TRAINING FOR BIBLE STUDY

"Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you" (Heb 5.12).

I talked with some fellow believers the other day about Bible study habits. They said that we ought to taper down our study or change it altogether since no one is actually completing it before they arrive to Bible study (in essence, our Bible study was just a Bible discussion). I said that's like blaming the car for not running when it's out of gas. The problem isn't the tools we use to study the Bible but rather the habits of those who do not study the Bible.

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2Cor 5.17). Of course we've all heard that people are creatures of habit. That is, we have our schedules and we like to keep them: bedtime, exercise, television shows, nightly rituals, etc. Those who claim to know Christ and yet still live as if they did not, are probably not actually "new creatures," if the idiom of "creatures of habit" is true. Therefore, if we want to train disciples, we must begin with their habits.

The problem is that people become accustomed to trends. If you always eat before fellowship, they expect food. If you always sing, they expect music. If you never expect then to study the Bible then they won't study the Bible. If given the choice between eating candy or vegetables, I will always choose the sweeter, easier of the two. If given the choice between ingesting spiritual milk or solid food, which do you think most Christians will imbibe?

"Solid food is for the mature who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil" (Heb 5.14). The old saying is true: you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. In which case you either need a new horse or you just wait until he gets thirsty enough to drink.

 

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