Is the Bible Just Too Difficult to Study?

Tom: This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, and we are in the Book of Acts. Dave, before we get into it, we keep encouraging people, either through the newsletter, or wherever we can, to be involved in a Bible study, to get going. And some people think, “Oh, well, I really can’t do that because I don’t feel that I’m a leader and so on.”

And that disappoints me a little bit that people would even think that way. I’ve been involved with Bible studies with you, and it’s as simple and straightforward as you can get. It’s pretty much what we do here. We’re in a book of the Bible, we start through the Scriptures; we read the Scriptures, and if there’s a rule of any kind, you know, of any kind, it’s “Let Scripture interpret Scripture.”

Dave: Amen.

Tom: So, basically that’s it. You know, as long as you don’t be drawn off to too many experiential things—although people can bring some experiences—but let God’s Word be what you’re going over. And it doesn’t have to have any great insight particularly. You want to lean upon the Holy Spirit to help you understand things and let the Bible, as I said, explain itself. But what more than that?

Dave: Well, to let the Bible explain itself you have to know the Bible. And some Bibles in the marginal notes will give you a reference to other verses that are similar and so forth. But, basically, the Bible is very straightforward. Now, there are some things, Peter said, “…hard to be understood.” There are depths to the Word of God.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: That’s one of the problems with these paraphrases. They’re trying to dumb it down—simplify it; make it so that any fifth grader can understand it. It has a very small vocabulary—it is simply written. But there are tremendous depths to the Bible, too. And we want to get to that.

So, a person that’s new in the Lord, or they are not very knowledgeable about the Bible—they haven’t read the Bible through again and again so that one thing doesn’t remind them of something else, you know? They will struggle. And in those struggles, we learn, because we say, “Lord, I don’t seem to be understanding fully what is being said here. Please help me. But show me from your Word.”

Now, of course, you can always go to a commentary. I probably confess, very few times in public, I don’t use commentaries. And I’m not against a commentary. Whenever I look into a commentary—not always, but many times, I don’t agree with it. So, I’ve come to my own conclusions from the Word of God.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: You come to your own conclusions from the Word of God; we’ll discuss it together and we’ll see if this is what the Word of God teaches. There are serious differences among Christians. I’m about to have a meeting with a group of Christians who, for example, do not believe in the breaking of bread—remembering Christ—as He told us to. They do not believe in baptism as He said, “Go into all the world make disciples and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” and so forth.

There are disagreements among Christians. We will go to the Word of God, and we’ll try to see what the Bible says and discuss it. But the Bible is our authority. Now we must each come to our own conclusion. That’s the problem.

Tom, you were Catholic. You know what the Catholic Church said: “Look at all these divisions among these Protestants because they don’t have an authority.” Well, yeah, but as you could tell us, there are a lot of divisions among Catholics too.

Tom: Absolutely.

Dave: So, in the final analysis, I can’t stand before the Lord one day and He says, “Dave, why did you do this?”

And I say, “Well, Billy Graham said that was the way to go! Or, the pope said that was the way to go.”

That’s not going to fly at the judgment seat of Christ because I have the Word of God in my hands. It ought to be in my heart, and I have a personal obligation to know it for myself, to have a deep conviction about what I believe and that conviction should come from the Word of God itself. There will be differences of opinion, and we must work those out.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: We aren’t necessarily going to agree on everything.

Tom: Right.

Dave: But we are all accountable to the Lord for what we believe.

Tom: Dave, just one last point about a Bible study. You grew up studying the Bible on your knees. You know, you’ve had what? Some 60 years…

Dave: More than that.

Tom: …More than that—60-70 years. But for me, I’ve been a believer maybe a quarter of a century. But initially, I read the Bible and I loved reading the Bible and it was like I had a hunger for it.

Dave: Mm-hmm.

Tom: So my recommendation to any young believer wanting to start a Bible study—keep after reading the Bible!

Dave: Mm-hmm.

Tom: Discipline yourself to do that, and when you come to difficult verses, it’s not like you have to figure out everything the first time you read through it. Go past that—I would use a commentary, but I find now that even when I do use commentaries, there are some things I agree with and some things I don’t, but I find that an encouragement that I would say, “Well, wait a minute. I know the Bible well enough not to necessarily agree with the perspective that this individual takes, but on the other hand, here are some good things that he did say, or that I do agree with.”

Dave: Yeah. The problem with a commentary—and I’m not opposed to commentaries—then it becomes a crutch, and you tend to say, “Oh, well, this is what so-and-so says. Okay, I’ll just accept that,” instead of working it out on your knees in prayer—

Tom: Yeah.

Dave: “Lord, what do you really mean? And, how does this relate to other passages of your Word?” And you know, let’s put it bluntly Tom: I’ve written a few books, you’ve written some books—not every word you write has great thought behind it. Some things, I mean, you’re going to write a commentary on the whole Bible, you don’t have time to pray over every verse and to really come to deep conclusions.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: So some things—the best of commentaries—they’ve kind of filled it in,…and let’s get before the Lord on our knees ourselves.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: And come to our own convictions, okay?

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: But we better get back into Acts here, Tom.

Tom: We’re in Acts:2:41Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
See All...: “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.”

Dave, what could Peter have offered them that three thousand came? Did he offer them an exciting program, or something that would really make them feel good about themselves?

Dave: He didn’t make them feel good about themselves, that’s for sure. He indicted them with crucifying Christ.

Tom: Brought them under conviction—is that what you’re saying?

Dave: Yes, yes, he said, “With wicked hands you have taken and crucified the Lord of glory.” Wow! They were, it says, “Convicted in their hearts….”

Tom: Yeah.

Dave: They realized what they had done was wrong. They realized that God’s judgment was going to come upon them, and they repented of their sins. They turned from this, and they realized that the one whom they had crucified was the Son of God—that He was their Messiah—and, in fact, that they had done exactly what their own Hebrew prophets had foretold they would do.

And then, Tom, verse 42 says, “They continued (that is those who became Christians)….

that’s one of the things I find—we’ve got a lot of people get momentarily excited about becoming a Christian…

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: …so-called. But they don’t continue steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine. Doctrine isn’t boring. Doctrine is our life! This lays out…these are the rules. This is the container of truth. This is what it is! And this is what we’re supposed to believe and follow.

“…They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship [we need to get together with one another!] breaking of bread, [that is communion—remembering Christ and His death, burial and resurrection] and in prayers.”

Tom: Dave, in the first segment we talked about Beyond Seduction and I don’t know if—we didn’t get to it yet, but you make a point there, that there needs to be a change of heart. In other words, these things—you mentioned earlier, doctrine can be boring and reading the Word can be boring. Not if my heart is changed. That’s what being born again is. Wanting the things of God, having a desire for those things, rejecting the things in my life that have to do with sin and so forth. I can’t do that without a heart that’s changed, Dave.

Dave: Mm-hmm, amen. And then you’ll have a passion for God and for His Word—and for biblical Christianity, where we began on this program.