The Bible Was Not Written To Give You a Word For Today, Every day

The Bible is an incredible book and can be a very beautiful. The Psalms, the Prophecies of Isaiah, the Parables of Jesus, the last few chapters of Revelation and many other parts of the Bible are beautiful and striking in their imagery, power for the imagination, and just beautiful in what they say to us. But let’s face it the Bible can also at times be very difficult.

One modern attitude to the Bible increases this difficulty in an unnecessary way. Many, if not most, western believers have been taught to read the Bible in such a way as to just get their practical word for today, every day, rather than to read it for what it is. Sure, I believe God wants to speak to all of us, that is why he has given us his Word, and yes, most of the Bible is practical and speaks to everyday living, but not all of it. In fact, much of the Bible, at first glance, will cause many people to think something like this: ‘How does this relate to my life?’ Or, ‘This is quite useless for helping me deal with what I am facing today, thanks for nothing.’ This sort of thing comes about because many Christians have been taught wrongly how to handle and read God’s word. I think two things have contributed to this appalling way of handling God’s word: 1) An over use of devotionals, and 2) Churches which place too much weight on the practice of topical preaching.

Firstly, devotionals. Many of you who read this will hate me for saying this, but the truth is devotionals are just spiritual junk food. They are a quick Bible fix, for those who are too lazy (or say they are too busy), or don’t care enough to really dig into God’s word; hence spiritual junk food. We often turn to junk food because it’s convenient or we couldn’t be bothered cooking a real meal, or it just tastes so good that we can’t resist its siren call. Devotionals are exactly this but with God’s word. They are easy to read, often being only a few sentences or a couple of paragraphs, they are often very inspirational, but here is the catch: if over relied upon, they will corrupt your spiritual health in the same way that too much junk food corrupts your physical health.

Those of you who read devotionals more than you read your Bible, let me ask you this: when you do pick up your Bible and read it, instead of your devotional, do you find it hard to be inspired by your daily readings of God’s word? Do you find that you struggle to see how much of God’s word speaks to your everyday life? If so, you are probably suffering from an overdose of spiritual junk food. The Bible, in one way, is just like a food, sometimes you need to put in a bit of effort before you can prepare a nourishing meal, in the case of food for your body, in the case of God’s word, for your soul. We have more Bible study resources at our fingertips than ever before in the history of the world, and yet still I know many Christians who do not take the time and effort needed to understand their Bible’s better. Sometimes, it takes a little bit of effort to apply a passage to your life, and sometimes it takes a bit of background knowledge of the Bible.  

Secondly, topical sermons. Let me just say, I am not against topical sermons in and of themselves. I have preached them, and I have heard some brilliant topical sermons from other preachers, so as a method it is not wrong to preach topically, but as a practice it is dangerous. If you attend or have attended a church where they only ever preach through the Bible topically you may have observed a few things. 1) Seemingly every passage in the Bible which is preached on just jumps out as a teaching with instant practical application to one of the problems, or challenges, or even hopes, you are facing in life, or will face. This may be helpful in the short term, but it skews our view of the Bible in the long term. 2) You will notice if you attend these churches long enough that they cycle through a certain amount of topics, and suddenly you have this picture that the Bible is a guide book for how to do marriage, run a business, perform at work, enjoy sex, succeed at sport, handle finances, have a purposeful life etc., etc.. Sure the Bible speaks to all of these things, and is helpful in so many ways, but the Bible is more than just a handbook for life to go to for a little inspiration and propping up. In reality the Bible is about Christ, and how we live in him.  

It’s likely because of this over-saturation of shallow devotionals and shallow teaching in our Christian culture, and as a preacher feeling the pressure to fit into that stream, that I came to my passage for Sunday nights sermon, and immediately thought, ‘How am I going to make this one practical to everyday living?’ Here’s the passage:

10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. (1 Peter 1:10-12).

You can summarize this passage in one sentence: The prophets of old sought to understand when and how the things they said about salvation would come about, as did angels, however, they were serving not themselves but Christians. ‘Ok’, you may think, ‘that is great to know, but how does this help me with my struggling business in this difficult climate?’, ‘How does that make me a better husband?’ ‘How does it help me deal with bullies at my school?’ ‘How does this practically relate to my everyday walk?’ See what’s happened? The average devotional imbibing, topical sermon listening, Christian will come to this passage and immediately want to move on, because it does not say much about their life in today’s world. It is speaking about something from the past, which may be great, but it is not that practical. Now, if you read the verses before and after this passage you will see that they are full of useful practical gospel teaching, but what are we to do with the three verses quoted above?

As a preacher, and especially as a youth pastor, I am always concerned that people get practical biblical advice on how to live the Christian life, so it is tempting to try and turn this passage inside out looking for that little bit of insight to 21^st century living. I understand why many preachers avoid preaching through books of the Bible, I really do get it; sometimes it can be hard. The truth is that many Christians do not have a deep love for God’s word and what it says, because they have been fed a deficient diet, with teaching whittled down to a few snack meals, instead of real solid life-giving teaching. Really getting into the Bible tests us, all of us, preachers and listeners alike, and sometimes it is not easy, but it is always worth it. I don’t want to leave you here though, let’s go a little further and seek a biblical application for our passage.

We all know that there are many passages in the Old Testament that speak about the coming of Christ and the salvation which is found in him, which is the topic of our passage. So this could prove a fruitful avenue to go down in seeking to apply this passage to us today. We could go in many different directions to explore some of the passages these ancient prophets ‘searched intently and with the greatest care’, I have chosen to go in the direction of the Servant Songs of Isaiah. There are four servant songs, let me quote just one of them for you, from Isaiah 50:4-9,

⁴ The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue,
    to know the word that sustains the weary.
He wakens me morning by morning,
    wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.
⁵ The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears;
    I have not been rebellious,
    I have not turned away.
⁶ I offered my back to those who beat me,
    my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face
    from mocking and spitting.
⁷ Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,
    I will not be disgraced.
Therefore have I set my face like flint,
    and I know I will not be put to shame.
⁸ He who vindicates me is near.
    Who then will bring charges against me?
    Let us face each other!
Who is my accuser?
    Let him confront me!
⁹ It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me.
    Who will condemn me?
They will all wear out like a garment;
    the moths will eat them up.

This incredible passage in Isaiah predicts that God’s servant, whom we know is Jesus will be perfect, ‘I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away’, it predicts his harsh beating, his being mocked and that he will be spat on (cf. Mark 14:64-65). What’s incredible is this passages was written over 800 years before it happened (even if you go with the later date of the second half of Isaiah, as some do, it was still written several hundred years beforehand). Wow, isn’t God’s word awesome! No wonder these prophets searched it intently to see when salvation would come. Also, look how accurate it is, God did vindicate his servant, Jesus rose and is no longer in the grave, but all his opponents have worn out, they are dead, but he is risen, and the amazing thing is that the Bible is full of these accurate predictions of Christ, and other things. This is exciting, this means that we can fully trust God’s word, and isn’t that a powerful teaching for all of us who live in the world which is hostile to God?

So, this passage does speak powerfully for us today, all it took was a bit of work, and a bit of back ground knowledge of the Bible, and after digging around we can now see how even this passage applies to us: We are the ones whom the prophets spoke about, when they said stuff like, “The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary.” Are you weary, are you tired? Well because God fulfilled his prophecy to bring salvation through Jesus, you can know that he will keep his promise to bring you rest, even if it is not till heaven, but this is still a sure and perfect promise. The fact that the prophecies of old were fulfilled shows us that like these ancient prophets we can search God’s word intently and read about what is to come and know that it will happen, even if we don’t know when, or exactly how, we still know we can trust God’s word, because it was inspired by God. That’s awesome, and boy was it worth the extra effort.