Multiply Week 7: Why Study The Bible?
As we have said, an important part of making disciples is teaching people to obey everything Jesus commanded (Matt. 28:20). This means that we need to know Jesus’s teaching and commands. It may seem that the first disciples had an advantage on us here. How can we teach people to follow Jesus if we haven’t observed His ministry and listened to His teaching? But we are not at a disadvantage at all because God has recorded His words and the testimony of Jesus’s followers in a book—the Bible. For a Christian, nothing should seem more natural than reading the Bible. Peter, one of Jesus’s first disciples, compared it to a baby’s natural craving for milk: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Pet. 2:2–3).
As a newborn depends on milk to survive and to grow, we should equally depend on the words of Scripture for our spiritual survival and growth. The words of the Bible have impacted millions of lives over thousands of years, and God wants it to change our lives as well. If you don’t already love the Bible, pray that you would.
No matter what your experience with the Bible has been, it’s helpful for all of us to step back and think about what the Bible actually is. When we talk about the Bible, we sometimes use profound language without considering what we’re really saying. Perhaps the strongest thing we can say about the Bible is that it is the “Word of God.” But have you ever thought about what that means? That concept should blow our minds. When we talk about the Bible, we’re actually talking about something that the all-powerful, all-knowing, transcendent God decided to write to us! What could be more important?
Think of how you would respond to hearing a voice from heaven speaking directly to you. We should approach the Bible with the same reverence.
If we really believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then it should be much more than a book that we are familiar with. It ought to shape every aspect of our existence. It should guide the decisions we make in life. If God is the designer and creator of this world, if He made us and placed us on this earth, and if He has taken the time to tell us who He is, who we are, and how this world operates, then what could be more important to us than the Bible?
But even after we decide that the Bible is important, we still need to learn to approach it in the right way and with the right motives. Many Christians misuse the Bible because they never ask themselves why they are studying it in the first place. The purpose of this session is to help you think through the nature of the Bible, why it is important to study, and how it should transform our lives.