Getting Practical - Useful Resources // Power Unlimited, Part 9

So many people, when they open their Bibles, run into a significant problem. They don’t quite understand what’s going on – that’s certainly the problem I used to run into. It’s not that I’m stupid, it’s just that a lot of it didn’t make all that much sense to me. So if you find yourself in that boat from time to time, stick with me, because today, we’re going to make your Bible a whole bunch more accessible to you.

I have to tell you, that thing they call the Bible was a real problem for me. I mean, first coming to grips with the fact that it is what it says that it is, the Word of God but then, just getting into it. It’s made up of 66 separate books written over about 1,500 years in different times, in different places and different cultures. So there are words and names and places and concepts and ways of thinking … well, we’re not always familiar with them.

We’re continuing in our series ‘Power Unlimited’ – because that’s what God’s Word brings into our lives so today, we’re going to get down and really practical on just how to get into the Bible because unless we do, we’re going to miss out on much of the power that God wants to pour into our lives.

Over the years I’ve discovered a few very simple helps or resources that have made such a difference in making sense of God’s Word. You see, it turns out there’s a whole bunch of people much smarter than me who have done some great research and put the information together in such easy usable ways and all their work makes getting into God’s Word, the Bible, so much easier for the likes of you and me. Today I just want to share some of those resources with you.

I remember twenty or so years ago, just after I became a Christian, I started attending a tiny little Baptist Church in the southern suburbs of Sydney. A little place called Oyster Bay. Our pastor, Phil, was a passionate and gifted Bible teacher and that man has had a huge impact on my life.

Now as well as Sunday services, the Church used to have these little home Bible studies and we’d meet one night a week in someone’s house. In our small group, five of us would gather together. And at the time, the particular little home fellowship that I’d joined, was studying the Old Testament book of Hosea.

So we’d lob in there each Wednesday evening, we’d have a cup of tea and some fellowship and then we’d sit down and do a Bible study together. And right through that book, over and over and over again, Hosea talks about Ephraim – that word is mentioned 29 times by Hosea. So I remember asking these people, most of them had been Christians for a good many years, “Okay, who or what is this Ephraim thing?”

I mean, Hosea kept talking about it and so it seemed to be quite central to what he was saying. But you know something, no-one could tell me who or what Ephraim was. Now it turns out the Ephraim was one of the tribes of Israel, Ephraim was one of Joseph’s sons and there’s a whole history around this tribe and how they rebelled against God, but we didn’t know that in that Bible study so a lot of what God was saying to us, through this amazing, powerful book of Hosea, well it was frankly lost on us. And that sort of thing happens a lot more than you might think.

Consider the story of the Good Samaritan. It loses its whole meaning if we don’t understand the Samaritans and who they were and what the Jews thought of them. Now when Jesus told that story to the assembled masses they all knew the Samaritan story but we don’t, it’s not natural to us. And there are names and places and concepts and ways of thinking in the Bible that are foreign to us, because we’re separated from them by time and culture. It might have made sense to the people back then but not to us now. And unless we understand those things, we miss out on the richness, on the gravity, on the power of what God is trying to say to us.

I remember coming to grips with the Jewish system of blood sacrifice in the Old Testament. Now I kind of think about blood sacrifice and it’s pretty ghastly to me here and now, but it’s something I really had to understand to understand what Jesus did for me on the Cross. So I decided I was going to find out, not just skim the surface, not read through a story and have them talk about Ephraim or Samaria or all these other things I didn’t know about and miss out on what God was trying to say to me through the story.

Now these accounts were written such a long time ago and God has preserved them and kept them accurate for us here and now but there is indeed a gap of culture and time in history that we have to bridge to understand completely what’s happening in what’s been written. I mean after all if the Bible is God’s Word and if God is speaking to us through it, I decided I needed to know what He was saying. And surprisingly, that’s not as difficult as I thought it would be.

Right now, I’m going to talk about a handful of really simple resources that made absolutely the world of difference. The first one was my Bible, a simple English translation, not the King James with the ‘thees’ and ‘thou arts’, there are so many good contemporary language translations available to you and me today. The New International Version or the NIV as it’s called, is really popular. I happen to use the New Revised Standard Version (the NRSV). There’s a translation called The Message which is really in here and now language. The Contemporary English Version (CEV). The New English Translation (NET). Which one is the best one? The one you’re going to read.

You can get a thing called A Study Bible, it’s got not just the words of the Bible, but it’s also got a huge amount of resources packed into it. It explains the meanings of different words, there are notes and maps and cross references. They’re really good, they don’t cost a whole bunch more than a Bible with just the Bible words. So if you want to do more than just skim across the surface, it’s really good to have one of those – a Study Bible. Check them out.

One of the most helpful features in a Study Bible is a summary of each book: who wrote it, when, to whom and why because context is so important isn’t it? Before I read Ephesians I read four or five paragraphs in my Study Bible which explain the context and all of a sudden the book of Ephesians made a whole bunch more sense to me. A Study Bible is a really worthwhile investment and it’s not much more than an ordinary Bible. You can get one from a Christian bookshop or you can buy one online. I happen to have an electronic one these days on my tablet device.

The second resource is my Bible dictionary. Now I happen to purchase a Bible dictionary called the Holman Bible Dictionary, years ago – it’s just one, single volume. You can get Bible dictionaries that are 25 volumes, mine is just one volume and it has pictures. So when I was reading and it talked about the Temple in the Bible, I could go to my Bible dictionary and look at it and see a picture and plans and explaining the different parts. So I’m able to read a few paragraphs in just a few minutes, and I’m there, I understand what the writers saying about the Temple, about the Holy of Holies, wow!

When the Bible talks about Ephraim I look it up, half a column, three minutes, I know who or what Ephraim is. The story of the Good Samaritan; who were the Samaritans? What was their relationship to the Jews? Ah! That’s what Jesus meant by the story of the Good Samaritan.

And lastly, the third resource was a Bible timeline. It’s one of these things you can fold out and it’s about four pages wide that show the chronology of the Bible. You read about King David, when was he king? Who was King before him? Who was King after him? What else was going on? Which prophets were writing when David was alive? And all of a sudden you put the whole Bible thing in time sequence, that’s huge.

And just to top things off, let me tell you about two stunning websites. The first is biblegateway.com (https://www.biblegateway.com) where you can compare different Bible translations. The second is studylight.org (https://www.studylight.org), it has Bible dictionaries online, the meanings of Greek and Hebrew words, and so many more great resources. All free. So let me ask you? Do you take Jesus seriously? If you do then we need to take the Bible seriously. And for just a small investment on your part in just a few simple resources, they pay such huge dividends in hearing and understanding what God is saying to us today through His Word.