And as we consider this question Why read the Bible, why? Why should we do it? Because many people might be asking that. And I know many of you have your own answers to that question. So I think Brad had 14 reasons, and they were very practical, they were just excellent. I just thoroughly enjoyed the encouragement. We're gonna come at it from a little different perspective this morning, but as we consider the question of why read the Bible, let's consider what kind of a book is the Bible? What kind of a book is the Bible? There's this quote that I found I thought was interesting. Shepherds, kings, scholars, fishermen, prophets, a military general, a cup bearer, and a priest all penned portions of scripture. And of course there was many more than that. But they had different immediate purposes for writing, whether recording history, giving spiritual and moral instruction, or pronouncing judgment. They composed their works from palaces, prisons, the wilderness, and places of exile, while writing history, laws, poetry, prophecy, and proverbs. In the process, they laid bare their personal emotions, expressing anger, frustration, joy, and love. We find all of these things in scripture, yet despite this marvelous array of topics and goals, the Bible displays a flawless internal consistency. It never contradicts itself or its common theme. It is completely consistent within its pages. No other work of literature written over the span of 1,500 plus years, 40 different authors, three different continents, three different languages, no other piece of literature can say that about itself. But the Bible stands above all of those. It is unique in the universe. The Bible stands alone as God's revelation of himself. to his creation, and I chose this verse, and I personally am focusing on this verse this year. I don't know if you choose a verse for the year or not. You certainly don't have to do that. I don't know that I've done that really before, but I found this verse, and I thought, what a powerful verse to think about as we begin a new year, Romans 15, four. For whatever things were written before were written for our learning. that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now in the immediate context, Paul is writing here about the Old Testament, the things written before what he was writing. But by application for us today, we have the complete canon, both Old and New Testament. We can apply this truth to ourselves today about all 66 books were written for our learning. They were written through the patience and comfort of the scriptures. They give us comfort so that we can have hope or assurance. So it's so important that we understand. Why read the Bible? Because it's in the Bible that we find our greatest assurance, our greatest hope. It's in the Bible that we learn where and how to have eternal life. It's in the Bible that we learn how we're supposed to live this eternal life here on earth and what we can, at least a little bit, of what we can expect when we live our eternal life in heaven. Of course, the main person of the Bible is God himself. So it's in the Bible we discover who God is. From the very first verse, the Bible proclaims that God who wrote it, in the beginning, God created, the heavens and the earth Genesis 1 1 and then at the end of the Bible and the last book Revelation 1 3 we read this blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it for the time is near. And so notice the reading and the hearing and the keeping of the word. And we can't keep it and hear it unless we're reading it. And so that's our challenge here. Now, as I stated earlier, we're going through verse by verse study in Mark, which we'll pick up, we'll start, excuse me, chapter seven. We'll begin, Lord willing, next time we're together, I think we'll be next week. So we'll be starting a new chapter. But in chapter seven, which we'll start to dive into next time, there is a section that relates to this issue. And this is probably the verse as I began to prepare, thinking that we would just do Mark seven today. And this verse, and I think the Lord kind of steered me a different direction. But in Mark seven, verses eight and nine, it says this, For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do. He said to them, all too well you reject the commandment of God that you keep your tradition. And so when we go back into Mark 7, we will walk through these verses and unpack them. But look at what Jesus, this is Jesus speaking here to the Pharisees. Notice what they're doing to the word of God. They're laying it aside. Laying aside the commandment. And they've picked up and they're holding to the tradition of men. And he gives a list of them. Many other such things. And earlier in the chapter, Mark, in a commentary style, tells us about the, Copper vessels and the couches and all these things and we'll we'll look at all that in detail But the point here is that they laid aside the commandments of God They rejected them. They not just laid them aside but then it at the end there in verse 9 all too well you reject the commandment of God and so whenever man's opinions and traditions and preferences are allowed to become as important as God's word, and that isn't stopped, they will eventually become more important than God's word. And I believe the scripture bears that out. And of course, we would refer to this as legalism. And the way that legalism creeps in to churches today is not any different than it crept in to Judaism of Jesus' day. is when the word or the commandments of man, his preferences, his laws, if you will, his opinions encroach upon what the word of God says. And it becomes the same issue that the commandments of God get laid aside and the traditions of man get placed in their place. So how do we combat this problem? How do we combat this problem in churches today? It is by knowing exactly what this book says. Because if we know what this book says, we'll be able to spot and understand when others bring things that don't match it. It's like those that deal with counterfeit money. They don't study the counterfeits. What do they study? They study the genuine, money, the genuine paper money, if you will. They know exactly what the real thing looks like so that when they see something that's a fraud or a fake, they're able to immediately identify it. The Bible is our standard of measure then for every idea, every rule, every tradition, every process, every preference that we might have. So we constantly have to return to the Bible to check ourselves and make sure that we're still on track. So why read the Bible? I have six reasons. I don't think we'll get through them all today, and that's okay. We'll pick it up next week. And so we'll jump into Mark 7 the next time we can, but I just don't wanna rush through them. So these six reasons, now there's more than these, okay? And as I stated, if you weren't in here when I opened at Simple Steps on Friday, Brad's lesson was almost identical in title to this. Now his content was different because he focused more on the practical things that are in God's word. I think there was 14. 14 things. It was such a great lesson. I just loved it. And Brad and I did not collaborate on that. It was something that I think the Lord is trying to speak to us about. But these six things, and there's more, but we're gonna look at inspiration, how the Bible is inspired. We're looking at the authority of Scripture, the truth that we find there, the clarity of Scripture. These are all doctrines that the Bible teaches us about itself. The sufficiency of Scripture and the necessity of Scripture. So let's jump in here with the time we have and get through some of these at least and be able to understand them in their depth. So first of all, inspiration. Inspiration, the Bible is inspired by God. So remember, we're asking the question, why should I read the Bible? And we're answering it with these answers. So the first answer is, Well, why should you read your Bible? Because the Bible is inspired. It's God's inspired word for us. Now, this is not inspiration like when an artist sees a sunset and is inspired to paint the sunset. It's not the kind of inspiration where a general inspires his troops to march out and to run to the battle line with this great rousing speech. He inspires them to do what they would not otherwise do. That's not the kind of inspiration we're talking about. We're talking about a word that literally means God breathed. In 2 Timothy 3.16, All scripture is given by inspiration of God, given by the breath of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. We're gonna return to this verse later as we continue to study this, but God breathed his revelation into the human authors, the writers, and they wrote it down. And the beautiful thing about how God did this, it wasn't like this robotic where he just fed in information and they just, their minds went blank and they just wrote down what he said. He allowed their own expressions to flow through their pen onto the parchments. He allowed their own emotions and styles and personalities. That's why when we read something from Paul, we read a Pauline epistle, And then we read something from the Apostle John, and we see a difference there. There's a different tone. And then we open one of Luke's books, Luke or Acts, and we see yet a different method or style of writing, and it's altogether different from Matthew or from Isaiah or from Moses, because God allowed that to happen, yet his message, his words still were maintained. The Bible is God's special revelation. We have his general revelation in creation and we look out at the earth itself and the solar system and the stars and we see everything working in perfect symmetry. And we see this irreducible complexity of the universe and the amazing intricacies of it. And how that if we just took one part away, even from the smallest cell, the cell would cease to exist as it is. And we see that and we see intelligence in that. We see God's design. That's his general revelation. But in scripture, we have his special revelation. In the word of God, both the written word and in the incarnate word. Jesus is who John is talking about in his prologue here, John 1. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. Jesus is the true light, which gives light to every man coming into the world. We see this repeated about the written word in Psalm 119. The psalmist says in verse 105, your word is a lamp to my feet. and a light to my path. The Holy Spirit of course is the person of God who performed this inspiration. Peter in his first epistle says this in chapter 1 verse 11, searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them, speaking of the prophets of the Old Testament, was indicating when he testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. So the Holy Spirit was breathing this truth into these writers and he was giving them the message that God wanted them to see. Peter picks this up in his second epistle, 2 Peter 1, verse 21, for prophecy never came by the will of man. It wasn't Isaiah's idea to sit down and write that out. It wasn't Malachi's idea to do those, to write his writings. It came by the will, never by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And so why do we read our Bibles? Well, the first reason, one reason I should say, is we need to read our Bibles because the Bible is the only book that was inspired by God. No other book makes that claim and is honest about it. Number two, authority. Authority, the Bible, no other book has the authority of the Bible. Let's go back to that verse, 2 Timothy 3.16. We've already looked at the fact that it's given by inspiration of God, but also we need to understand why God gave it to us. And here's some of the reasons why. It is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction and righteousness. So basically, a doctrine is teaching, it's information. The Bible is profitable for that. It's also profitable for reproof, for correcting us, if you will, or or actually reproof is showing us where we've gone wrong. It's helping us understand when we're in error, either in our actions or our thoughts or our motives, or the way that we're even understanding the world around us. It's profitable for correction. So it doesn't just leave us stranded out in error, but it brings us back into what's right. So it reforms and improves our lives. And it also is profitable for instruction, education, and training, and building up, and giving us the information that we need. We have to remember that we are in a battle. We're in a battle every single day. And we don't always make the right choices. And so we need to be able to go back to a standard and compare ourselves to that standard. We need to be able to be encouraged when we're doing right. Okay, is this right, Lord? Is this right? And we find that in scripture. And then the Holy Spirit works and he convicts. And then he uses his word to, as James says, a mirror for us to look into. And we don't want to be forgetful of what we're seeing. The Bible exposes us for who we are. truly in our heart. It sees through all our facade, and it sees the real heart, and we need to let it do that. How many of you have ever put shingles on a roof? Anybody done? Oh, a lot more people than I thought. I've done that, but I'm not a roofer. I needed direct supervision. But what I learned was, as you're nailing those shingles on, it's so important to always keep the edge of the roof, I believe you start down at the gutter, right? Down at the edge and work your way up. Because that edge is like a straight edge, it's a standard. And what happens, those of you that have done this, let's say you're going along and one of the shingles gets off like a quarter inch and you don't correct it. What's going to happen if you keep following that new angled line by the time you get to the other end of the roof? You're going to be way off, right? It's like steering a ship a degree off course. It's fine for the first mile, but you get a hundred miles out at sea and you're literally miles from where you're supposed to be. We need the word of God, its authority, to help us stay on track. We always can come back to the word. Because we're gonna have people, we're gonna be living our lives, and we're gonna have people like Jesus did with the Pharisees, saying, well, you shouldn't be doing that. You can't do that. And what did Jesus do? He brought them back to the word of God. What happened when he was in the wilderness was Satan, and Satan was tempting him. Where did he bring Satan to? He brought him back to the word of God. So we're gonna have this pressure either from other people, sometimes even other Christians are gonna pressure us and say, why are you doing things the way you are and why are you living that way? And certainly unbelievers that don't understand why we don't participate in things that they do. And then we have the devil, of course, doing his job. So we need a standard, it's like a lighthouse, if you will, of authority telling us where we need to go and directing us. Number three, truth, truth, what an important word for 2024. As we heard in the message this morning about all of the fake truth, and it's use that word loosely, that's out there, we need to be so focused on what is true and the fact that we can know truth. So many today don't really think we can know truth. They think each individual has their own truth, and that's fine for them. But in a logical world, that doesn't work. We must have a standard of absolute truth. In Acts 17, Paul has come into the city of Berea, and he's been teaching them. And Luke, writing this, describes the Bereans. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica. in that they received the word with all readiness. So that's important, we must receive the word that Paul was preaching and searched the scriptures daily, daily to find out whether these things were so. Now we often laud the Bereans. Like we want to be like the Bereans, it gets preached about, churches get named after, I don't know if you've ever seen like Berean Baptist Church or Berean Bible Church, I've seen a few of those. And that's great, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with any of that. But I want us to see here that they had a driving purpose behind this. their habit of searching the scriptures daily. It was to find the truth. Notice, to find out whether these things, the things that Paul and Silas and the others in the missions group were teaching them were so. They were laser focused on what is truth. And they knew that the scriptures were truth, and so they took anything anyone told them and brought it to the standard to see if it would measure up. To see if it lined up with scripture. And so there is a driving, there should be a driving passion within us. Like, oh, why read the Bible? Why make it a priority? How else are you going to know what's true? This is the gold standard of pure truth. And it's absolute truth, by the way. That means it's true for all people, all times, in every circumstance, culture, language. Now, we do need discernment. I think Brad mentioned this about the promises, right? So there's some promises in scripture that are for specifically the nation of Israel. Those promises aren't for the church. So we have to have discernment to know the context and the context is king. My professor said that the three most important parts of Bible interpretation are context, context, and context. And he drilled that into our heads because that is just so, so important. We can look at word meanings and I think Pastor Rich mentioned this even this morning. Word meanings, oh, this word means this, but it can also mean this, so how do you know the difference? The context will tell you, the context. So we should be reading our Bibles because we are hungering and thirsting after truth, and especially in the day and age in which we live. We need these anchors, we need these lighthouses, these guides, these standards of truth in order to make decisions. because it's a swirling whirlwind in this world in which we live, and a lot of people are making truth claims, and they sound kind of good. They sound reasonable, but is it matching up with the Bible? The Bereans believed that the scriptures were the source of truth. They weren't perfect, they were not sinless people. We're not worshiping the Bereans. But they do give us a good example of how we approach scripture. This is our filter, it's our lens through which to look at the world around us. Number four is clarity. The Bible is presented in such a way that it assumes it can be understood. The doctrine of clarity is so important. This isn't a quote, it's some of my thoughts as I was studying. The Bible's clarity, or perspicuity, that's your $10 word that means clarity, as the scholars call it, is the doctrine that states that the Bible is understandable. and it is sufficiently clear to leave people no excuse for disobedience to their present duties. The Bible assumes and believes the way it's written that it is understandable. Now some parts are harder to understand than others. Some parts are more clear. Others are not as clear and they require patient study and understanding. But God did not give us this book and then leave us in the dark, as if we couldn't understand it. There were, in Paul's day, and probably today as well, the heresy of Gnosticism, or the Gnostics. They believed a lot of really bad theology. They had a lot of error. But one of the things they focused, gnosis means knowledge, and this dictionary said it this way, that transcending, now this is not truth, okay, disclaimer. This is what the Gnostics believed. The transcendent God sent down a Redeemer, Christ, okay, that sounds pretty good so far, who brought them salvation Wait a minute, in the form of a secret gnosis or knowledge, is that where our salvation comes from? No, it's faith, or it's grace accessed by faith because of the blood of Christ on the cross. It's not about secret knowledge, but that's what they believed, and they believed a lot of other things, too, about how the body is inherently evil. They believed that Jesus was not incarnate. and that the truth, this secret gnosis was the pathway to eternal life. And then you needed some wise sage or somebody that had this really special revelation from God to explain it to you. Well, we do have someone wise to help us learn the Bible. He's living inside us, who is he? Holy Spirit's our teacher. And Jesus said that he would come and remind us about everything that he had said. The Bible was not written for the elite, but for everyone to read and understand it. Paul believed this in Acts 17 too. Now we're back in Thessalonica in that passage where he was before Berea, but it says, then Paul, as his custom was, went into them and that is into the synagogue of the Jews in Thessalonica, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures. If the Bible's not understandable, why would Paul take these three weeks, these three Sabbaths, three Saturdays in a row to reason with the people? He's not trying to bring them secret knowledge. In fact, most, if not all, of the New Testament hadn't even been written yet at this point. He was opening the scrolls of the prophets and using them and asking them to read those and saying, the Messiah that was spoken about, the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, He was Jesus of Nazareth, and He's been here, was killed, resurrected, and ascended. And He is the Messiah that we've been waiting for. And here's all of the prophetic truth that leads to Jesus of Nazareth. Hundreds of prophecies fulfilled exactly as written by Christ. Paul wasn't bringing secret knowledge. He was just showing them the knowledge that they already had, and expecting them to understand it. That's why we reason with people, to help them understand something that they need to. Deuteronomy is Moses, really his farewell sermon to the people before they enter the promised land. And he reiterates the law, and he says this to them in chapter 30, starting in verse 11. For this commandment which I commanded you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It's not secret knowledge. It is not in heaven. that you should say who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it nor is it beyond the sea that you should say who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it but the word is very near to you in your mouth and in your heart that you may do it God didn't give the people of Israel the law that he wrote that Moses wrote down inspired by God's Spirit in some kind of a secret cryptic way that only a select few could unlock and understand. It was written so that they could understand it, and God expected them to. He also expects us to understand it. Jesus believed in the clarity of the scripture. He believed that the Bible could be understood, and he expected people to do so. Many times, he rebuked people, in fact, for not understanding it. Here's a few quotes. See if you recognize Jesus' words here. Have you not read? You do err not knowing the scriptures. Are you a teacher of Israel, yet do not understand? Do you remember who he said that to? Nicodemus, the teacher of teachers. one of the highest ranking, if you will, rabbis in the nation of Israel, and Jesus rebukes him for not understanding what? The word. If it couldn't be understood, why would Jesus rebuke him for not understanding it? He told them to go and learn. He told the Pharisees, go and learn what this means. And those are just excerpts. I do have a whole verse up here, Matthew 19, four. He answered and said to them, have you not read Read what? Scriptures. He expected people to read the word of God. Jesus expects us to do the same. Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female? There's a message our world needs to hear today. Where are they gonna find that? The word of God. And how are we gonna be able to explain it to them unless we know what's in here? And that's Jesus' expectation. Paul. believed in the clarity of scripture. When he would write his letters, it was for everyone in the church. Now Galatians is actually written to multiple churches in the region of Galatia. He says this, and all the brethren who are with me, these are the ones writing and sending their greetings to just the pastors of the churches of Galatia, just the deacons, just the elite. Who's it written to? the churches of Galatia, all of you. When Paul opens up Philippians, and I wanna quote it so I don't get it wrong, he actually distinguishes all the groups. Paul and Timothy bond servants of Jesus Christ to all the saints in Christ Jesus. He leaves nobody out, he expects everyone in that church, he expected everyone in that church, not only read and understand, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and the deacons. So the people, the pastors, and the deacons all were expected to open God's word and read it and understand it. The Bible also calls for the public reading of scripture. We've been talking, focusing mainly on maybe the more personal aspect, but the public reading of scripture This is his exhortation to Timothy, this young pastor, till I come, Timothy, give attention to reading, speaking of the public reading of scripture. Why do we read scripture in our services and in our Sunday schools, to our children and in our homes out loud? Because we need to hear it. And it's an obedience to this command. Give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. We're not gonna know doctrine unless we're we're reading. Scripture repeatedly affirms that it is able to be understood and God holds us morally accountable for obeying it. Now our time has expired, so we're going to close. Today we've looked at Four out of the six reasons. Next week we'll pick up these and add in some other things as well, but inspiration. Why read the Bible? It's the only book inspired by God. Authority. It has authority over every part of our life. Everything we do, the Bible speaks to it. Every relationship, every situation. Truth. We need truth desperately. absolute truth. The Bible contains God's absolute truth. And number four, clarity. We need to read the Bible because God expects us to. He expects us to not just read it, but understand it. And I know, I come across passages all the time. It's like, what, God, what do you mean by this? Help me to understand this. That's a prayer God loves to answer in the affirmative. He's not going to leave you with without the information and the wisdom that he wants you to have. No moment spent with God is a wasted moment. Remember what he said to Mary? We talked about this last week. Martha's complaining because Mary's not working, and Jesus says, Mary's chosen the better part, and it shall not be taken from her. When we choose the word over the worries of life, God doesn't take away that time. He blesses it. Now, just one final thing. Did the work that Martha was doing eventually have to get done? Yeah, somebody had to make that food, right? It had to be done at some point. So this isn't meant to be this big guilt trip on anyone. I hope it's not that way for you. Please don't take it that way. That's meant to be encouragement. And maybe it is a bit of a challenge, but we shouldn't approach Scripture out of guilt. It's supposed to be out of we're longing for our relationship with the Lord to grow deeper. And this is the way he's given us to do it. Yes, prayers got to be directly connected to that. That's another discipline that we need to develop in our lives. But nothing compares to the to the words of Scripture. It's his truth. So please don't please don't approach it out of guilt. Just pray and ask God, Lord, what do you want me to read now? there are some I know we're going over I'm sorry there are some reading plans back on the welcome desk it is a New Testament plan it's called the five by five by five plan so it's five minutes a day five days a week so it's a five-day plan you can add other readings some of you are that's That's way too little reading compared to what you normally do. But I want to encourage you, if you need some structure to your Bible reading, a Bible reading plan helps with that. Now there's an inherent danger in that, is that we get a checklist mentality, like, oh, I checked it off, and we just, then we walk away like the man in James and forget what we read. Don't do that either. There's got to be a balance in there between structure and what God has for us. But we've gone past. Thanks for your patience. Let's pray. Father, thank you, Lord, so much for your word. Oh, Lord, we could just speak for days and weeks and months and even years about the benefits of reading your word. We could really dig into each of these doctrines that we've just touched on this morning in much deeper ways. For now, I pray that you'd help us to take these reasons to heart. Lord, may we be refreshed and renewed as we look to the new year to dig into your word. Lord, help us to remember that life still happens and we're gonna have to deal with things and we have people that we have to care for and we have responsibilities in this life and you don't want us to stop doing those. So you understand we can't sit down and read the Bible for hours and hours every single day. But Lord, I pray, Lord, that at some point, whether it's an audio Bible or a chapter here, a verse there, that we would begin to build the discipline of reading and listening to your word. Lord, may it speak to us, and may you bless us in that. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.