>
IPS-Eye-White

Section 6..  Reading and Understanding Your Bible

003white  Index To Reading And Understanding Your Bible       >         Exposition Must Have Application

IPS-Header
Rabbi-Bg
 

Exposition Must Have Application

By A. W. Tozer

 Chapter 7 Of God and Men 

Biblical teaching and preaching is not only supposed to make people better Bible students, but to help believers apply God's precepts and lessons to their lives. Christian authors and preachers do not function as classroom professors but as shepherds who are supposed to unpack the text so that fellow pilgrims can understand what God would have us do with the knowledge. It is always a call to believers to respond, repent and obey. There is an excellent example from the book of Nehemiah, chapter 8.

When on their return from captivity, Ezra read from the book of the law, the people  celebrated because they understood the words which had been made known to them. They also found written in the law how the Lord had commanded through Moses that the sons of Israel should live in booths during the feast of the seventh month. Details Accordingly they went out and brought branches and made booths for themselves and lived in them - something that had not been done from the days of Joshua to that day.

Unfortunately all too many of our churches are a mile wide and inch deep flashy mega-churches -run by wealthy celebrity pastors with deep pockets and self serving shallow theology. See The Lifestyles of Wealthy Celebrity Pastors and The Prosperity Gospel and The Word of Faith Movement

Also See Why The Fire Hasn’t Fallen:
 We are apparently blind to the fact that because we are comfortable, complacent and lack passion (Jesus called it lukewarm) God has withdrawn His presence from us. We want to pack our pews, double our offerings, hear sermons on encouragement, love, leadership, and being the best you can be. We have fund-raisers to build bigger buildings and more 'youth centers', but through it all we never seem to realize that the glory and power of the Lord are conspicuous by their absence. Too many churches  have substituted an endless cycle of activity for the Holy Spirit that very effectively covers up the fact that they are spiritually dead as dodos - social clubs with God sprinkled in to legitimize the word 'church'. 
 

Bible1-Bar

Exposition Must Have Application
By A. W. Tozer

There is scarcely anything so dull and meaningless as Bible doctrine taught for its own sake. Truth divorced from life is not truth in its Biblical sense, but something else and something less. Theology is a set of facts concerning God, man and the world. These facts may be, and often are, set forth as values in themselves; and there lies the snare both for the teacher and for the hearer.

The Bible is among other things a book of revealed truth. That is, certain facts are revealed that could not be discovered by the most brilliant mind. These facts are of such a nature as to be past finding out. They were hidden behind a veil, and until certain men who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost took away that veil, no mortal man could know them. This lifting of the veil of unknowing from undiscoverable things we call divine revelation.

The Bible, however, is more than a volume of hitherto unknown facts about God, man and the universe. It is a book of exhortation based upon those facts. By far the greater portion of the book is devoted to an urgent effort to persuade people to alter their ways and bring their lives into harmony with the will of God as set forth in its pages.

No man is better for knowing that God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth. The devil knows that, and so did Ahab and Judas Iscariot. No man is better for knowing that God so loved the world of men that he gave his only begotten Son to die for their redemption. In hell there are millions that know that. Theological truth is useless until it is obeyed. The purpose behind all doctrine is to secure moral action.

What is generally overlooked is that truth as set forth in the Christian Scriptures is a moral thing; it is not addressed to the intellect only, but to the will also. It addresses itself to the total man, and its obligations cannot be discharged by grasping it mentally. Truth engages the citadel of the human heart and is not satisfied until it has conquered everything there. The will must come forth and surrender its sword. It must stand at attention to receive orders, and those orders it must joyfully obey. Short of this any knowledge of Christian truth is inadequate and unavailing.

Bible exposition without moral application raises no opposition. It is only when the hearer is made to understand that truth is in conflict with his heart that resistance sets in. As long as people can hear orthodox truth divorced from life they will attend and support churches and institutions without objection. The truth is a lovely song, become sweet by long and tender association; and since it asks nothing but a few dollars, and offers good music, pleasant friendships and a comfortable sense of well-being, it meets with no resistance from the faithful. Much that passes for New Testament Christianity is little more than objective truth sweetened with song and made palatable by religious entertainment.

Probably no other portion of the Scriptures can compare with the Pauline Epistles when it comes to making artificial saints. Peter warned that the unlearned and unstable would wrest Paul’s writings to their own destruction, and we have only to visit the average Bible Conference and listen to a few lectures to know what he meant. The ominous thing is that the Pauline doctrines may be taught with complete faithfulness to the letter of the text without making the hearers one whit better. The teacher may, and often does, so teach the truth as to leave the hearers without a sense of moral obligation.

One reason for the divorce between truth and life maybe the lack of the Spirit’s illumination. Another surely is the teacher’s unwillingness to get himself into trouble. Any man with fair pulpit gifts can get on with the average congregation if he just “feeds” them and lets them alone. Give them plenty of objective truth and never hint that they are wrong and should be set right, and they will be content.

On the other hand, the man who preaches truth and applies it to the lives of his hearers will feel the nails and the thorns. He will lead a hard life, but a glorious one. May God raise up many such prophets. The church needs them badly.

Rabbi-Back

Reading and Understanding
Your Bible

www.inplainsite.org