Sometimes I wish Jesus had said more. Those red lettered words in the Bible really don’t seem to take up that much space. But I suppose that God figured it was enough, and in combination with it being a Living word and the help of the Holy Spirit it really is enough. (But I still often wish there was more 🤔)
This week a friend asked me how I knew who to listen to or who to read in terms of Bible teaching…
One of the first things I look for is when a teacher urges you to read the Bible for yourself…. To search it and see for ourselves if what they’re teaching is consistent . Too many for too long have used that book for their own ends and purposes, veiling, shrouding, confusing and misusing it so when someone says to check what they’re saying out, that speaks of integrity to me.
Another biggie is that in order to recognise falsehood one needs to be familiar with the actual. Builders might use a plumb line or a spirit level – and the Bible is that to us – it is the plumb line by which to measure. But to measure we need to know it in order to know what is consistent or inconsistent with it. Anyone can lead anyone somewhere wonky by a series of seemingly logical steps when the plumb line isn’t being utilised. (Yes that’s a mixed metaphor. Ah well)
No I don’t mean we have to memorise the whole thing… But when getting to know the character of a person, including or. even especially Jesus, we can get to see what’s inconsistent with their character.
So, I said to this friend, that if all they did was pick either Matthew, Mark, Luke or John and just read that whole book once a week for a month, they’d get to let the words of Jesus, as spoken in their settings sink in and by doing that, when someone takes a snippet of what He said and teaches on it, they’d know if it was being treated with integrity (and understanding) as they’d have the working plumb line.
None of those books is very long. If you’re a quick reader it might be a hour.. And if not then spreading it over a week is not much time each day. And so what if is was? We give more time to lesser things each day.
What’s your pick?