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In this sermon, Pastor Aaron Shamp introduces a new series called "How to Read the Bible." He emphasizes the importance of daily engagement with the Bible and the need for personal study and communion with the Holy Spirit. Pastor Aaron highlights the power of God's Word to transform lives and explains that the Bible is a revealed Word containing God's words to us. He encourages listeners to approach the study of the Bible with reverence and submission, seeking to understand the intended message of each passage. Pastor Aaron also introduces the skill of observation as a key tool for studying the Bible.
Takeaways
Takeaways
- Engaging with the Bible daily is essential for spiritual growth and building a relationship with God.
- The Bible is a revealed Word, containing God's words to us, and should be approached with reverence and submission.
- The skill of observation is important for understanding the intended message of each passage.
- Context is key in interpreting the meaning of words, phrases, and themes in the Bible.
- The power of God's Word can transform lives and lead to a stronger relationship with Christ.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Series Overview
02:24 The Importance of Daily Bible Reading
10:27 The Bible as a Revealed Word
23:31 Discovering the Intended Message of Each Passage
25:20 Introduction: Importance of Understanding the Meaning of Scripture
26:18 Developing the Skill of Observation
27:34 Looking for Clues in the Passage
31:27 Identifying Key Words and Themes
37:21 Observing Contrast in Biblical Narratives
41:28 Applying Observation to Historical Narratives
44:20 Observing Creation and Identity in Epistles
46:20 Conclusion: Prayer and the Holy Spirit's Guidance
Creators & Guests
What is Redeemer City Church - Lafayette, LA?
Pastor Aaron Shamp preaches about the Gospel and facets of Christianity at Redeemer City Church. These podcasts are his sermons.
Aaron Shamp (00:00)
In Hebrews 412, the author says, for the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double -edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit.
joints and marrow is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. So today, as I said, we're going to start a new series called How to Read the Bible. Now, first of all, why start, why do a series called How to Read the Bible? Because if you come to Redeemer, then you know that every single week we preach the Bible. We never have a Sunday where the Bible is just, you know, kind of to the side and we have a message.
that's separate from the Bible and the Bible is really just present in the service to kind of support what I want to say. No, instead what we do is the Bible is always at the center. And I try to teach the Bible as faithfully and as clearly as I can every single week. Whenever I have guest speakers come in, one of the first things I look for is will they teach the Bible and will they teach it well? So why do a series called How to Read the Bible if you're coming every week and hearing it taught? Well, okay, a few reasons. Number one,
Because you need the Bible daily. You need it daily. And you cannot have it daily even just through podcasts or listening to more sermons, but you need to have it for yourself. You, as a follower of Christ, need to be diving into His Word on your own and communing with the Holy Spirit, building that relationship with God through reading the Bible as a disciple. Okay? Think of it as a diet. You cannot live as a healthy person.
on one good meal per week, right? That is not going to lead to a healthy lifestyle. Instead, you need that nourishment from healthy food every single day, right? And it's the same thing with Scripture. We cannot expect to have a strong and healthy spiritual life, a strong and growing relationship with Christ if we only get the Bible once a week, no matter how well it's taught. You need it every single day.
So that's why we need it every single day. And we need to be reading it for ourselves and growing in it. There is no way to grow in Christ's likeness without time in Scripture. That is true for every single one of us. That's the first reason why we need to have a series on how to read the Bible. Secondly, we're doing this series because we believe that as you not only hear the Bible preached on Sundays, but as you spend time reading it, that there will be power.
through you spinning time in God's Word and God's Word being soaked into your heart and mind through the power of the Holy Spirit, because we believe that God's words have power. That's why we started with Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 this morning saying the Word of God is living and effective. Do you believe that? At Redeemer City Church, we believe that. We believe that God's words have power.
What if we go back to Genesis and we read the same thing in Psalms, that God created the world by His words. Everything that we see in existence today, all of creation around us, including you and I and every human civilization that has ever existed, everything came about through the power of God's words.
And that same powerful word is right here. Right? The same power that created the world through God, through His words, is the same power that is recreating you and I into people who look more and more like Jesus. So we do this series, one, because each of us in here as disciples of Christ needed to be reading the Bible and understanding it for ourselves. However, we are doing it because we believe that God's Word is powerful.
We believe that God's Word has the power to transform lives. So that's why we're doing this series called How to Read the Bible. Now, this is going to be a really different series than anything I've done in my over a decade of ministry and in it of preaching and teaching. This is going to be a highly practical series. My goal is that you would leave here every week, not just thinking, wow, that was a great sermon, but leaving with tools and with things that you can apply today.
tomorrow and so on throughout your Bible reading. It's going to be a highly practical series, and as we go through this series, I'm actually structuring it on a book that you guys can go and buy and then read as I go through the series or at the end of the series, go and buy the book so you can read it after hearing me use it as the kind of basis for this series. So to structure this series on how to read the Bible, I'm going to be using a book called Seven Arrows
for Bible reading, sorry, Seven Arrows, Aiming Bible Readers in the Right Direction. The book is by Matt Rogers and Donnie Mathis. The reason I'm using that book is not because it is the only way to study the Bible, but because having a method for studying the Bible is better than no method, okay? And this one is a really good one. And it's gonna be easy for me to take it, use it as the structure of this series, but then also add to it some things that I want to...
fill in, but then at the same time, I won't be able to say everything the book says, which is why I recommend you guys go and get it later. Just as an aside before I continue, I think that oftentimes, another reason I'm doing it this way is because I want to share my resources with you. I want to share my resources with you. I think a lot of the times, people in church just, you're everyday...
Aaron Shamp (05:58)
And this insight, you know why? Because they got it from resources. Let me give you a little insight into us pastors. None of us are 100 % original. We're not. Only God is 100 % original. We are using great resources to inform our reading of Scripture and then through prayer trying to bring it to you guys. And I think pastors need to do a better job of sharing our resources with you. So that's another reason that I'm clearly from the outset saying,
going to use that book as our structure for this series, and then go through, because I want to share my resources with you. Okay, and so that's why we're doing this series, and that's going to be the vision and goal for it here is that it's going to be highly practical. This is going to be brand new. I've never attempted to do something like this before, but I'm excited about it. I hope that is really helpful to all of us as we go through the next seven weeks of looking at how to read the Bible. So, the way that I'm going to structure
our teachings week to week is I'm going to give you a foundational truth. And then we're going to take one of the arrows from the seven arrows book and explain it, the skill that we need to develop, and then try to apply it. Okay, so that's the format I'm going to take every single week here. We're going to have a foundational truth about God's Word. And then from that, it's going to form how we read the Word and then try to apply that skill to some passages. All right.
Sounds good? Okay, let's get started. So we're going to jump in here with a foundational truth about God's Word. Now, the reason that we're going to start every week with a foundational truth or another word, I might say, doctrine about God's Word. Every single week, we're going to start with a piece of doctrine about the Word of God. And here is why. Because our beliefs about the Bible will inform how we study the Bible. What we believe about it, the truths that we hold in our mind about what
this book is, is going to shape the way that we approach the study of God's Word. In other words, what do we believe about it? Do we believe that it is mythological? Well, that's going to shape the way that we approach it. Or on the other hand, we believe that it is actually historical, that it is filled with reliable truths about things that have happened in history. Well, that's going to change the way that we approach it and study it if we instead just believe that it's mythological. On the other hand, do we think it's historical but not
inspired. In other words, do we say, you know, it's not actually God's Word, but it's just men's thoughts about God? Well, that's going to change the way that we approach it and read it as well. Do we say that, you know, it is historical? It's what these very wise people thought about God in the world, but it's largely allegorical. That's going to change the way that we approach the Word as well.
So it's important that we ask, you know, do we believe the right things about the Bible so that it makes sure that we approach the study of the Bible correctly? Our foundational truth for today is this. The first point is this, that the Bible is a revealed word. The Bible is a revealed word. What I mean by that is that all of God's words are revelation. All of God's words are revelation.
No, I'm not referring to the last book of the Bible that is often called Revelations. If you ever hear that, it's Revelation. Okay, just keep that in mind. That's something that irks a Bible scholar, is it Revelation? But here's the thing, not just that one book, but all of God's words are Revelation. In other words, if God does not reveal Himself to us, how else will we know Him? If He does not reveal Himself, if He does not tell us who He is,
what he is like, what he desires, then how else will we know these things? It is possible, perhaps, even from natural philosophy, to come to a conclusion that there is a God that exists. But even at that point, all we can really say is, well, there's a strong likelihood that a higher intelligence exists, but we can't say anything else unless we have a revelation, a revealing of God of Himself to us.
which is why we need his words. And so our foundational truth today is that the Bible is God's revealed word to us. Revelation is like God drawing the curtain back. If the curtain is not drawn back, then how will we know him? Whenever you go back to the Old Testament, particularly when you look at the story of Abraham, and Abraham starts to receive God's words to him. God goes to him and he actually, he talks to him. He calls him in Genesis chapter 12.
then at several other major points in his life he comes and he speaks to Abraham. Scholars tell us that in these passages in the Old Testament and the people of Israel during this time whenever they read that saw this as an incredible act of God's grace. Whenever we think of God's grace we think of Christ dying on the cross to atone for our sins, right? And that is the ultimate example of God's grace. But before that atonement,
Whenever they thought of God's grace, what are the signs that He has shown us favor that we do not deserve? They look at Genesis chapter 12, God calling Abraham because he spoke, he revealed himself. If he had not, how else would his people know him? God reveals himself to us in his word. All of his words are revelation. By his word, the Lord created the world and through his creation, he reveals himself. In Psalm 19,
verses one through four says, the heavens declare the glory of God. In the expanse proclaims the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour out speech. Night after night, they communicate knowledge. There's no speech. There are no words. Their voice is not heard. Their message is going out to the whole earth and their words to the end of the world. The psalmist here in that in that first stanza of Psalm 19 describes to us how, in a sense, without words,
The creation still yet declares a message reveals something about God. This is why I said that even without the Bible, we can still look around the creation and understand, OK, God is revealing himself to us through the world, but we cannot describe his character by the general revelation alone. We need a special revelation. And that is the Bible. That's the scriptures. God declaring and revealing more about himself beyond just the creation so we might know him.
Scripture, the Bible, is God's special revelation of Himself. Him telling us through words that were written down so that they might be preserved, so that they might be studied over and over again and passed down through generations, He reveals Himself. He is giving us His words in the Bible, telling us who He is, what He desires, what He has done, and what He will do. That's what we have in the Bible.
Just a few examples of this in the scriptures. In the Old Testament, the phrase, thus says the Lord, or in the Old King James, thus saith the Lord, occurs, depending on the translation, around 400 times. Around 400 times in the Old Testament, we see, thus says the Lord, and then a whole string or whole line of text, whether that be prophecies, whether that be the law, or whether that be some other...
message from God, but around 400 times. So the Old Testament is full of what it claims are the direct words of the Lord. The New Testament affirms that the Old Testament is God's words. Paul said in 2 Timothy 3 verses 16 through 17, he says, all scripture, and what he's referring to here is the Old Testament, all scripture is inspired by God.
and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Whenever Paul says that all scripture is inspired by God, the Greek word that he is using there is theonustos. Literally, that means theo, God, nustos, is breath, the breath of God. That's why some translations say that all scripture is breathed out.
by God. So what Paul is telling us here is that, yes, all of those phrases, the 400 or so times in the Old Testament that says, thus saith the Lord, is the words of God, but yet even everything else in the Old Testament, all of the scripture is the words of God. They are breathed out by the Lord. He is saying all scripture is God's word. It is not just man's thoughts about God. It is God's word.
given through human authors. And we might ask, does this apply to the New Testament as well? The Old Testament claims to have the words of God, the New Testament then affirms that, but what about the New Testament? Is it the words of God or is it just the teachings of man about God? Well, in 2 Peter chapter 3, there's this really interesting passage. In 2 Peter 3 verse 15, Peter writes this, he says, also regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.
just as our dear brother Paul has written to you according to the wisdom given to him. He speaks about these things in all of his letters. Isn't that interesting? Did you ever realize that before that in the New Testament we see recognition and understanding of the other letters that are in there? Isn't that cool? So he says he recognizes and he's reminding them of Paul's letters that were written to them. So he says he speaks about all these things. I love this. He says there are some things that are hard to understand in them.
Have you ever felt like one of the Pauline epistles, Paul's letters, were hard to understand? Peter thought so, too. So take a little consolation in that. OK, if this series, where you go to apply it later, is a little difficult, Peter says, that's OK. I felt the same way. OK, Peter says there are some things that are hard to understand in them. But listen, he says right after that, he says the taught, the untaught and unstable will twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the scriptures.
Here's what's incredible about that. He says, with the rest of the scriptures right after referring to Paul's letters written to them. When he says the rest of the scriptures there in verse 16, he is using a word graphé, graphé for scriptures, meaning writings. Throughout all the New Testament, we see that every time graphé is used, it is used to refer to the Old Testament, which the New Testament affirms is the word of God. But here,
Peter uses that word in reference not only to the Old Testament, but also right with, he is now coupling in and adding with it Paul's letters. Peter is recognizing not only the Old Testament, but Paul's writings and letters as God's Word.
Similarly, in 1 Timothy 5 18, Paul does something similar where he acknowledges the gospel of Luke as scripture. Those are the only two times in the New Testament where we see anything other than the Old Testament being referred to as scripture, and that is the gospels, or at least one of Luke, right, the gospels and Paul's letters. So, the Bible itself testifies that it is the Word of God. Rogers and Mathis, who wrote
the Seven Arrows book, said, the Bible is the word of God revealed by God to display God. It does not merely contain some of God's words, but is in its entirety the word of God. This is the foundational truth that we start with today. The Bible that we have here, the scriptures are God's words to us delivered through human authors. We believe that what the Bible says,
is what God says. Now, if the Bible is God's revealed word, then what does that imply for how we approach the study of God's word? This is important, okay? So, if that's what we believe, then what does it mean for how we approach the study? Whenever we are reading in church, or whether you are reading at home on your own, coming to do your devotional. No, of course it means that if this is God's word, that we approach it with reverence. We do not treat it lightly, but we recognize that we have
his revelation here, right? The curtain being pulled back, God showing himself to us, telling us about himself. So we treat it with reverence. We treat it with submission. What that means is we did not come to God's word above it, but we come in a posture of being beneath it, in a posture of submission, laying down our thoughts to whatever it says. It means that when we read some of the Bible and perhaps we disagree with it,
We have a posture of, well, I'm going to submit until my heart comes to agree. If we don't understand it, it means that we will still submit until we come to understand, because this is God's word. We are His creation. We are His sons and daughters. Therefore, we submit to it as our absolute authority. Right? It means that, but practically, what does it mean? If we believe that this is God's word, what does it mean practically for how we study and apply?
this book to our lives. Have you ever been in a small group or Bible study, a youth group, or you're at summer camp and you're sitting around and everybody opens up their Bibles to maybe one of Paul's letters or some other passage and you read it together and then if there's a leader of the group they say, so what does this passage mean to you? Have you ever been in a Bible study or group like that before, something similar, right? Yeah, okay.
If we believe that this is God's Word to us, that means that we don't approach it that way. We do not open up the God's Word and say, what does this mean to you? No. Okay. You see, what we believe about God's Word has very practical applications and meanings for how we approach it. We do not open it up and say, what does this passage mean to you? Let me illustrate it this way. Let's say that my wife, Layla, leaves me a note saying, I need you to go to the grocery store.
and pick up something for us for dinner. And so I take that note and then I go to the grocery store. I come back home later and I have maybe a tub of ice cream and I have maybe a new set of tools, maybe a cool magazine and all of these items that maybe some of them are food, junk food, definitely not dinner food and other things that certainly are not dinner at all.
And she says to me, what did you do? I told you to pick up something for dinner. And I say, well, I got your note and I read it. And I kind of felt like it was open to interpretation. You know, what it meant to me was I want ice cream for dinner. And so that's what I got. Right. She would obviously be frustrated and say, no, that is not what I meant. She was the author of the note. I do not take the note and say, well, what do I think it means? But instead, I need to ask.
What did she mean? If the Bible is God's note, if the Bible is God's revealed word to us, we do not approach it and say, what does this mean to me? But what did God mean? What did the author, whether it's Paul or Peter, whether it is a passage in the Old Testament, a psalmist, a proverb, what does this text mean? What is this text intending to say? Our first commitment when we approach the Bible, our goal is to discover.
What is the intended message of that passage, of that Psalm or of that story to discover it, not to create it? Whenever we approach the Bible, we approach it much more like archaeologists than architects. Archaeologists dig and search to discover maybe a hidden structure that is beneath the dirt, right? They find palaces or homes or temples that were hidden.
that they then discovered. An architect, on the other hand, creates on a sheet of paper a structure for a home, a palace, a temple, or whatever else. When we read the Bible, we are digging, we are searching to discover something that is there, a message that is there for us. We don't create it. We don't write it ourselves.
Therefore, good Bible study begins with committing to receiving not what I want the text to say, but what it wants to say to me. So, our first arrow, the first question, goal that we have when we study the Bible is this, what does this passage say? Really simple, right? What does this passage say? Because it is God's word to me, I'm not going to come and insert all of my own meanings into it.
I'm not going to twist it to say what I want it to say. Remember that passage you read from Peter? Peter says that's what the untaught do. He says that's what the unstable will do, is they will twist the words of Scripture instead of trying to understand them. Right? So we say, what does it say? So what does this passage say? That is arrow number one when it comes to studying the Bible on your own. It's discovering whether it is an Old Testament passage, a psalm, a proverb, whether it's prophecy, whether it is one of Paul's letters, a gospel.
Whether it is apocalyptic literature such as Revelation, we ask, what does it say? Whenever Paul wrote this down, what was he intending to say? What is the meaning behind this story being reported in the Gospels? This story from Joshua's life, what is the meaning intended by the author, not just what I wanted to say? What point is the author making in a passage or story? How do we do this? How do we answer that question?
What is this passage saying? We do it by developing the skill of observation. Okay? We do it by developing the skill of observation. Now, let me just kind of pause right here, take us, give you guys a side note. Every week, my goal in this series, as I give you a foundational truth, one of the seven arrows, which is gonna be a question to ask for the text, is to then give you a skill to develop.
In this series, I'm not going to give you pills to swallow, but skills to develop. There are no pills to swallow that is going to immediately, overnight, instantly make you an expert Bible reader. Instead, what you need are skills. The only difference between great Bible teachers and scholars and just the average church member is that those those scholars had more time to develop skills. That's it. It's the only difference. There's no magic.
There's no pill to take. That's it. And so that's what I want to do with you guys every week is help you learn these skills and apply them to your life so that all of you can read the Bible as just as well as me or any other pastor or Bible teacher. The skill that we have to learn today is the skill of observation.
The skill of observation means this. Whenever you come to a text of scripture, reading it and picking out just by reading it, not by using a pastor's sermon or a commentary, but just by reading it, starting to pick out what it means because you've learned how to look for the things that the passage will have in it that clue you into its meaning. Here's what I mean by that.
One of the very first steps that I always take whenever I'm preparing a sermon for a Sunday over here at Redeemer, in whatever kind of series we're going through, is I take the text that's coming up for that week, whether it be a gospel or something from the Old Testament, whatever else, I take that text and either I'll have it on my Bible or I can print it out. I usually don't do that. I usually just have it on my Bible and a notepad. And for about 30 minutes, I sit there and I read that passage over and over and over again.
And as I'm reading it, I take notes. Okay? There's no magic to it. If it's a short passage, I'm going to read it a lot of times in 30 minutes. It doesn't take long, right? Even if it's a longer passage, I'll read it maybe three, four times. Every time we have someone over here who's learning how to preach, I tell them to do the same thing. And they always say, you know, at first, I read a passage, I feel like, okay, I kind of get it. I see what it's saying. But then I read it that second time.
Okay, so we're the same thing. I read it that third time, all of a sudden, something jumps out at me that I didn't see before. I didn't notice that the first two times already. And so I just take a note of that. Read it again. Whoa, I didn't see that before. Write it down again. You know what's happening? You're just developing that skill of observation. You're not going to pick up everything just reading it once, casually. You've got to spend time in it. You got to spend time.
And I'm telling you guys, without having to go to seminary, okay? Something that everyone in here can do. You're gonna pick up all kinds of things that you didn't catch on that first reading through. Okay, so what do I mean? Sit down with the passage. You can print it out if you want and make notes on it, or just have like a yellow notebook next to you, or some other kind of note paper, and read through it repeatedly. I'm telling you, the first one, two, maybe even three times, you're gonna feel like,
I got it. There's nothing else to see here. But trust me, stay in it at least 30 minutes. Stay in it. Soak in it. Keep reading it over. Read it slowly. And then as you do so, take notes. If you see something in there that's interesting, for whatever reason, it's an interesting phrase. It's a question that all of a sudden jumps out at you. It's you start. Let's say you're reading a gospel story and after you read it through a few times, you realize, huh?
The way that Jesus responded to that person is kind of odd. I didn't catch it at first, but now that I've kind of really gotten my mind into the story there, I realized that that's an odd way to respond to somebody. Just take note of it. Just write it down. Anything that jumps out at you that interests you. There's no wrong answers at this point, okay? You're just taking notes. You're acting like an archaeologist. You're digging, right? That's all you're doing. So take notes as you read it for anything that jumps out at you that is interesting. As you're taking these notes, here's what you're going to do. You're going to start to look...
for key words. You know, this morning I was reading in John chapter three, and over and over again, Jesus talks about light and darkness for about four verses in John chapter three. And so light and darkness, light and darkness, and along with those love and hate. And so, huh, he says it over and over again. There's probably something there, right? And so you would just write that down. Light and darkness. What is that? What is it? What is he getting at there?
Another thing in John chapter three is him talking about being born again, right? And Nicodemus is really confused by that. And you think to yourself, huh, if I was there in Nicodemus's shoes, that would be really confusing too. There's something there, right? You write that down, you take note of it. And then you take note, oh, Jesus was speaking in metaphor, right? That's what Nicodemus didn't understand. And so, definitely write that down, right? You're looking for keywords. What does Jesus or someone else say over and over again?
You're looking for themes that are repeated, right? Whenever they're talking about light and darkness and being born again, those are themes. You're looking for metaphors. Oh, Jesus wasn't speaking about literally being born again. So, He's trying to teach us a deep truth through those words, right? Through that figure of speech. Look for stories that are being told. If it transitions from just kind of a teaching and then all of a sudden the narrator starts to give you a story, well then say, oh, that's interesting.
these must be connected, right? Because the narrator was talking about, just for example, you know, greed and money, and then all of a sudden there's a story being told now, maybe that story has something to do with greed and money, right? Look for quotes. If all of a sudden the narrator goes from speaking about something in third person to then there's quotes and a person is talking, take note of that. What I'm trying to help you guys understand here is that once again, there's nothing,
magical. There's, there's, you don't have to go to seminary to see these things. This is something that all of us in here can do. Just sit down and read it over and over and you're going to start to, those things are going to start to jump out of the page at you. Write down what you find interesting. Write down what you find confusing. Write down questions that you have that you will then later go take advantage of resources to try to answer those questions, right? But these are the kind of things that we do when we observe.
the text.
Let me say one more thing before we move on to applying this. Whenever you're looking at, whenever you're reading and you're trying to understand what is the meaning of like what Jesus is saying here, what the psalmist is saying in this verse, what is that word signifying, what is this word meaning? To become much better at observation, what you need to do is look at the broader context. There's been so many times throughout...
my time as a pastor or just teaching the Bible, that someone has come to me with a question about something that is said at a different point in the Bible and say, what does this mean? Right? Like, this is really confusing to me. And the first thing I always do is I say, okay, let's look at that passage together. And the first thing we do is we zoom out. Like, the person is really caught up and troubled by this one phrase or this one verse. Okay, that's a good question.
Let's zoom out. What does it say before and after that? And let's see if that answers the question. If it doesn't, let's zoom out a little bit more and see what's the bigger context here and see if that answers our question. Whenever you're observing and you are finding things that are interesting, noteworthy, questions, confusing, the first thing you want to do is zoom out and look at those things in context. There's a phrase that we use in Bible interpretation, context is king.
Context is king. Context determines what a word, phrase, metaphor, or themes mean for you. Think of it this way. The English word yard. What does that mean? What does that word mean? Well, context tells you what yard means. He mowed the yard. Okay, that's one example. On the other hand, the player got a yard on the play.
The receiver got a yard on the play. In those two sentences, yard has two different meanings, right? It's the same word, the two different meanings. One is talking about a lawn, grass being cut. The second one is talking about a unit of measurement in a sport. How do we know what those mean? Context, right? Context determines. It tells you what that word means. It's the same thing in scripture, guys. So often people get caught up and confused on like one verse, one phrase, but all you got to do is zoom out.
Look at the context. What's being talked about here? What's going on in this story? What is Paul talking about in the larger section of this passage beyond just this one verse? And I'm telling you so often, guys, it'll answer your question. Okay? Now, I want to take what we talked about today and apply it to a few verses. Okay? As I'm doing this throughout this series, I'm going to make a commitment to you guys. Whenever we apply this, I am not going to take advantage of any resources that are not also available to you. Okay? So today...
for these three passages, I didn't go look at any commentaries or anything. I just looked at the passages, okay? Just like I'm teaching you to do. So first, let's try to apply our skill of observation to Psalm 1. Psalm 1, I changed this. Okay. All right, Psalm 1. If you have your Bible, you can open it up to Psalm 1. We're going to do this really quickly. We're not going to spend a super long time in any of these, okay? So, Psalm chapter 1.
says this, you can just listen. It says, how happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers. Instead, his delight is in the Lord's instruction and he meditates on it day and night. He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
The wicked are not like this. Instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand up in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. The Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin." Now, if we just come and observe this passage, what are some of the first things that we see? The most obvious thing that we see if we just read it for, you know, just read it once, is that there's a lot of contrast happening here, right?
It talks about the one whose delight is in God's instruction or the righteous man. It spends a lot of time talking about the righteous man and describing him, but then it contrasts him with the wicked. It says the wicked are not like this. Okay, you know, one thing we see a lot of times in Psalms or other passages is a comparison where it says this is like this or a contrast. This is not like this. And through comparison and contrast we learn. So there's contrast happening here between the righteous and
wicked. Even within the description of the righteous person, there's a contrast. It says the things that he does not do in verse one, and then the things that he does in verse two. Instead, ah, that's a key word there. So you see, so if you were writing this down in your notes, you would take note of that. Instead, that's signaling contrast, right? His delight is in the Lord's instruction. Okay, so that gives me a clue here to how, what
What separates the righteous from the wicked? They don't do what the wicked does, but instead they delight in God's Word, right? And that leads to a difference in lifestyle. It means that they will have stability where the wicked do not, right? It says that the righteous is like a tree planted besides flowing streams. In contrast, there's that word instead again, the wicked are like chaff that the wind blows away. Even in the last verse, we can see some contrast happening here. The Lord watches over the righteous.
wicked lead to ruin. Okay? So what does this passage say? Really simply, we could just say Psalm 1 is describing the difference between the righteous and the wicked. Boom. Right? This isn't rocket science. Right? You guys can do this. We can all do this. All right? That's an example from Psalms. Let's look at Matthew 21. In Matthew 21 verses 1 through 11, we read about
Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on the beginning of Holy Week. This is often called the triumphal entry.
So it's talking about him and his disciples here. It says, when they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, Jesus then sent two disciples telling them, go into the village ahead of you, and once you will find a donkey tied there with her foal, untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them and he will send them at once. This took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled.
Tell daughter Zion, see your king is coming to you gentle and mounted on a donkey and on a colt with a full of a donkey. The disciples went and did just as Jesus directed them. They brought their donkey and its full, then they laid their clothes on them and he sat on it. A very large crowd spread their clothes on the road. Others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road. Then the crowds who went ahead of him and those who followed shouted.
Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest heaven. When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in an uproar saying, who is this? The crowds were saying, this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth and Galilee. So just as we begin reading this, what are some of the things we recognize here just by observation? Well, we note that it's telling us a story. So there's narration, there's some quotes, and there's also, so there's quotes from Jesus.
There's quotes from what the people are saying, but this is interesting. It quotes the Old Testament. It's quoting Zechariah here. If you go and look at the cross references that you have in your Bible, it's quoting Zechariah. Wow, that's interesting, right? So there's a lot happening here. The narrator is also cluing us in on the meaning of some of the things that are going on. Note in verse four, the narrator, Matthew, says, this took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled. Huh, okay.
So if you're reading this, you're saying, that's a big deal. That's really cluing me in on what this story means, what is happening here. So, you know, we observe the story in this way. We look at what's going on. Another thing that we can look at is who is driving the action in this story? Are the disciples? Are the crowds? No, Jesus is driving the action. As they approach Jerusalem, Jesus tells them where to go and find a donkey. He gets on it and he chooses to enter the city in that way.
So God's Word is being fulfilled and Jesus is the one doing the fulfilling here, right? Then we look at the crowds and how they are receiving him. It's interesting that they seem to understand what is happening. They're calling out Hosanna. They're recognizing him as the son of David. They're calling him a prophet. This is really interesting. But if we zoom out, we recognize that ultimately they don't get it, right?
because just a few days after this they crucify him. So they don't get it. So what do we say about this passage if you're trying to answer the first arrow, which is what is this passage saying? Well, saying Jesus is the King who enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey in fulfillment of Zacharias prophecy.
He offers himself and the people only partially understand that he is God's promised son of David.
Observation, we can all do that. Let me give you one more that we're going to finish. Colossians chapter one, verses 15 through 20. I wanted to give you guys different types of scripture here to apply this to. So we have a psalm, we have historical narrative, and we have an epistle or a letter. In Colossians one, 15 through 20, Paul wrote, he, speaking of Jesus, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
For everything was created by Him in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him.
and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross." You can see how this is a passage that you definitely want to take 30 minutes to work through, right? Like I said before, at least 30 minutes for this step of observation. There's a lot going on here. So whenever I read this, what's the first thing that I notice? If you're looking at this in a physical Bible, this would be easier to see, but the text goes from being normal paragraphs,
to going into a stanza format for this passage here in verses 15 through 20 into a stanza, something that we would see like in the Psalms or the Proverbs, something that we would see in a song or maybe even in a creed that was written down. So just a little hint of what's to come. You may not know exactly what it means at this point, but that's just one thing that you would observe and write down. The text changes, okay? Easy to see there.
Now, we would also recognize that it's talking a lot about the things that Jesus has done in his creation, right? It talks about what this means for who he is. It talks about him being the head of the body of the church. He is, right? So it goes from talking about what he has done to who he is in verse 18. I'm sorry, verse 17. He is, before all things, he is the head of the body. He is the beginning. Why?
so that, so you'll take note of that, he might come to have first place in everything.
we would read this verse, and like I said, taking more time through it. I know that we're getting close to conclusion here, right? Our attention spans are wearing, so I don't have 30 minutes to spend here, but you can see how these are things that you would start to pick up on after reading and rereading through this passage over a period of time. And then you could just say something simple, like, Jesus is the creator and sustainer of all things, and that makes him Lord over all, right? Even though he is ruler,
He graciously rescued his church and reconciled us to God on the cross. Because in verse 20, it says, through Jesus, God reconciled everything to himself. All of this demands that his creation crowns him as king. Paul said all of this so that he might be first in everything. Right. So we crown him as king. The skill of observation. It is something that every single person in here can do. It's a skill. You got to spend time developing it. You got to take the time.
to sit in Scripture and to read through it over and over again. And over time, you'll see that you start to pick up these things, it'll become easier to you, and you'll see just how true it is, what we read in Hebrews chapter four, that God's Word is living and active. It is effective, because as you sit there and soak in God's Word, it is going to speak to you through the Holy Spirit. Let me end on this before we go to the Lord in prayer.
Make sure you pray while you do it, right? Ask for the Spirit's help to open your eyes, to open your heart and mind to what he has in his word. So as you do this, it's not just an intellectual exercise, but it is truly something you do in communion with the Holy Spirit. So on that note, let us go to the Lord now in prayer that he would help us to understand his word and that we would grow in reading his word. Lord, we come to you and we recognize that you are the creator, the Lord, the sustainer.
the firstborn over all creation, but that you set your glory aside so that you might come down and live as a man, as one of us on this earth. Lord, that in your act of incarnation, of perfect righteous obedience, your atonement on the cross and your resurrection, that this was the greatest act of revelation that has ever been done. So Lord, help us to
discover you through reading the Word, that the Word would come alive to us as we spend time growing in the skill of observation of what there is there for us. Lord, we recognize that you revealed yourself to us in words so that every person might know you. We praise you for this, Lord, and we humbly ask for your help as we endeavor to submit to the authority of your Word, your Scriptures.
helps to do this so we might become men and women who look more and more like Jesus Christ. So we might become better disciples, so we might become better disciple makers, so we might more effectively share the good news of what you have done with others. We pray all these things in your name, amen.