Bible Studies at My House

The studying of Scripture is an interesting thing at my house as I am sure it is in many homes. Growing up in and out of 'church' buildings and their unending descriptions of what a 'Christian' should be doing, I learned the way to study the Scriptures is through the teachings of another, be it the preacher, a 'teacher', or a devotional. It appeared that some sort of guide was needed for Scripture studying.

It wasn't until I met someone that made me feel...well, less than Christian...for not having read the Bible all the way through that I actually spent a good deal of time reading, not studying, the Scriptures. It was a challenge. My goal was to be able to say I had read the Bible all the way through. I accomplished that goal. 

But the prize was so much more than the self-inflated ability to bragging rights on saying I had read the entire Bible. You see, it was somewhere in all that time, at least an hour a day, that I spent soaking in Scripture, that I began to see more to Scripture than had been watered down and poured into me through all my years in 'Church'. At least I think that might have been when I began to see Scripture through clearer eyes. I really don't know. It was such a  gradual thing and by that point I was already seeking, yearning, aching for more of Christ. I just didn't know where to go to get what my soul was crying out for.

It was quite a while after that self inflicted challenge with such a huge prize...the prize of Scripture...that I met my husband. I still did not fully understand the Scriptural situation I was in. I had barely scratched the surface of seeing real Scripture, Scripture that wasn't twisted and distorted by 'church' and all their so-called teachers, to be able to read Scripture without the tainting that had poisoned the Word. 

To put it mildly...I was being choked but was fighting my way free of the hands that were keeping me from the Truth. Along came my husband and with one simple question...

I could see.

I could understand.

He asked me to read Ephesians one and tell him what I saw in it. And I did. But what I saw in that chapter threw me so much that I had to look it up in several different verses, read commentary on it. To put it simply I thought I was seeing things that were not there.

With great trepidation, I told my soon to be husband what I saw in that chapter. I was sure he was going to tell me I was seeing things that were not there or think I was crazy. I figured he would laugh at me. But worst of all I feared he would never speak to me again.

You see, what I saw in that chapter was so foreign to me that I had never heard anyone say such a thing. I had never heard the word predestined in conjunction with Scripture, never heard anyone speak of the elect. 

It had only been a few days since I had met the man that would be my husband and here I was seeing something so shocking in Scripture that I was certain I was going to run him off. There was no choice though, he had asked me to tell him what I had seen and I couldn't lie to him. So I told him. I even gave him all the info I found in my research.

Much to my surprise, I did not run him off. Quite the opposite, I married him about five weeks later. It turned out my husband didn't think I was crazy and he didn't laugh at me. Everyone else did, but not him. He was thrilled to 'finally' find me, a reformed Christian woman. 

Oh, I still had a long way to go. Was still what my husband called a nominal Christian at that point but I was seeing what I had never seen, understanding what I had never understood. That was a long time ago and I'm no longer the nominal Christian my husband once called me. 

Our Bible studies are so much different than what I was taught a 'bible study' should look like. Gone are the devotionals, gone are the 'preachers and teachers'. In their place we use Scripture. We sometimes reference people like Charles Spurgeon but we never use his writings to lead our Scripture studies. We use Scripture.

My husband is fond of using 1 John 2:27

But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.

And it's so very true. If a person is regenerate they can study and learn from the Scriptures themselves. 

Which brings me back to the point I was trying to make, Scripture studies at my house look nothing like the 'Bible studies' I was taught we should have according to the 'churches'. I don't even use a notebook and pen, much less a devotional, when I study. I do use a pen though. And I take notes in my Bible. But I only do that sometimes. 

Other times I don't even use a Bible. That may be shocking to some but it's a normal everyday thing at my house. My husband and I do Bible study without a Bible in sight. We talk of life and living in the same conversations that we speak of Scripture, our Lord, and eternity. We take walks together and we speak of our Lord. We sit in our yard and discuss world happenings and compare them to Scripture.

Last night I was talking with a relative and they told me how lucky I was to have a husband that would talk about the Bible with me. This relative also told me they guessed I probably fell in love with my husband because of that. I admitted that that was exactly what made me fall in love with him and it is what made him fall in love with me. 

The Lord is the attraction we 'found' in each other and He is the glue that holds us together. 

And that glue binds us so much that our Bible studies may have us with a Bible in hand, reading Scripture and conversing or it may have one or the other of us sharing something we encountered or thought on that day.

My husband shared his thoughts with me on people assuming a person is in heaven just because they died and I took what he shared and turned it into a blog post. I wrote it specifically for my husband. 

As I have tried to write this post, I have been interrupted so many times with things of a Spiritual nature that I cannot seem to manage to pull my thoughts together on this post and get it to go where I wanted it to go. In all honesty, I no longer even recall what my original intent was. I have been inundated with Scriptural things lately, so much so that I am jumping from one conversation to another, discussing deep subjects on one topic only to be nose deep in another while still trying to finish my other conversation.

I sit here, trying to pull my thoughts together, struggling to recall my original intent in this post and I see the little devotional book that came in the mail the other day, a book I usually flip through and toss in the trash. For some reason I haven't yet thrown this one out. Mainly because I thought there might be something in it that would stretch my Scriptural studies, not because of what's in the little booklet but because something in there might send me on a search of Scripture. And yet...I cannot bring myself to even look at the content of the book. I already know it is Arminian based and I have no interest in so much as scanning the titles in it. 

But that look book is a silent reminder of what I always thought Bible studies were 'supposed' to be. And as I look at it, now a bit tattered from being pushed to and fro in the last couple of days, I am reminded of a conversation my husband and I had not too very long ago. My husband brought up how so many people sit in 'church' services with a notebook in hand, taking notes on the service, trying to write down all the important points of the sermon so they can go home and study it. Some of them actually do study those notes and others just have good intentions but very few of them get the true meaning of the verses they look up. They study and study and never come to enlightenment.

There was a conversation between some people in a Reformed group that I am in where they were discussing the understanding and conversion of nonchristians. Someone said something to the effect of 'it's a waste of time past giving them the gospel'. 

The poor people scribbling notes on a Sunday morning or struggling through Bible studies in devotionals or even happily reading pages and pages of Scripture only to never understand are really doing themselves no good. I'm not saying it's ever a waste of time to study the Scriptures but if they study them with the wrong mindset...what do they gain?

I recently had a conversation with someone that would be considered lost by most people professing any kind of belief in Christ. This person believed in Jesus but their Jesus was of their own making. This person had read at least some of the Bible but presumably picked and chose which parts of it they thought were true and discarded the parts they believed to be "lies''. 

According to this person one of the biggest lies in Scripture is the place of women. My understanding from that conversation was this person was probably some kind of feminist and therefore took offense at verses like Ephesians 5:22-24. I was told that those verses were part of a conspiracy theory by the men that decided what did and did not go into the Bible. 

From what I gathered this person had done in depth 'Bible' studies but those studies had done no good. They may have taken lots of notes, use commentaries, or devotionals but they approached Scripture through the mindset of their belief and came away with such mixed up understandings and beliefs that they may as well have spent their time doing anything other than 'Bible' study. 

This person may have had beliefs that all but defied any definition of Christianity but they weren't that far off from most people that 'study' the Bible. As I talked with this person I found myself thinking I am secure in my belief, I believe that my understanding, the Reformed, or Scripture only, view is the correct one and yet this person was just as certain they were right. I have a friend whose beliefs differ from mine in many areas. This friend is as certain they are correct as I am. 

We each approach Bible studies through our understanding of Scripture and our own beliefs. In that conversation I had with this person they accused me of being 'indoctrinated', something my sister got a good laugh out of. But the thing is...this person truly seemed to believe that. They were certain that their belief was the right one and did not seem happy until they thought they had brought me around to their way of thinking. 

I do not, for a single second, agree with their beliefs but there came a time to quit tossing my pearls before swine and bow out as best I could. This person appeared to be happy when that happened and I assume they are now convinced they taught me something, which they may have but I didn't learn to follow their beliefs. 

But how different was this person than the evangelist, the preacher, the Bible teacher, or your best friend or relative that try to bring a person around to their belief system? 

I have a relative that is not Christian by any stretch of the definition. This relative does not believe in pushing their belief on anyone, they believe in sharing only if asked. Scripture tells us we are give the gospel so that is not an option for a believer but...we are not told to keep pushing the gospel. We are actually shown just the opposite, to share it once and move on. 

But somewhere in there...somewhere in the understanding of sharing the gospel...many people got the idea of 'teaching' Scripture. I did a search for Christian devotionals at a popular online store and got in excess of 20 pages of choices. A search for women's Christian devotionals also has over 20 pages. I can't even begin to imagine just how many 'Christian' devotionals there are out there. 

They make them for women, for men, for kids, for boys, for girls, for married couples...I'm guessing they make them for animal lovers, for travelers, for...whatever it is that a person might be, there's probably a devotional just for that. Years ago I had a devotional for simplifying ones life. It used stories that were supposedly from the Amish. My husband and I were given one for couples. 

Why is it that all these so-called 'Christians' need so many people to 'teach' them the Scriptures? 

I know, I understand...I get it...that if a person isn't born again than they cannot see the Truth, they will be blinded to what the Scriptures say but even if they can't get the real Truth are they so incapable of understanding the Scriptures in whatever form they think the Scriptures point? 

I was once just such a person. I used to read devotionals instead of my Bible. It was much easier to get 'Gods word' in bite size pieces. And as an added bonus they came with stories. Those stories were much more interesting than plain Scripture. 

Thankfully the Lord opened my eyes and removed the blinders. Not only do I no longer need all those devotionals but I find them not the least bit appealing. I do enjoy reading things by people like Spurgeon, Matthew Henry, the Puritans, and other reformed Christians. I enjoy them but I do not have to have them.

That's not to say that there aren't things in Scripture I don't understand or that I don't appreciate another's insights on. I often question my husband or enjoy hearing his understanding of things. I have even deliberately not done my own research or cross checking just so that I could get him involved in my studies of Scripture but I am not dependent on him or others to be able to study and learn from Scripture. 

As a result my Bible studies are much more enjoyable and fun. I can well remember doing Bible studies where I struggled to understand the point the teacher was trying to make. There were many times when I did not see the connection to something being taught with the text being used. A couple of years ago I had a long discussion with a friend because she saw something in a book of Scripture that I could not see. She told me to read between the black and white of Scripture. The other day the person I found myself talking to told me to stop 'worshiping a book' (meaning the Bible) and look at what 'Jesus' was trying to write on my heart. That was sort of what my friend told me so long ago too only for different beliefs.

Am I wrong in what I see in Scripture? Maybe. If I am there are others that are just as wrong. I, for one, am getting my understanding straight from Scripture and not from a human teacher and it is the best way of doing Bible studies that I have ever used.

It makes for some wonderful discussions and Bible studies at my house, is the cause and culprit for much learning. Are we doing it wrong as some have pointed out? Not according to Scripture. It's a funny thing but Scripture never says we need a daily devotional. We are instructed to study the Scriptures. And I am content to do all my Bible Studies with Scripture as my teacher.