Kindle Notes & Highlights
one major source of difficulty in living for Christ is the nearly universal inability of Christians to use the Bible in a practical way.
The problem cannot be solved by some new, esoteric approach to Christian living that will only tip its hat to the Bible and, therefore, prove a source of error and misdirection.
It can be solved by turning back to the Bible in a new way.
This time, the Christian must approach the Bible as it was designed to be studied, neither in the tortuous and unfruitful ways that many academics have taught us, nor in the superficial manner that the experience-oriented crowd treats it, but in a careful, practical way tha...
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(1) ignorance-and-opinion-pooling discussions
(2) moralizing.
Passages of Scripture are ripped out of their context, used as springboards for discourse about one’s favorite biases, turned into character studies, typologized out of existence, etc. Interpretation and application of Scripture involving speculation, guessing and moralizing, will con...
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be—is unknown. Of course, incidentally, one might do well to learn something about how to clear Jonah of false charges and misrepresentations, but not before (or in place of) learning what it is God intended to do to the reader through a study of the book.
Thought moves exclusively in one direction: from the Scriptures to life.
The insistent question under which Christians everywhere are laboring (though they do not know how to articulate it) is: “How do I move in the opposite direction?” They want to know how to move from the life situation to the Bible. That is to say, they want to know how to study the Bible in a truly practical manner to meet the contingencies of daily living. They want to know how to go to the Bible to find help on Thursday!
While the text was developed as an aid for counselors to use in teaching counselees how to solve problems from the Bible (an essential part of most biblical counseling), the method obviously has much wider application.
you will have to work hard to learn how to use that Book properly.
Success will not come at once.
The method has several parts and involves learning a number of skills.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and useful for teaching, for conviction, for correction and for disciplined training in righteousness (II Tim. 3:16).
“inspired”
“inspire”
“to breath in.”
breathed out”)
“breathed out by God.”
If you want to hear what God has to say, read the Bible.
And the Bible’s words are just as much His speech as if you were able to hear Him speak audibly.
If you were to hear God speak audibly, He would say nothing more, nothing less, and nothing different from...
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Teaching
Conviction
All change from sinful practices to those that please God must begin with conviction of sin.
Correction
Disciplined training in righteousness
They discipline us in order to make these new ways a habitual part of our everyday living. All of these uses pertain to the process of change in human living that we call, theologically, sanctification (putting off sinful ways and putting on righteous ones).
Just as the Bible has power to bring a person to faith in Christ (a practical use mentioned in v. 15), so too it has the power to help him live more and more in ways that please God.
Truth is never given for truth’s sake alone. It is given to affect life.
Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ to promote the faith of God’s chosen people and the full knowledge of the truth that brings about godliness (Titus 1:1).
If we were to sum up the purpose of the Bible, we would have to say, with Christ, that it is to enable men to love God and to love their neighbors (cf. Matt. 22:37-40).
The Bible itself consistently maintains that it is a useful book, one that is useful in daily life and ministry.
“holding principle”
But whoever doubts is condemned if he eats, because he doesn’t eat in faith; and whatever isn’t done in faith is sin.
“Don’t move ahead on a project that you think may be sin. You must first have those doubts removed.”
If he had participated while in doubt he would have sinned.
To do anything that you suspect might be sin is sin for you, because of your attitude toward God: “I’ll do it even though it may be a violation of God’s commandments.” The holding principle is a very important principle to grasp. In times of doubt it assures us of a proper attitude toward God.
Those that have to do with business and work; Those that have to do with submission and respect for authority; Those that have to do with personal responsibility before God. Those principles that tell him how to work also tell him to do so “heartily.” They tell him to work, not in order to please people, but in order to please Christ (Col. 3:22-25; Eph. 6:5-8). That means that he must be concerned about doing the best job that he can for his employer—for Christ’s sake.
Secondly, in all his relationships with his employer he must show the utmost respect, giving honor to whom honor is due.
Honor is due “to all sorts of men” because of their authority, as well as to the “brotherhood”, “God”, and the “emperor” (I Pet. 2:17).
respect is given not to the man because of
what he is but to the man in his office.
thirdly, he will remember that God has not given his employer unrestricted authority; he has no authority to require Bob to sin.
“I must obey God rather than men.”
Bob knows the holding principle and the business principles that I have surveyed in Colossians and Ephesians, he can move a step further: “I cannot draw up this strategy at this time because I strongly suspect that to do so would make me a party to fraud.”
1. “...maintaining the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15).
2. “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with everybody” (Rom. 12:18).
3. “Love doesn’t seek to do anything to harm a neighbor” (Rom. 13:10).
