How to Study the Bible. Why are we doing this?

You have on the inside of the binder there, and I noticed several of you have it laid out already, there's this chart that's got some pictures in it. And go ahead and grab that, take a look at it, get in front of you, because we're going to want to keep this, at least the concepts in this chart, in our minds as we go through the study.

And so this chart also has the subtitle, Understanding God's Intended Message. And what we have there is from God's deliberate revelation to objective observation, logical interpretation, and biblically profitable application. So that's putting it in one sentence, what this Understanding God's Intended Message means. And what we've done to get that across is we've got five steps that we have kind of in columns with these arrows between. And it goes like this, God's message through scripture, the Holy Spirit inspired it, inspired scripture, preserved it, guided in the recognition of it as Scripture. And that's something in other electives we've had, we've spent more time going over how that took place. We won't go through the detail of that. But let's talk about it briefly. When we say inspired it, what does that mean?

The Holy Spirit inspired Scripture. What's that talking about? God breathed, right, from 2 Timothy 2, 16 and 17. God breathed. God is the one who expressed these things that we have preserved for us in His Word. Preserved it. Now that's something else that's kind of interesting. The Holy Spirit preserved Scripture.

What do we mean by that? When was Scripture written? A long time ago, the books of Moses about 3,400 years ago, the first five books, and then the very last book of the Bible, the last book of the Old Testament, Revelation, about 1,900 years ago, 19 centuries ago. And so over that span of about 14 centuries, over that span having about 40 authors, In quick summary, 40 authors of the Bible.

We have that period of time. For a goodly portion of that time, especially during the time immediately after the New Testament time, having a copy of the Bible was illegal. As a matter of fact, death penalty. There have been various times throughout scripture when efforts to eradicate Eradicate the Bible. Make sure you get a binder back there. At least one. Efforts to eradicate scripture have been intense. And yet, let's say just of the New Testament itself, we have well over 5,000 documents. And that's without going outside of the Greek. If we include the other documents outside of Greek, we're talking even more. Yes, that's another one.

It is still, year after year, the best-selling book of all time. Not just in total, but each year. Yeah, really kind of amazing. Yes, you're quite correct. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, it's just like they don't even bother because it's not the New York Times bestseller list, and I think part of it's because it would kind of make things boring for them, I suppose. But you're right. It is a bestseller. It has been preserved in spite of being illegal to have copies of it over numerous centuries of time.

That was true during, for example, the Assyrians and the Babylonians came in. They did what they could to eradicate copies of it. When the Romans came in and destroyed things in Jerusalem, they went through and did what eradication they could. There were 10 waves of Roman persecution, and during the latter part of that, empire-wide eradication of Scripture.

And if you were caught with a copy of it, death penalty. So in spite of that, we have these thousands of copies. Thousands of copies. Amazing. The Holy Spirit was active in preserving it and guiding in the recognition of it in Scripture. This is Scripture that's not. Let me tell you one thing that's going to really force the issue of what's Scripture and what's not. If it's death penalty for you to have Scripture, is it going to make you think hard about what's Scripture and what's not? Is it going to make you think hard about what am I willing to die for? Yeah, it is, most certainly.

The next thing, so we have as a result of that, we have scripture of Hebrew substantially in the Old Testament, Greek in the New, and we have with that the exact message precisely as God intended for us to receive it. This is marvelous stuff. So with that, that brings us to the place of what we're here to take a look at in the weeks ahead. And that is these next three steps. We have objective observation.

That is, we're looking at something in scripture involving language, history, and culture. And what's the importance of it being objective? Why do I make that point? Why is it valuable that it's objective observation of language, history, and culture? It could be biased or something. It could be cult related. It could be various reasons that it might be sort of distorted. Yeah, ulterior motives. Yeah.

If, for example, I say, well, this word means this in this context, it isn't a matter of my just saying, well, I say so, and you better believe it because I say so, right? One of the things that I say here at Holly Hills about twice a year, and I've been told long ago that I've used up my quota this year, is I say, check me on everything here. Don't believe a thing I say.

Check it all out. Why? Because it's objective. What's been revealed to us is objective. If I say, well, this word means this, you can go check it out. Check me on it. So that's what we mean by objective. is it's something somewhat parallel to science. In science, if I say water freezes at 32 degrees, you could check that out yourself, right? Similar with this. We can look at it and check on it, and if you say, well, boy, Vern, I don't think so, you could check it out for yourself. It isn't something that one particular person has got control of or gets to call the shots, okay?

The next part here, logical single interpretation. singular interpretation, and it's a key point we'll get to again here, and that is God had one intended meaning for each passage of scripture. There's no doubt that you can find several, maybe even half a dozen, or I don't know, maybe even more for some passages of scripture. But why would we say something as radical as God intended one singular meaning for a passage of Scripture? Why would we say something like that?

Yeah, that's a very good point. God isn't in the business of playing tricks. Yeah, good point, Tom. God is not in the business of saying, you know, hey, do you think it's this? Gotcha! No, I had something else in mind. This is an intended message, not a trick. Good point. Not a trick. God is wanting to convey a singular message. Yes? Yes.

Well, here's the thing that's an interesting contrast and a lot of people, if I say singular interpretation, their thermometer goes through the roof. And you put your finger on a key point. Singular meaning, a singular interpretation, a singular understanding is what God intended. And that's why we have this kind of subtitle that we have prominently, Understanding God's Intended. And you notice message is singular. Singular message.

But application might be plural in great degree. There may be a great many applications for it. Yes? That's right. It's to be received by each individual and there will be many applications and at that point there may be variation from one believer to another at the area of application. Let's just take something simple. If I take the statement from the New Testament, love one another. Well, that's real simple, isn't it? How many applications are there of that? All kinds.

And it has application that's different in our homes. It has application that's different in a relationship with different people. And this is what gets to Marilyn's point. We may learn different depths and aspects of that application over the course of life.

Right? Love one another. Simple words. Three words. But lots of application, application that may vary through the course of our lives, application that we may learn new depths to for those three simple words. So a singular understanding is meant, maybe a great many applications and as Marilyn alluded to, there may be a growth in our understanding of the depth of that application. Yeah, so we've got this principle, objective observations, one that all of us can check out, a singular intended meaning. And we'll talk more about what that means.

And then finally, create many applications. I mean, I can tell you God intended one singular understanding of each passage. But boy, I can't even begin to tell you how many applications. Because there may be ways in which that's applied that I haven't even dreamed of, right? So as narrow as we say the singular meaning and interpretation is, the applications are so broad that none of us by ourselves can probably touch them all. Isn't that something? And you're right, Marilyn, there's a depth that we will continue to learn and grow and to grow in even though the intended meaning is singular. And it's that area of application that really presses that. Marilyn?

With an allegory, think about this, and by the way, the allegories are sometimes not as great in number as people think, but the allegories still have a literal meaning. Remember, we went through an allegory here in Galatians recently. The allegory still has a literal meaning, even in places where that's intended. We went through a number of symbols when we went through the book of Revelation about five, six years ago. And what's interesting is here's these symbolic pictures, and yet there is a literal meaning intended.

Let me give you a quick for instance. It says several places in Revelation that Christ, the Lamb, there's a picture for you, has a ramphaya, a five foot long barbarian sword coming out of his mouth. Now that's an illustration, isn't it? It's not intending that when we go to see our Lord that we'll see this guy with a five foot long barbarian sword hanging out of his mouth.

But what it's intending to convey is very literal. There is, even with symbols and allegories, a literal meaning that's intended. And in fact, as we'll see as we go through here, that literal meaning is quite specific. Yeah, quite specific. All right, now let's go on to the next overview sheet, the one right behind that.

The overview sheet that we've got here kind of gives some biblical perspectives on what does God intend for scripture to do in our lives. One of them we have here, just heading it up, it says the Holy Spirit is involved in every part of the right understanding of scripture and are beholding the Lord Jesus Christ through his word and thereby being changed from glory to glory. The Holy Spirit is involved in every part, everything from understanding Scripture correctly, to beholding the Lord, to being changed from glory to glory. All those things are aspects of the Holy Spirit's ministry.

2 Corinthians 3.18, but we all with unveiled face, which in the context means without the law, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, into the image of Christ, from glory to glory, growing from glory to glory.

And by the way, that's being made to change. Just as from the Lord the Spirit is a work of the Spirit. The next one there, God's Word is for individual growth. Here is 1 Peter 2. Like newborn babes, Long for, that's each of you be longing for the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. Here's another one. is for church body growth, Ephesians 4, 11 through 13, and he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ There's an individual growth and there's a church body growth.

Both of those processes are by God's intent and God's Word is involved in both of them. Each one of us growing, and Paul is emphatic, Colossians 128, each and every one, every single believer. It is not God's intent that any believers here at Holly Hills be left out of that growth process.

None. Everyone. It's his three times in that Colossians 128. Every man. Every man. And it's not just male. It's Anthropos. Every believer growing. Everyone. Yes. I love your questions, by the way. Thank you for the questions. Back on the singular interpretation.

Yes. everything you need to determine the interpretation. I know when you're teaching, you bring in a lot of historical information, a lot of stuff I never even knew, and which really helps understand the interpretation, but if you don't have that, I mean, does every believer have what they need? Yeah, I think what you have to look at is what we're wanting to do, and starting right here, we're wanting to have biblical principles so the Bible itself reveals the principles. Yeah, in other words, a lot of this is really looking at the principles that are brought in from Scripture itself in order to see what we need to bring in and what applies. Some of that we may have supporting information to help us, but in the end, it all comes through the lens of Scripture. Let me give you a quick example. We'll talk about things like a verb tense. We don't want to get real heavy into grammar, but we'll talk about a verb tense.

Jesus used a verb tense with the Sadducees to prove that they were wrong about the resurrection. I am, present tense, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he used that verb tense to prove the Sadducees wrong and they were shut down. They never asked him a question again. It totally shut him down. But that's what he did. He drew in a verb tense.

Many of the things that we bring in, like we'll talk about culture, many of the things we bring in from culture are actually strongly indicated in Scripture itself. One of the things we'll point out in the main service this morning is the idea of walking. We'll talk about walking in the Spirit, or we walk by faith, not by sight. We find, as we studied, that that's a specifically Jewish cultural manner of speaking. The Greeks understood it, but they didn't use it commonly. It was a particularly Jewish manner of speaking.

And we find that even from the pages of Scripture itself. So Scripture itself gives us many of these indications. Scripture gives us the principles and the things to work from. Occasionally we'll get help from outside resources, but it still has to come back through Scripture and check out with Scripture. And it'll be indicated and supported by Scripture, not something that we just invent. So that, I hope, is at least an introductory answer to your question.

We will be getting more into the details, and I do appreciate your questions. How are we doing so far? Okay. We went through earlier on the prior chart observation, interpretation, and application. I'm going to add a fourth one here, appropriation. And that's what you see in the kind of the two blocks down below. So observation is objective. Interpretation, singular. Okay. Applications are many. The next part is appropriation. Now why do we add appropriation in there? What's the difference between application and appropriation? Pardon?

Very good. When we're talking about appropriation, this is making it real in our lives. This is where it gets lived out. I could sit there and go through, here's what the Greek words mean if I say love one another. I could go and explain that. And we could even talk about, in fact we could take the whole time period I suppose to talk about what does that mean in application?

How does that impact how I live at home? How does that impact how we live here as a church body? How does it impact how we behave with one another even when we're apart? It probably impacts our phone calls. Emails, right? Things of that sort. So there can be lots of impacts, can't there?

And yet, in the end, it is not just to be sort of, okay, now I've got this in my brain, but to be lived out. It's God's intent that this message be given to us, a singular message, many applications, so that it's lived out. So that it gets worked out in everyday life.

Well, I think the thing is I have heard the word habit. I'm a little reluctant to go to that because habit can end up being kind of non-personal. A way of life may be a way of putting it. And that's something, I think, as we'll see in this, that it is personal.

We're beholding the Lord. See that passage there in Ephesians 4? We're equipping the saints not so that they go around and just spew out Bible verses, but we're equipping the saints so that they have a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's personal. In one sense, you could describe it as habits, but it goes beyond that. It's a part of a relationship. And so that's where this fourth one, this appropriation, it's making it real in my life. And it's really the Lord's doing to make it real in my life, isn't it? So that's that fourth step. One of the things we've done in this chart, though, you'll notice is we've got these blue boxes.

The first part of that, observation and interpretation, are really objective. And that's why we can end up with a singular interpretation. It's objective. It's objective because the Lord intended that we all be able to understand it. That you be able to check out me and I can check out you. We can look at it and say, oh yeah, that's right.

It isn't something, as Peter points out here in 2 Peter, Know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own. King James has private interpretation. For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but by men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. Prophecy isn't a matter of, you know, hey, Verne says it's this and therefore that's what it is and that's the way it's going to be.

No. It's something that you can check it out, I can check it out. There's objectivity to it. not just subjectivity, and nobody's going to manipulate it by saying, I say this is what it is. There's no authoritative manipulation. Okay? The second part... Yes? Isn't there authoritative disagreement?

What do you mean by that? What I mean by that is, if you look at any number of versions of the Bible... Yeah. in generating that translation have tried to be accurate at providing the translation. And yet, I'm sure you can look at the NIV and you look at the New American Standard and see many, many passages that have very different, in my opinion at least, statements of what the translation really means.

The objective translation may be either inaccurate in one of them or... Yeah, well, and that's where we have resources to check things. We will get into the translation issue a little, not too far down the road here because it's a biggie. But let me make a couple of brief statements that might be helpful. One is a translation. I'm glad I'm not a translator.

Because a lot of times the translators are told, you know, look, don't multiply a bunch of words here. Pick one closest English word and then go with it. So they're told don't, you know, if it takes a bunch of words to describe something, don't use those.

Pick one and go with it. So that's one limitation that they have. And that's one reason why you have this translation and that one. You say, well, heavens, you know. So that's one. Now there's something else. Aside from the older translations, many of the more recent ones, and boy, we've got a bunch of them, are copyrighted, right?

So all of a sudden the translator goes and he says, well, here's the best word, but somebody else already used it. And now the translator is stuck because he can't use a whole bunch of words, and he's got to narrow it down to one word, and he can't use this other person's word because they already used it. And so copyright issues can end up limiting what they're able to choose to translate it. And so that's one reason why you find the variations in part not because there's that much doubt about the meaning, but just because of the copyright laws that keep the translator from picking that word and instead he has to use this one. So that can be one of the limitations. Yes? Yes. Yes, but I think there are differences of interpretation, but I think what we'll find, we went through this in more detail in church history, But a lot of it is because of things that ought not to enter into their interpretation process.

For example, they will hold as authoritative this particular doctrine because that's what Luther said it was, or that's because that's what this other guy, George or Bill or whoever it was, said this was. So you end up having the dictates of some person calling the shots instead of objectively, what does this word mean, or what does scripture say? And you also have a matter of tradition, and what did Jesus have to say about tradition? You have tradition ending up holding sway over the interpretation. So essentially the reason for a great many of the denominational differences of interpretation, and they are there, they're real, is because of things being involved in the interpretation process that never should have been there. Never should have been there. And they're no longer objective.

It's, we believe this because that's what that guy said. And we always believe what he says. Because we're supposed to. Could we legitimately call them misinterpretations then? Certainly. Because if you look at it, and let's, matter of fact, that gets us to the next point here. No problem.

The last couple of verses here, let a man regard us in this manner as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. That's one thing about what perspective do we hold of these words here of scripture? Do we say, well, these are just man's words. This is just one guy's opinion. This is Paul for whatever he knew or didn't know, that's what he said, right?

No. Let a man regard us in this manner as servants of Christ and stewards, those who have an essential responsibility regarding the mysteries of God. Mysteries not being something that continues to be foggy, but something that is a truth not previously revealed, but now revealed by God's intent. Okay?

Next one, 2 Timothy 2.15, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.

That word accurately handling, there are two particular uses during Paul's day that I'm aware of. One is it was a word used for Roman road engineers who would lay out a road, cutting the road accurately. But also, and this is what I think Paul probably was thinking of. It was used by tent makers when they would cut the material for the tent right along the pattern line so that when you put the tent together, all the parts fit. I think that's more likely what he meant, especially since Paul and Timothy no doubt spent lots of time making tents together. So what does that mean when you put the parts together, no gaps, no flaps? Right? Good fit of these parts. That's what he's saying. When you put the truths of scripture together, they all need to fit. They all need to fit. Okay? All right.

Now, let's turn to the next part here. You've got, after that, a schedule and preliminary table of contents. That's just to let you know where we're headed with this. When we're done, and they have page numbers assigned, because we're developing this as we go. We'll give you another one that will have page numbers. Okay? So with that, let's turn to the next page. Introduction. Why are we doing this? Yes? Yes. Yes. Yes. Ah, very good point. And that is exactly what we need to be able to do, isn't it? We need to be able to test everything.

If you put it this way, Scripture is the measure of everything else. Scripture is the measure of everything else. Scripture is even the measure of our experience, rather than our experience testing Scripture. Scripture is the measure of our experience. Scripture is the measure of all doctrinal teachings.

Not doctrines because we like to have truth statements written on a piece of paper so we can just put it on the shelf, but because doctrine is always intended to be lived. Doctrine is intended to be lived. Doctrine is not cold, dead, propositional statements. Doctrine is life.

So we very much intend to go there. We have a chart here that gives five revelations, and one of the things you notice is of the five, the fourth one is Scripture itself. The fifth one is Jesus Christ. So one way to put it is that Scripture is the written Word of God. Christ is the living Word of God. So then the question we have there, since God was so intentional, what did God intend?

Now, one of the key passages we have here is 1 Corinthians 1.10. Here is Paul writing to the church of Corinth. Now, this is a church that's divided. What is the church divided by at Corinth? They're divided according to what? They're divided according to doctrines and they're divided according to people.

Just right after this, some of you say, I'm of Paul. Some of you say, I'm of Peter. I'm of Christ. That's a mistake. But it's also doctrinal division. Let's read through it. Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, that literally means that you say the same thing. that you say the same thing. And I think that's how King James has it. And that there be no divisions among you. How about that?

How many divisions does the Lord have in mind? Take it to this point. How many denominations does the Lord intend? One. That's it. It's the body of Christ and the body of Christ and the body of Christ. That's it. Alright. But that you be made complete. And this word here is a fascinating word. Katartizo, it's a word used for mending nets and mending and setting broken bones. You'll find it referenced here below and it's a word we'll run into farther on in our Galatian study in the main service.

If there are divisions in the body either by people, oh I follow Luther, no I'm according to Calvin. If there are divisions among the body of Christ, it's a problem. His exhortation here to this immature, and by the way, that's what divisions indicate, immaturity. If there are divisions among us, whether it's by people or by doctrine or both, if there are divisions, it's a problem.

God's intent, He says, mend the nets, set the bones, Fix it up. That's his exhortation. That's his exhortation. That you be in the same mind. This is, by the way, that's the singular. Isn't it interesting? All of you who have different doctrines and you follow different people, I want you to be of the one same mind. Singular mind. Isn't that something? I want you to be single-minded. as if you had one mind and in the same judgment. Can he be more emphatic? Heal up the ripped up nets. Set the broken bones among you. Be of the same mind and make the exact same judgments. That's his message.

That's one reason why we focus on the singular interpretation. How could there possibly be multiple interpretations intended by God? if this is what he's aiming at. Let's take another one. Here's Titus 1, 5, and I just go 5 and 9, although that whole passage is about the qualifications of elders to be appointed. Here's the way he starts it.

For this reason I left you in Crete. Here's Paul left Titus in the island of Crete, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you, holding fast the faithful word, singular, right, the faithful message, which is in accordance with the teaching, singular, so that he will be able to both exhort in sound doctrine, by the way that word sound is the word from which we get our English word hygiene, healthy doctrine, okay, healthy doctrine, as opposed to sick doctrine, okay, and refute those who contradict. It is singular truth, singular teaching, the faithful word singular. There is healthy doctrine versus sick doctrine that you set things right and refute those who contradict.

It's amazing. He's singular and he's black and white. That's why we insist on God intended one singular meaning in Scripture. And Tom's right. God did not intend to trick us. He had an intended message. All right, now let's go to the second page there. We have a listing here of different passages. And by the way, this is not exhaustive, but this is a sample.

Passages that use the faith. And we could add to them, there are also ones we just saw about the faithful word, singular, the truth. This only is the ones that have the faith specifically. So the Apostle John also wrote not just of the singularity but of the certainty. Because here's the other thing, if we end up with six different interpretations, that's not what he had in mind. Not only is the faith and the truth singular, and the faithful word and the teaching singular, look at 1 John 5, 13 and 20.

These things I have written to you who believe, so you already are believers, right? In the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. Do you think God intended that you know that you have eternal life? These are written so that you know. He does not intend for you to lay your head down on the pillow at night thinking, Oh, I wonder if I'm saved or not. Am I still saved? You know? No. That you may know. That you may know. And what's more, what does he say?

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true. There is a certainty, and notice that that certainty ends up with personal knowledge of Christ, not just information. See, my hard drive might know all kinds of things. It's not saved because it can't have personal knowledge.

We can and do and should. And it's God's very intent, isn't it? So it's not only important we understand that there's a singular meaning of Scripture, but that we have certainty, and that that certainty ends up with us having a certainty of personal knowledge of Christ. Okay. We have a summary there right below that 1 John reference, and it's this. What do these passages, among others, tell us? And we have this bolded here, because this is key.

God intended to convey a singular unifying, now notice I didn't just say unified, I said unifying because remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthians? That you be of the same mind, same judgment. So the truth is unifying. For those who are looking at scripture and understanding it as God intended, it's unifying. A unifying body of truth to have us clearly understand what is true and what is false, and to have that singular body of truth culminate in a true and intimate personal knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Scripture is God's written word, that is a message of God, and Jesus Christ is a living word, that is a message of God.

It's that succinct. That's what we're aiming for. It's not just so that we know a lot of data. Does He intend us to know things? Yeah, but for a purpose, and it's a personal purpose, for personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where it ends up. That's where it goes.

2 Peter 3.18, grow, and by the way, that's an imperative, grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we're out of minutes here.

What we have here are key portions of the Holly Hills Bible Church doctrinal statement. I encourage you to take a look at that on your own time. And the reason we've included these are these are parts of our doctrinal statement that underscore the importance and our approach to Scripture. We're talking here about, as we mentioned earlier, the scriptures inspired. We're talking here about the part that the Holy Spirit plays, etc. So these are some key things that we've quoted. The ultimate part is on the third page there, the Life and Walk of Believers.

I'm going to be quoting it here in the main service shortly too. Because that's an important point. This isn't just, boy, we've got all the data down and we've got it all written right here and that's where it stays. The important point is that these things are to be lived out. These things are telling us how eternity is going to turn out. These are things you don't want to be wrong about at all.

We focus on how do we understand the Bible and how do we end up with the singular interpretation and where does that end up? It ends up with impacting our lives. It ends up with personal knowledge of Christ, not just data that we put on the shelf and have in binders or stick on our hard drive.

On the one hand, I've said we've run out of time, but I probably haven't exhausted the questions or comments. Thoughts, questions, comments, exasperations? One of the things that I learned when I first came to High Hill is that I happened to hear Bob singing. He made a statement that there's a difference between Bible doctrine Yeah, I'm not quite sure what you're indicating there.

Are you saying that perhaps churches can be off the mark? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And that's quite true. And that points to the fact that we've got lots of different doctrines and teachings. Yes. Yeah, yes. Yes, I think that's key, that what we have is not, we don't have some traditional heritage. It's not that we just abjectly set aside any traditions, but the point is we don't have some tradition that ends up adding to or even overwriting scripture.

We're here momentarily going to be taking the Lord's table upstairs, okay? And as we do so, you know that there are churches that have significantly different teachings of what that means. There are some that say, you know, when I take this bread into me, that I'm taking the blood and body of Christ, you know, into my body, you know, and that I'm somehow re-sacrificing the Lord Jesus Christ. There are churches that teach that. and that you gain merit by taking this stuff into you.

That doesn't come from the pages of scripture. What the Lord himself laid out is, do this in remembrance of me, and that's precisely what we intend to do. Also salvation can come from the communion. Yes, salvation can come from it. Some churches would teach. And there are various shades of that among other churches as well.

What we intend to look at is, what does the Bible say? And it doesn't mean that we won't have certain things. We, for example, have the Lord's Table the first Sunday of the month. Is that something we do as a tradition? But do we say that the tradition is somehow authoritative? No, it isn't. We'll typically sing certain hymns before or after the message, and we do that traditionally, but we don't say that that tradition is somehow above or overrides scripture.

It's something we say it's helpful, we're free to do, but it's not mandated, and that's the difference, yes. here's a church for engineers. And because of the way we study and stuff, I can see how it's attractive to engineers, as I am one, but that doesn't mean, I mean, it doesn't mean that it, I mean, I'm just trying to figure out how the differences in the way people relate to, you know, I think that in the end, what it boils down to, because certainly there are people of engineering background here, but most are not. And in the end, it comes down to what's true. And in the end, it comes down to the very thing that we have as a theme here.

What was God's intended message? And rather than, you know, it's for engineers or it's for this kind of people or that kind of people, we say, and it's really We look at what did God point to. God pointed to this is his intended message. Are we getting what he intended?

And that's really the bottom line. And in one sense, it's not centered upon engineers because this really has to do with a message. And that isn't something the engineers have a corner on. It's God's intended message. And the other aspect is we don't want to get technical just for the sake of getting technical. As a matter of fact, we shouldn't get technical any more than is necessary. So it really boils down to what did God intend? And that doesn't depend on whether you've been to engineering school or been an engineer or anything else. The things we'll be going through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think if you look at it, churches have tended to do, some have focused really big on tradition.

And engineer or not, put that aside, the real question is, what did Jesus have to say about tradition over writing scripture? Well, he had to say a lot about it, and it was a problem. It's not a problem for us to have a tradition, but for us not to realize and recognize that those traditions are never to contradict or override Scripture. And that's where it's a problem. And the traditions are never to be looked upon as having the authority of Scripture. and to be put on the same level as Scripture. We'll take the Lord's Table the first Sunday of every month, but if we shift it to the second month, we're all of a sudden going to lose our salvation or fall out of fellowship with God or something of that sort.

I hope that begins to answer the question. Really, in the end, it's what did God intend to say. And outside of that, it doesn't really matter what occupation you had. Other thoughts, questions, ponderings? Yes. We've been to other Bible churches. Yes. And the focus for this church may be a little different than just because of church cause has Bible in their name. Right. They could be a hyper Calvinist or they could be. Yeah. Yeah.

Just because the Bible's in our name doesn't mean that we've reached perfection either. No. And notice, I think Paul puts it in that quote we have from Ephesians 4, 11-13. Notice the way he puts it, until we all attain to the unity of the faith. And so in one sense, a part of what we're saying in this is, you know, we can't claim to have all arrived, we got it all down pat, all that.

But the question is, are we aiming for the unity of the faith? Is that where we're headed? And that's a question I'm not sure all the churches, even the ones that call themselves Bible church, have even asked. Are we headed for the unity of the faith or are we stuck in, no, you've got your thing and I've got my thing and we like to hold our favorite traditions and we like to add to Scripture this way. However people like to vary it. In the end, are we looking towards the unity of the faith? Is that what we're aiming for? Or have we got something else in mind? Because the unity of the faith is what God had in mind. That's where we're headed.

I don't know everything there is to know, and nobody else does either. But I bet you the Lord does. The Lord does, and He knows what He wanted to convey to us. That's enough. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we look to your word here, as we look to the principles that you've laid out and the perspective that you've laid out.

We don't know it all. We don't have everything done just right, and we have no point of arrogance. But we are confident that You know it all and that You intended to convey these truths to us. And boy, in that we can take great comfort and great confidence, not with arrogance, but with humility. Thank You for Your precious Word, Your written Word and Your living Word. In Jesus' name, Amen.