The Bible is the book that is owned by more people in America than any other single book. But what do Bible owners really know about the Bible?
- 82% say the idea that “God helps those who help themselves” is taken directly from the pages of the Bible.
- 66% say there is no absolute truth.
- 63% cannot name the four gospels.
- 58% cannot name half or more of the Ten Commandments.
- 58% do not know Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount.
- 52% do not know the book of Jonah is in the Bible.
- 48% do not know the book of Thomas is not in the Bible.
- 39% do not know Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
- 30% do not know there were twelve apostles.1
It reminds me of a Sunday School teacher who was talking to a class of young boys. She said, “Who went into the lion’s den and came out unhurt?” One little boy blurted out Tarzan!”
Far too many people, including Christians, have the Bible in their homes , but not in their hearts. That is a tragedy. The psalmist tells us in this tremendous chapter in v.162, “I rejoice at Your word as one who finds great treasure.” He called God’s word a treasure chest filled with jewels of joy for the one who will mine its riches.
As you know, Psalms is a Hebrew hymnbook. It is a book of songs. Psalm 119 is the longest song of all. The Bible is a book filled with chapters. Psalm 119 is by far the longest chapter in the Bible with 176 verses, and the entire chapter is about one thing—the word of God.
I want you to see in just a portion of this tremendous chapter, three key reasons that will answer the question as to why we should study the Bible.
I. We Need The Bible To Guide Us
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (v.105) Now we are told that the book that is a lamp and a light is “Your word.” He is talking about God’s word. I have told you before that men wrote this Bible, but God authored the Bible. 2 Peter 1:21 tells us, “for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”
I am holding in my hand not only a book of miracles, but a miracle book. Did you know that the Bible’s name actually means “Book of books?” It is not only one book; it is 66 books in one, 66 love letters from God to you and to me. Now the diversity is amazing. These 66 books were written by 40 different authors; living on several different continents; in the nations of Palestine, Babylon, Greece, Rome, Asia Minor, and perhaps Arabia. They wrote in three different languages: Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. They were separated in time by 16 centuries, and yet the Bible tells the same story from beginning to end.
Think about it. The Bible begins in a garden—in paradise. There we find the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Bible ends in the book of Revelation—again in the paradise of God where there is also the tree of life. In Genesis, man is driven out because of his sin and forbidden to eat of the tree. At the end he is invited to come in and eat of the tree that he might live forever.
We begin in Genesis in a garden where there was a river. We end in a paradise in Revelation where there is a river that flows from the throne of God. You find that from beginning to end this book is all about the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are told here that God’s word is both a lamp and a light. It is a lamp that shows us the next step that we are to take; it is a light that shows us the direction that we are to go in. He is referring to how we should live our lives. God’s word is a lamp and a light that shows you where you should go, and also shows you where you had better not go.
Now a lamp, in order to be effective, must be turned on, and a light, in order to be effective, must be tuned in. You have a choice. You can either go through life stumbling in the dark, or stepping by the light. The beautiful thing about the Bible is this: It is a light that never goes out, and it is a lamp that can never be extinguished.
I was reading a recent article that was entitled, “178 Seconds to Live,” which chronicles the results of 20 pilots in a simulator. Each of the pilots were skilled aviators, but had not taken instrument training. As long as the weather was good they were all experts in flight. In this study these pilots were placed in a simulator, and asked to keep their plane under control as they flew through simulated clouds and bad weather.
All 20 of the pilots lost control of their planes and crashed in an average time span of just 178 seconds; 20 pilots who were very capable at keeping a plane aloft in good weather, could not survive three minutes in bad weather. Even though they were season pilots that had exceptional intuition and great reflexes, and a lot of experience, when rough weather hit they lost control and they crashed.
You know most of us can handle life when the conditions are good, but when it gets dark and the clouds and the rain and the thunder and the lightning roll in, we need more than just what we feel in our gut, and more than just what we know in our mind. We need the light of the word of God to guide us.
But let me say this as well. As God teaches you in the way you should go, as He guides you in the light, we are in turn to guide others to the light. As you study this book and get guidance from God, and revelation from His heart, you need to share what you know with others. You need to find someone to teach. I believe every Christian ought to be not only studying the Bible, but sharing the Bible. All you have to do to teach somebody else is know more than they do.
One man was talking to his next door neighbor and he said, “John, how do you teach your dog so many tricks? I can’t teach mine.” John said, “Well, first you’ve got to know more than the dog.” As you study this Book you will find that you know so much more than those who do not, and you need to be sharing that truth.
II. We Read The Bible To Grow Us
Peter said in 1 Pet. 2:2, “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” As you know, if a child fails to eat it will stunt his growth, it will cause him to lose strength, it will cause him to become susceptible to disease and even death. Just as babies need physical milk to grow and mature, we need spiritual milk to grow and mature. Just as a baby goes from milk to meat, so should we or else we will remain babies. That’s why Paul said to the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 3:2, “I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able.”
One of the purposes of reading the Bible is to help us to grow. As a matter of fact, you cannot grow as a Christian if you do not read your Bible. The psalmist tells us in v.99 that reading the Bible gives more wisdom and insight than education. “I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation.” Many years ago a professor Phelps of Yale University said, “He who knows the Bible may be called well educated, and he who is not acquainted with the Bible is an ignorant man regardless of what knowledge he may possess.”
Furthermore, we are told in v.100 that the Bible gives more insight than experience. “I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts." Have you ever heard the old saying, “Experience is the best teacher?” Well, that really isn’t true. The word of God is the best teacher. The psalmist here says that someone who knows the word of God may be young, and yet know far more than a senior adult who does not know the word of God. There are teenagers in this church that are more spiritually mature, and more in tune with God, than some of us adults.
Did you know that there is a vast difference between age and maturity? Age is a quantity of years, but maturity is a quality of spiritual growth. Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote about people who “go from one childhood to another.” We have those kind of people in church today. They don’t know the difference between being childlike and childish. I’ve known people in my ministry who just grew old, but they never grew up.
The Bible was not written just for information; it was written for our transformation. Here’s how that happens: When the child of God reads the word of God, and sees the Son of God, he is transformed by the Spirit of God into the image of God, for the glory of God.
One of my favorite Bible teachers is Warren Wiersbe. Warren Wiersbe once made this statement that we all need to remember:
The purpose of Bible study is not to brag, argue, or debate about what we know, or to split Sunday School classes or churches. The purpose of Bible study is to live righteous godly lives.2
It is a tragedy to hold such a transforming book in our hands, but never take its power into our hearts.
I was reading recently an article that stated that illegible handwriting costs businesses $200 million a year. Poor handwriting accounts for Kodak being stuck with nearly 400,000 un-returnable rolls of developed film every year. Poor handwriting results in the US Postal Service annually sending 38 million pieces of mail to its dead letter office at a cost of $4 million. It was also recorded that “secretaries say they spend more time trying to figure out what the boss intended for them to do than doing the chore itself.” It’s incredible how much trouble careless writing skills can produce.
Well, God understood man’s tendency to get lazy with his letters, so he wrote His own. In these 66 books combined into one book we call the Bible, we have God’s plain, legible, understandable message to the human race. You don’t need a professional to decipher it; even a five-year-old can understand it. See, the question is not whether or not God’s word is readable. The question is whether or not God’s word is read.3
I want you to think about this: An unread Bible is as useless as an un-cranked car; as meaningless as an unloaded gun; and as worthless as undiscovered treasure.
I heard about a man that owned a vineyard and his sons believed their father to be a very wealthy man. But since he was so secretive about it, they couldn’t be sure. But they were hoping they would inherit his fortune when he died. Well, on his deathbed he told his sons that the secret of his wealth was to be found in that vineyard. After he died the boys went out to that vineyard immediately and began to dig, hoping to find the treasure they believed to be hidden under the vines. They toiled for months being careful not to damage the vines. They dug over every inch of that vineyard. They pulled up every weed. They cleaned off all of the grass, but they discovered nothing.
But that Fall that vineyard produced the finest crop of grapes in the history of that family. Then they realized what that wise old father had done. He had forced them to stop loping around and waiting for money to come, and instead tricked them into cultivating the vineyard. The secret of his wealth was the vines, which properly cared for, would make them very rich. We, too, have a vineyard that will produce unbelievable spiritual wealth to us, but we have to work at it. We have to dig through it. We have to get into it.
Many of us are in the first grade of spiritual growth, and we need to go on to high school. Some of us are in high school, but we need to go on to college. Some of us are in college, and we need to go on to graduate school. Some of us are in graduate school, and we need to start teaching others. That’s why we need to read the Bible in order to grow us.
III. We Heed The Bible To Guard Us
“The wicked have laid a snare for me, yet I have not strayed from Your precepts.” (v.110) The psalmist here tells us that if we will obey this Book, we will not fall into the snares that the wicked have laid out for us. I wrote a letter recently to the Fox Network protesting their televising this inane show called “Temptation Island.” If you ever heard about it, it’s an island where they have sent several committed couples to see if they can break up their relationship by tempting them with good looking men and beautiful women who are awaiting for them on that island. I got a call from the media who wanted to interview me about this letter.
When the reporter asked me why I wrote it, I said, “Well, first of all, it’s plain stupid to pick out one island and call it ‘Temptation Island.’” She said, “Why?” I said, “Because the whole world is ‘temptation island.’” You don’t have to go to Temptation Island to be tempted.
This world is full of traps for the righteous. Satan has landmines of sin laid out everywhere. That is why we must not only see the light from the word of God, we must follow the light.
There are two tremendous verses in this chapter at the very beginning. Verse 9 tells us, “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.” V. 11 also says, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” I am working more and more in becoming computer literate, and I have come a long way from where I was when I started several years ago. But one of the things I have learned about a computer is it only has so much memory. Once the hard drive on a computer is full, it won’t take anymore data. You either have to basically live with what you’ve got, or transfer some old files off the hard drive onto floppy discs to make more room, because when the hard drive is full it will accept no more files.
Likewise, when our “hard drive” is full of the word of God, the devil can find no place for him to store his wicked files. There will be no room because there is not enough memory!
Someone well said, “Read the Bible to be safe; believe it to be wise; practice it to be holy.” The psalmist goes on to say, “Direct my steps by Your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me.” (v.133) If you will allow God’s word to direct your steps, no iniquity will have dominion over you, for you will never be in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person doing the wrong thing.
So let me share with you not only why you should study the Bible, but how you should study it. First of all, you should study the Bible continuously. That is, read all of it. Read not just the New Testament, but read also the Old Testament. Because “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17)
Then study the Bible consistently. That is, study it daily. You remember this: Either the Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.
Then study the Bible confidently. The psalmist says in v.18, “Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.” You ought to read this Bible believing that God will speak to you and show you truth and guide you in the right way.
Finally, you should study the Bible conformingly. That is, you have got to obey what you learn and put it into practice.
I am building a new home, and I have been fascinated to see that home from the very moment that we broke ground. I was out there very early and I was looking at where my home would sit. After the ground had been properly prepared, I went out there one day and there was some wooden planks that had been put up to build a form.
Now that form was the exact size and shape of my house. Now it wasn’t a house, it was just a bunch of planks forming the outline of my house. But when that form was finished and in place, the next day when I went out there a cement mixer truck had come out there, backed up to that form and delivered that cement to the form that was set. Do you know what that cement did? It obeyed the form. It allowed the form to direct its flow and design its shape, and the movement of the cement was confined to the boundaries of that form, and when it hardened it looked just like the foundation of my home, which is exactly what the form intended for it to do.
God has a form of truth for us. It’s called the Bible—His Word. If we will pour a soft heart and a surrendered life into that form, God will see to it that that form, that that heart and that life takes the shape of His word, His truth, and see to it that we become just like Him.
Now let me say one last thing. There is one difference between the Bible and every other book that has ever been written. This is it: In order to understand the Bible, you must know the author. Now that is not true of any other book. You can understand any other book you read without knowing the author, but you cannot understand this Book if you do not know the author.
The thing that you must do with this Book is you’ve got to get from the page to the person of whom the pages are all about. Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 5:39-40, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” When you come to know the Lord Jesus Christ through the pages of this Book, it is incredible what will happen to you.
A great Bible teacher recently received a letter from a woman who wrote this:
I am a 27 year old female. When I was 14 I began to experience depression frequently. I was not a Christian, nor was I raised by Christian parents….my depression continued as I grew older, and as a result became worse as time passed. I became a chronic suicide case….
When I was 20 I went to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me as a manic depressive. He put me on lithium and told me I would be this way for the rest of my life. The drug therapy kept me from going into a severe suicidal depression. However, the deep feelings of depression and despair were still a reality.
I finally came so low that there was nowhere to turn but to the Lord. I heard the Christian life was supposed to be the only way to live, but God was not real to me. I decided I was going to seek God with my whole heart. Then if I found this to be nothing but an empty endeavor, I was going to give up living.
I fed upon tapes of your Bible teaching. The Lord began His work in me through His Word…the Holy Spirit showed me just exactly what my problem was and what I needed to do about it.
My problem was sin—a heart that would not forgive, and it was making me bitter….I turned to the Lord and asked Him to help me forgive; I continued in the Word diligently and the transformation process took place. The Lord delivered me from this depressive illness.
The memorizing of Scripture is renewing my mind. This is the only key for anyone suffering emotional problems because it is the living word of God. It is the supernatural power to transform anyone’s life and mind….no doctor, no drugs can do what the Bible has done for me in changing my life.
Then she added a P.S:
By the way, I have been off all medication for three years—Obedience is the key!4
Dear friend, that’s why we ought to study the Bible. It will change you from the inside out; it will change you from the outside in and help you be all that God wants you to be.
1 Barna Research Group, Ltd., 1992.
2 Learning Takes a Lifetime, Moody Monthly, September 1989, p. 29.
3 In Other Words, Summer, 1996, pp. 4-5.
4 John MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, pp. 98-99.