4/26/23

Y’all have cracked me up with the nerd comments! 

Every week I do have to make a decision about what to include in a sermon and what to leave out – I have to ask myself, “Is this for me, the nerd, or is this for the congregation.”  I’ll give you an example from last week’s sermon later in this note. In the meantime, let me clarify what I was doing when I wrote that I would spend hours staring at a passage. 

There’s a difference between reading the Bible and studying the Bible. When I’m reading the Bible, I’m going for the story, the bigger picture. Reading the entire Bible in a year gives us the eagle’s eye view of the Bible and allows us to see the overarching story of God’s love for His creation. 

First, and this sounds obvious, but a Bible study is a study of the Bible. Over the years, I’ve looked at lots of studies that were anything but! 

But if we’re going to study the Bible, we have to slow down and pay attention to what’s on the page. I had a conversation with someone yesterday where they asked me a question about what I consider an unscriptural doctrine.  It’s too detailed to get into . . . but I asked him for the text the doctrine was based on. Then, I  re-read the passage to him and asked the simple question, “Who is Jesus talking to?” My friend’s eyes lit up. He had not really paid attention to what was clearly (to me, anyway) there in the text. 

That’s why Jesus, in Mark 4:24, said, “Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you.” Pay attention. As the preacher, Clarence Edward Flynn, wrote:
 

Who sees a truth must often gaze
Into a fog for many days;
It may seem very sure to him
Nothing is there but mist-clouds dim.
Then, suddenly, his eyes will see
A shape where nothing used to be.
Discoveries are missed each day
By men who turn too soon away. 

Whenever I’m getting ready to teach a passage or when I’m preparing a sermon or just studying on my own, the first thing I do is read and re-read. I cannot get in a hurry.  I read with a pen in my hands and circle key words, underline key phrases, draw boxes around key-concepts, draw vertical lines besides longer sections of text . . . all in order to pay attention to what is there. 

Some might freak out over writing in any book, much less the Bible, but reading a passage with a pen poised over it is the sign of alertness. Mortimer Adler, in his 1940 classic How to Read a Book, said refusing to mark in a book is honoring “the craft of the printer rather than the genius of the author.” 

And that’s the sort of thing Jesus wants us to do: honor the genius of the Author. 

The last two sermons and the one coming up stress the importance of knowing how to read the scriptures. Take for instance our passage from last week, Luke 24:13–35: the walk to Emmaus. The trip from Jerusalem to Emmaus is 7 miles, which would have taken the disciples and Jesus (who their eyes were prevented from recognizing) about 2 ½ hours. During that trip, Luke tells us “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” Can you imagine a 2 ½ hour Bible study with Jesus! 

Why was Jesus doing this? Why weren’t they able to see this was the risen Jesus talking to them? 

Because Jesus wanted their faith to rest on the Word of God. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus wanted his fellow travelers to see how all the scriptures were  preparing the way for who Jesus the Messiah is and for what he would accomplish. And in that way, he opened up their minds to understand the scriptures, and in understanding the scriptures, they understood who he was.

Now, there’s another level to the story of the walk to Emmaus. In fact, the story of the walk to Emmaus is an example of what Jesus is teaching these disciples. Remember what Luke said, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” In his interaction with these 2 disciples, Jesus is teaching us how to read the Old Testament.

So this week, I’d like to invite you to take a close look at both Luke 24:13-39 and also Genesis 3:1-11. Take some time to stare at the text for a while and see what you discover! Embrace your inner Bible nerd! Look for anything these two texts might have in common.

Feel free to email me what you find, or we can discuss it Sunday. I’ll write about what I’ve found in next week’s Pastor’s Note.

Blessings!
Pastor Terry