book. We read other books, the Bible reads us. We see ourselves when we read the Bible that is why James uses the metaphor of a mirror. The Bible will reveal things in us that we need to address. Shortcomings that many times we don't want to face up to. You know the expression that says "mirrors don't lie." Well, just like the mirror, the Word of God doesn't lie and we may even discover things about ourselves that make us uncomfortable but we need to hear. This is also where the meek spirit comes into play. We must be willing to accept what we see about ourselves and not turn away from it.

We all like to receive a blessing don't we? Look at verse 25 again "But whosoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed."

This verse tells us that if we look into God's Word, continue in it, meditate and remember what we read, and are then obedient to what we read that we shall be "blessed indeed."

The Next time we sit down to read the Bible we need to think about the 4 "R's".... Repentant Spirit, Receptive Spirit, Responsive Spirit, and Reflective Spirit. I believe if we follow this pattern that the Bible will begin to come alive to us and not only will we understand more of what we do read, we will actually want to read more of it more often. Let's keep those dust bunnies off our Bibles and truly experience what God would have us to from His Word.

Right On The Money or Worry Free Living

We are wrapping up the series on "Managing God's Money" and I have some take aways from it and the subject in general.

First, and nothing else will work if this is not your belief, we must realize that it is not our money, but God's money. As such, we are not "owners" we are "stewards". Given this fact, every decision we make concerning money is no longer a financial decision but a Spiritual decision.

The scripture reference is a well known one from the Gospel of Matthew 6:33 but it is normally not a good idea to just pull 1 verse alone without prior verses to set the context (especially since verse 33 starts with the word "but").

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Let's take a detailed look at these verses. The word "worry" is mentioned 6 times in this passage of scripture. This chapter is more about worry than money, but God knew that the largest source of our worry would be about money and material things. God knows that we in our human nature are natural "worry warts" or else He would have not been so emphatic in telling us not to worry. If you want to be technical, worry is actually mentioned 7 times, not 6, if you count the phrase "you of little faith" as another way of saying "worrier". We should be warriors for Christ, not worriers for ourselves. God can not use a worrier to do His will and work that He wants done on the earth; He will only use warriors. How does one become a warrior and not a worrier? Stay tuned for the answer.

Let's tighten the focus on verse 33 since that is the popular verse. Look at the first few words... "seek", "first" and "kingdom". Seek doesn't mean looking around hoping to find something (like those old seek and find puzzle books where we used to look for hidden words). The word seek here is talking about a deliberate pursuit. The way a thirsty man seeks out something cold to drink or the way a hungry man seeks out food. This is why in the beatitudes, Jesus says "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness". This is not something we are going to be able to obtain through osmosis, hearing a sermon, or having someone else bring it to us. We have to make the conscious effort to pursue it on our own with all we have. (kind of reminds you of the 1st commandment doesn't it?)

So we see what seek is and how important it is. Now go to the other word.. first. This speaks of priority. As followers of Christ, God doesn't just want a place in our lives or even to be a priority... He wants and demands preeminence. Jesus said in Luke 9:62 "“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” And why does He demand this? To be mean? Of course not. He demands this so that we do not become self sufficient, but God sufficient.

OK, on to Kingdom. What is the Kingdom? In this context it is not a literal geographical place. It is referring to a rule or reign. The Kingdom then is allowing God to be the dictator of your life.. the sole ruler. Who heads a kingdom? The King. What is the requirement of those living in the kingdom? To do what the king says. What is the obligation of the king? To take care of the needs of those in the kingdom. When we "seek first the kingdom" what we are doing is putting every area of our life (not just financial, but everything) in the King's hands and trusting Him to meet all our needs. Notice I said needs, not wants. God is smart enough not to always give us what we want, but He will always give us what we need.

Again, this goes back trust. You can not trust and worry at the same time. If you are worrying, then you really haven't fully trusted. It amazes me sometimes how people will trust God for their eternity but they don't trust Him to provide to pay a certain bill, keep them in good health or for basic transportation. As an aside, the word trust in the Greek is "pisteuo". Unfortunately, in most bibles the Greek word pisteuo is inaccurately translated "believe" instead of trust. Many people believe in God (make a mental ascent that there is a God), but for salvation we have to believe,trust, pisteuo that Christ's death, burial and resurrection is sufficient to pay our sin debt. This is known as the Gospel.

This then leads me back to my earlier statement that every decision we make concerning money is a Spiritual decision, not a financial one. If we parade every decision through the lens of two things then the decisions become quite clear and easy to make. The two tests are: 1) is this spending decision beneficial to the kingdom? and 2) is it adding to my righteousness.

So how do we know what is righteous for the kingdom? We have to know the King? We have to not just know about the King, but KNOW the King. How do we know that we know the King? Two tell tale signs will let you know if you really know the King and can act as your Spiritual thermometer to take your Spiritual temperature. They are the calendar and check book. We can look at each of these and know if we are or are not connecting and really knowing the God we claim to love and trust in.

The calendar. How do we spend our time? How much of our time is set aside to spend time with God, fellowship with others, and serve God? Sadly, most of us come up short in this area. God gives each and every one of us the same 24 hours to do with what we please. There is no saying "I wish I had as much time as this other person does". The fact is, we make time for the things that are most important in our lives. I believe that if we want to really connect with God and know Him, we must spend time DAILY in His word and His presence. This is not optional. We must also spend time with other believers in fellowship.. not just on Sunday mornings but in bible study groups, home groups, prayer groups, etc. Finally, we must take time to serve. It can be helping someone with a need, teaching someone God's word so they can understand it, or visiting someone in a hospital or prison. (see Matthew 25) If we were to keep a balance sheet of how we spend each day, we would probably be shocked to see how little time we give to God.

The checkbook. There is an old expression that goes "put your money where your mouth is" but I prefer (and so does Jesus) to express it this way "put your money where your heart is". (see Matthew 6:21) If we are to connect and know God we must give back a portion of what He has so richly given us. This can be tithing at your local church, giving to missions, etc. If we decide to keep all that God has given us to ourselves and not give (the tithe for example), we are saying that we do not trust God to take care of us using the remaining 90%. This makes no sense if you think about it. We are telling God, "God, I trust you to raise me from the dead, but I don't trust you to pay the light bill so I need to hoard all I have just in case".

OK, so how does one become a "warrior" for God instead of a "worrier" for self? The key is not in the word warrior or worrier but in the words that follow... God and self. If we truly seek the Kingdom, we put the perfect "God" on the throne of our lives, trust Him with everything we have, which frees us up to be a mighty warrior to serve Him and provides joy unspeakable in our lives. If we put "self" on the throne, then we are trusting in our imperfect selves which can only lead to worry, mental breakdown, misery and, at best, lack of joy.

Will you be a warrior or a worrier? The choice is yours.

Book'em or The Blotter Report

I have talked to a few people who were confused or in error as relates to the “Lamb’s Book of Life”. All realize that this book contains the names of all the redeemed (those who have trusted Jesus as their Savior). The confusion seems to be centered around the order in which this happens. I believe that some churches teach this incorrectly (if it is even taught at all which is rare these days in the modern church). If it is taught, it is taught that once you accept Christ your name is written in the book. This is an incorrect teaching. The name of everyone who has ever been born and who will be born was written in the book from the beginning of time. If someone dies without having received Christ as their Savior, then their name is stricken from the book. The Bible calls this having the name “blotted out”.

Let's look at scripture that backs this up. After all, if scripture can not back up a belief, it is just an opinion. The primary text is from Psalm 69:22-28 although verse 28 is the primary text.

" 22 May the table set before them become a snare; may it become retribution and a trap.

23 May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever.

24 Pour out your wrath on them; let your fierce anger overtake them.

25 May their place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in their tents.

26 For they persecute those you wound and talk about the pain of those you hurt.

27 Charge them with crime upon crime; do not let them share in your salvation.

28 May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous."

From the context, this Psalm is talking about asking God to punish the evil people. In verse 28 the ultimate request was made to have their name "blotted out" of the book of life. It stands to reason that if a request is made to blot out their name that their name has to be in the book of life already. Since the people being referred to are evil it is obvious the text is not talking about people who were saved.

Here are two more scriptures that mention the names in the book of life from creation. The first is Revelation 13:8

"All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world."

The second is Revelation 17:8

"The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because he once was, now is not, and yet will come."

Want another reason for eternal salvation assurance? Check out Revelation 3:5

"He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels."

Ok, so you say "but that is only if you overcome". True. But what does the Bible say about who the overcomers are. Scripture always interprets scripture. Look in 1 John 5:4-5

"4 For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.

5 Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"

So as we can see, the true believers in Christ are the overcomers which means that all true believers in Christ will never have their names blotted out (which is another way of saying they will never lose their salvation).