Think You’ve Studied the Bible? Think Again.

Recently, I was at a conference where a pastor talked about an encounter that he had with a new couple that was about to join their church.

The couple said, “We recently studied the book of James,” to which the pastor replied, “That’s GREAT! Our church could really use your help in leading the church in caring for the orphans and the widows.”

Taken by surprise, the couple replied, “Why do you say that? What do you mean?” The pastor replied, “Well, if you’ve studied the book of James then you must have learned and put into practice some means and methods of caring for the orphans and widows in our city and you could teach our congregation from what you have learned.”

The couple responded with, “Well, we haven’t really done those sorts of things. We’ve just read through the passage and talked about what it meant.”

Does this sound like the vast majority of your own experience with “Bible study?” The problem is, in our study of the Bible, whether personal or corporate, the goal is often to simply understand what the Bible is saying. If you were to read an instruction manual and simply stop once you felt like you understood what it was saying, then the object you intended to build would never get built. We treat Bible study this way, and the result is that we become merely hearers and not doers of the word.

James 1:22 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Again in John 14:15, Jesus says “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

My prayer for you and for me is that we will submit to God and be strengthened by the Holy Spirit to become doers and not just hearers of the Word. I pray that we will approach our Bible studies in a whole new light, with a special emphasis on obeying what we read. I pray that we will be motivated by a compelling understanding of the truths and promises of the gospel.