Our How to Study the Bible for Yourself and Others looked at Using Biblical Resources such as Commentaries, Bible Studies, Conferences, and more this past Sunday.
There are many challenges in selecting Biblical resources. We discussed several in the November 16 class. The number of resources has been a problem. So many different writers and ideas are out there in books. This leads to the second challenge. These ideas don't even need to be published in book form. With modern publishing and the internet, it is easy to publish an ebook and even easier to start a blog (even I did 😀). There are so many different and accessible resources out there. Another challenge mentioned was varying opinions. Not just views found in the resources, but also opinions found about the resources and writers.
Another challenge in selecting Biblical resources is a wrong view of their purpose. So what is the purpose of Biblical resources?
Simply put, the purpose is to help people understand the Bible and think Biblically, and live Biblically, not to replace it.
In Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books, Tony Reinke writes, “Scripture is the ultimate grid by which we read every book. Scripture is perfect, sufficient, and eternal. All other books, to some degree, are imperfect, deficient, and temporary. That means that when we pick books from the bookstore shelves, we read those imperfect books in light of the perfect Book, the deficient books in light of the sufficient Book, and the temporary books in light of the eternal Book.”
Here are some basic resources selection helps:
- Always read your Bible; never let other books distract you from reading the Bible.
- As it relates to what we have been studying in class, be sure to spend a lot of time in the Seeing/Observing phase of study.
- Biblical resources should help you understand the Bible, NOT replace the Bible
