Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #148： 7 Essentials For Biblical Literacy

00:00:00.000 Welcome to this episode of Real Christianity. I'm your host, Dale Partridge. And as many

00:00:13.320 of you know, you can find the show notes for these episodes at our ministry's website

00:00:17.920 at relearn.org. This is a podcast that's completely funded by our listeners and financial supporters

00:00:26.420 at relearn.org. If you guys would prayerfully consider supporting our work at relearn.org,

00:00:34.620 you can go to relearn.org forward slash donate, and that really helps us continue on this ministry,

00:00:41.760 producing this podcast, supporting our other ministries, getting more content out to the

00:00:49.180 Christian community. Today, I wanted to have a short discussion about the need for rigorous

00:00:57.440 study of your Bible. Now, as you guys know, we are inundated right now with ideas and information

00:01:07.600 and perspectives more than ever before. And I want you to, I think I'm just going to offer you

00:01:15.580 a pastoral perspective on this. A hundred years ago, as a pastor, you know, the last thing a

00:01:25.140 church member heard as they were entering your church on Sunday, the last thing they heard about

00:01:31.820 the Bible was from your sermon the previous week. Today, people leave the teaching of their pastor

00:01:42.380 and the sermon that they heard on Sunday, and between that time and the following Sunday,

00:01:48.480 they're consuming several different podcasts from varying Bible teachers. They're listening to

00:01:54.760 nearly a hundred different worship songs. They're possibly skimming articles sent by friends on

00:02:03.420 moral issues, on issues relating to politics, to doctrine and theology.

00:02:12.380 They are commenting and engaging on online posts regarding Christian life or Christian

00:02:19.720 issues, and they're probably reading a book or two by a Christian author.

00:02:26.060 And this all happens in one week, and I expect that you as the average listener are one of

00:02:32.800 these people.

00:02:33.820 This podcast is one of those points of content that I'm specifically talking about.

00:02:40.640 Now, that next Sunday, as you enter in to the church, you know, these church members return with hundreds of new influences regarding doctrine and theology and moral issues and political issues and how those interplay with the Christian life, to which the pastor, and that is the spiritual shepherd in your life, the 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1 qualified elder,

00:03:08.980 who is your spiritual guide in your local church, he has to, in a sense, compete with all of these

00:03:20.200 outside influences. And in many cases, he has to help the church member sift through what they've

00:03:29.360 consumed to verify what is true or false. And in addition, just from my own experience,

00:03:37.300 the pastor has to be constantly on guard and really willing to correct and even detox

00:03:44.920 church members from the lies that they learn throughout the week. And in a very real way,

00:03:51.140 you know, the pastor has to help people unlearn the false ideas that they've picked up

00:03:57.840 throughout all of this content consumption. And relearn, that's a little plug for relearn.org

00:04:06.120 there, right? Relearn the Orthodox, biblical, historical Christian faith, the Christian 0.98

00:04:13.620 doctrine. And so I just want to give you guys some perspective of how things have changed in church

00:04:20.080 history for the pastor and for the church member from 100 years ago to today. You know, in the

00:04:27.440 1800s or the 1600s or the 1400s, you know, you would have your pastor and you would hear a sermon

00:04:34.940 and you would just study that sermon and read your Bible based off of what the pastor taught,

00:04:41.120 and any questions you might have had would have been directed maybe to your parents,

00:04:45.340 your father, or a deacon or elder in your church.

00:04:49.000 There would have been no other intense, varying outside spiritual influences

00:04:57.440 competing with the river of truth that comes from your trusted local pastor.

00:05:07.700 And so, as you can see, this is just a daunting task for today's pastors.

00:05:15.380 And in this emotional culture that we live in, people are easily swayed and spiritually impressionable.

00:05:25.860 and this should bring concern for any pastor and it does for me as a pastor for sure and personally

00:05:33.400 I find myself praying regularly for our congregation I pray for their protection against

00:05:38.640 the adoption of heretical or false ideas about God I pray for wisdom and conviction and discernment

00:05:47.240 regarding the truth. I pray for revelation of the doctrines by the Holy Spirit

00:05:55.060 while they are reading the scriptures. I pray for resolve that they're not going to be easily

00:06:02.660 influenced or moved by the attractive yet deceitful and deceptive Christian content 1.00

00:06:09.900 that's all over the internet right now. But the prayer that I pray the most, and I think every 1.00

00:06:18.480 pastor should, and every Christian just needs to know this to pray for themselves, is I pray for

00:06:25.680 an increased appetite to study the Word of God. I'm not talking about a task to do. I'm not

00:06:33.400 talking about a behavior modification to make. Sure, there is some ground in that. But what I'm

00:06:42.600 saying is I don't want you to just go out and just do something more. I want you to have an

00:06:50.000 increased appetite for the Word of God and for understanding sound doctrine and theology.

00:06:57.780 And so that's my prayer for you. And I'll close this podcast today with a prayer, asking God for

00:07:05.580 that for your life. I don't want you to just go read the Bible because I'm telling you to go read

00:07:09.040 the Bible more. I want the Holy Spirit to come in and divinely produce a stronger and intense

00:07:18.120 appetite for the truth. And to seek that out through a variety of means. And so that's part

00:07:29.300 one of what I wanted to talk about, this idea of just having this increased appetite because we're

00:07:34.360 dealing with these things. We have lots of confusion in the church today. We have lots

00:07:40.000 of counterfeits in the church today. And we need solid, sound doctrine. And we need Christians to

00:07:50.560 know where to find that, how to increase biblical literacy, how to increase doctrinal and theological

00:08:00.560 literacy. And I want to give you a few pieces of scripture that would ground my reasoning for doing

00:08:06.880 this. And then I'm actually going to share with you several resources that I think you can take

00:08:15.260 over a year that if God will increase that appetite and you can accomplish these seven 0.60

00:08:22.100 steps that I have, I really think that you will be prepared to stand and defend the Orthodox

00:08:31.540 Christian faith. So let me just talk about two passages of scripture that really call us to do

00:08:36.320 this. So this is not Dale telling you to do this. This is the Holy Spirit, the Word of God tells us

00:08:43.200 to seek out the truth diligently. So 2 Timothy 2.15, I've definitely done sermons or done

00:08:51.800 podcasts on this verse. I don't know exactly which podcasts they were, but if you've been a long-time

00:08:58.640 listener, you've heard me harp on this passage before, you should memorize it. In the ESV, it

00:09:05.600 says, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be

00:09:14.240 ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. This passage is a call to be diligent, to do your best.

00:09:26.040 This isn't to work yourself into oblivion where you're just studying and pouring. I see so many

00:09:35.500 pastors and so many students of the scripture actually study the word so much, they're actually

00:09:40.340 compromising their health, they're compromising their family, they're compromising their priorities

00:09:44.520 in their home. But do your best with what you have. And if you only have, you know, 30 minutes,

00:09:50.940 45 minutes a day that you can fit in right now, work to increase that time, but do your best

00:09:56.080 to present yourself to God as one approved, one that knows the truth, that is prepared to fulfill

00:10:07.760 Great Commission work, to go therefore and make disciples of Jesus Christ. It says a worker who

00:10:15.300 has no need to be ashamed. We are, as Great Commission Christians, workers in the kingdom

00:10:24.560 them in varying degrees. And we have a duty and a call to preach the gospel. And we need to be

00:10:33.980 prepared to do that. And it closes with rightly handling the word of truth. You can handle the

00:10:40.100 truth wrongly. You can handle the scriptures incorrectly. And many people do. So there's a

00:10:46.460 call for doctrinal accuracy and proper interpretation. These are not scholarly

00:10:53.320 issues. These are average Christian issues. You must learn how to interpret the Bible correctly,

00:11:04.060 okay? I just cannot talk about that enough. We as average Christians need to learn how to

00:11:13.520 interpret the Bible. That means you need to understand the basic rules of grammar. You

00:11:18.640 should probably understand the basic structure of an argument or clauses. You should read

00:11:24.100 carefully. You should understand context and history and culture so that you can best extract

00:11:32.420 the meaning faithfully from the scriptures. This next passage is 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17,

00:11:39.920 another one worth memorizing. And again, we need to be memorizing scripture as often as we can,

00:11:45.640 because it's very possible at least the digital Bibles are going to be taken off the shelf. I

00:11:50.500 know that Amazon, I've just recently heard Amazon is starting to eliminate the sales of certain

00:12:00.060 books that stand against political convictions of Amazon. And so I expect that we're going to see

00:12:08.800 a lot of books no longer be carried, at least by secular places, including Bibles. And so I expect

00:12:17.820 that we are going to see a need for an increased memorization of scripture. But 2 Timothy 3, 16

00:12:23.220 through 17, all scripture is breathed out by God. That Greek word is thapnoustos, right? Breathed

00:12:30.580 out. It's his, it comes from within him. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable

00:12:38.040 for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. That is called a

00:12:45.280 purpose clause. Sometimes it'll say, so that. That means why? What's the purpose? Why is it like

00:12:51.500 this? That the man of God, that word man is anthropos in the Greek, and anthropos is mankind,

00:12:57.880 humans. It doesn't necessarily mean male. It just means mankind. That the man of God may be

00:13:05.560 competent, equipped for every good work. Some people have translated that, that the man of

00:13:14.360 God may be complete and prepared and capable, equipped for every good work. The word of God

00:13:27.000 has an ability to equip us for anything that life throws at us. Therefore, we should not let it sit

00:13:36.840 as a dusty book on our shelf or not let it be simply 10 minutes in the morning. I promise you

00:13:46.920 that you will never regret the hours that you pour into the scriptures. One thing I often tell

00:13:55.540 people, it's not how many years you've known the Lord, it's how many hours. And what I mean by that

00:14:00.460 is how many hours do you spend with him? That's really what determines spiritual maturity or

00:14:06.640 biblical literacy. People have been Christians for 25 years, but they spend five minutes every 0.90

00:14:14.800 three days in the Bible. But then there's people who have known the Lord for only two years and

00:14:22.140 spend two hours a day studying and laboring and pouring over the word of God. And so I just want

00:14:27.840 to encourage you that the Bible promises us that the scriptures are enough to complete us and equip

00:14:36.980 us for every good work. And I could teach a whole sermon on that and I got to keep moving on. So

00:14:44.460 again, let me just offer you some useful direction for increasing not only your biblical literacy,

00:14:50.240 but again, your doctrinal and theological literacy. Dr. Stephen Lawson, who's one of my

00:14:57.760 professors at the Master's Seminary, he did a short video for Ligonier titled something like

00:15:04.000 How to Increase My Biblical Literacy. You can find that on YouTube, but it's a simple search

00:15:09.900 and a really good resource. I'll be saying a few things that he says in that video as well.

00:15:14.240 But the first thing that I want to help you distinguish is the difference between reading your Bible and studying your Bible.

00:15:23.580 Reading is really just understanding the narrative, the story of Scripture, while studying is understanding the implications of Scripture, the connection of Scripture, the theological claims, the, you know, what does this mean for me?

00:15:37.160 How does this actually have jurisdiction in the way that I change my behavior or think

00:15:42.160 or form my ideas about God?

00:15:45.620 And you need both.

00:15:46.660 You need to read and enjoy.

00:15:48.420 That's why there's really wonderful reader's Bibles that you would actually just read to

00:15:52.480 enjoy.

00:15:53.240 And then there's actually study Bibles.

00:15:55.260 There's exegetical Bibles.

00:15:56.660 There's, you know, Bibles that'll help you understand some of the cultural and historical

00:16:02.040 issues that are going on in the Bible.

00:16:04.920 But again, you need both.

00:16:06.620 Now, I want to offer you guys seven resources that I believe will catapult any Christian far beyond the average churchgoer, the average Christian, and that'll equip you for being ready to face the onslaught of false ideas in the church with conviction, boldness, and sound arguments.

00:16:27.160 And unfortunately, we have so many Christians that are not sitting under the regular, faithful, expository preaching of the Word of God from qualified elders on a weekly basis. 1.00

00:16:44.560 There's so many unchurched or underchurched or nomadic Christians in the world right now 1.00

00:16:51.920 that we often need some of these supplemental resources to help frame up and form up our 1.00

00:16:59.580 correct theology. And I want to offer those tools to you now. Again, there's nothing better than

00:17:06.660 just making sure that you are in a faithful church, a good Bible church, I would say a

00:17:14.140 good Reformed Bible church, a Reformed Baptist church, or a faithful Reformed Presbyterian

00:17:21.640 church, this is critical to be under expository preaching on a regular basis.

00:17:28.920 If you don't know what expository preaching is, I did an episode with Dr. Stephen Lawson

00:17:34.140 a few episodes back on expository preaching. You could also listen to his preaching. You

00:17:39.360 can also listen to Dr. John MacArthur's preaching on a regular basis. He does episodes on the

00:17:45.360 podcast. I think it's the pulpit podcast is what it's called every single week. And in

00:17:50.300 my opinion, Dr. MacArthur is the greatest expositor of our time era and will be viewed

00:17:56.500 that way in church history for all of time. He is a fantastic, gifted, called expository preacher.

00:18:06.300 And I think if you just use him as an example that you can measure your church experience against,

00:18:14.900 I think that'll be very helpful for you. You can also use their website. They have

00:18:19.900 on their website, I think it's the Master Seminary, or it might be at Grace Community Church,

00:18:24.780 other churches that are associated with their church, or men that have graduated from the

00:18:29.680 Master's Seminary and have now planted churches, you could find a church directory there.

00:18:34.160 So those are some great resources for you to check out as well. But these seven resources,

00:18:39.400 okay, so I'm going to give you seven of them. And I think if you can do these over a one-year

00:18:44.160 period, it'll absolutely put your maturity, your spiritual maturity into overdrive and put you at

00:18:53.900 a place where you probably already should be. But we are so, again, anemic, lacking regular

00:19:01.400 expository preaching, lacking regular biblical church community, lacking teaching on doctrine

00:19:12.080 and theology. We need supplements. And sadly, we have thousands and thousands of options for us

00:19:21.100 and supplements with all the podcasts and the articles. So I'm just going to narrow it down

00:19:26.340 to some really great resources that I've used over the years that I have taught to the people

00:19:32.140 in my church, that I have taught to the students at our school at Reformation Seminary. So number

00:19:39.020 one, step one, buy a study Bible. And I'm going to give you two study Bibles. Buy the MacArthur

00:19:47.320 study Bible in the NASB, if you can, or the ESV study Bible. And if you have not read the entire

00:19:57.800 Bible, Genesis to Revelation, I want you to do that in one year. And I want you to read the Old

00:20:04.280 Testament. They're called OTI and NTI, Old Testament introductions and New Testament

00:20:08.900 introductions, and read them. There's one at every book. All 66 books have an Old Testament

00:20:15.040 introduction or a New Testament introduction. It's about one page, gives you the background,

00:20:19.720 the overview, the audience, the author, et cetera. I want you to read those and read the entire Bible.

00:20:26.860 You don't need to read all the commentaries, but the commentaries below are available for you if

00:20:31.520 you get stuck on something or see something that you have a question about. I just encourage you,

00:20:37.020 step one, if you haven't read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation straight through,

00:20:41.920 please do that. That's step number one. Step number two, I want you to read a book on how

00:20:53.540 to interpret the Bible. And I want you to start that book at the same time when you start your

00:21:01.880 Bible reading. And my favorite book on interpretation, I think is a simple first step.

00:21:08.460 It's not overwhelming. It's on the concept and the discipline of hermeneutics, which is the art

00:21:13.560 and science of biblical interpretation, but it's not overwhelming. And you can read this. It's

00:21:19.780 called Grasping God's Word. And I want you to get the fourth edition on Amazon. This will be a great

00:21:25.780 tool for you to learn how to interpret the Bible properly. Okay. Number three, I want you to read

00:21:32.500 a book on biblical theology. This is the theology that basically shows that scripture is one

00:21:41.020 unified story from Genesis to Revelation that is preparing you for and pointing you to Jesus

00:21:47.320 Christ. And there is a simple, small, short, little purple book called Biblical Theology

00:21:54.240 by nine marks that you can buy on Amazon as well. I'm talking maybe 110 pages, very short.

00:22:02.660 So I want you to understand biblical theology. I want you to buy and read Wayne Grudem's

00:22:11.100 Systematic Theology. Now, I don't agree with everything in Grudem's Systematic Theology,

00:22:16.300 but I agree with a lot of it. And he is a trusted resource. He's over, I believe,

00:22:22.480 at the Phoenix Seminary in Arizona.

00:22:25.560 This is a longer book.

00:22:27.860 You're going to read this again

00:22:29.060 in tandem with your Bible reading.

00:22:30.900 It'll take you probably several months

00:22:32.260 to get through it

00:22:32.860 if you have a decent pace.

00:22:34.420 It is a vital resource

00:22:37.740 for you to understand

00:22:39.060 how the systems of theology

00:22:43.000 work together,

00:22:45.420 how soteriology works

00:22:47.420 with God's providence

00:22:48.540 and the doctrine of God.

00:22:49.700 And you just need to understand that.

00:22:51.540 And so I could talk too much about that, but again, read Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology.

00:22:57.920 Number four, I want you to read all 150 psalms all the way through.

00:23:05.620 I want you to do that twice in 30 days.

00:23:09.560 Okay, the psalms are so rich in understanding the character of God.

00:23:16.820 There is just no replacement for doing that.

00:23:19.340 So I want you to just read the Psalms all the way through, all 150 Psalms twice, and I want you to do that in 30 days.

00:23:27.740 Number six, I want you to read John, Romans, and Ephesians, and I want you to read them 10 times each over 90 days.

00:23:37.560 Now that's a lot. Before I preach on a book, I try to read it if I can, depending on the timeline, I try to read it 10 times before I preach on it.

00:23:46.080 I think John MacArthur has even said that he's might even tried to read it 25 to 50 times before he would preach on it. So if you can, this is, again, I think just the ultimate setup for you just taking your spiritual maturity, your biblical literacy from zero up to 90 or from 25 up to 90, right?

00:24:11.980 read John Romans and Ephesians. Those are some of the, I think those three books are the towers

00:24:19.120 of core New Testament gospel theology. And then number seven, I want you to read the 1689

00:24:28.720 London Baptist Confession of Faith. And you can order a copy of that in modern English

00:24:36.100 at founders.org. It's like less than five bucks to buy it. So again, step one, buy the MacArthur

00:24:43.640 Study Bible or ESV Study Bible, read the entire Bible. Step two, read the book on biblical

00:24:48.940 interpretation, grasping God's word. Step three, read the book on biblical theology. Step four,

00:24:54.880 read Wayne Grudem's systematic theology. Step five, read all 150 Psalms twice in 30 days.

00:25:03.100 Number six, read John, Romans, Ephesians, 10 times each over 90 days.

00:25:08.120 Number seven, read the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

00:25:12.320 You can order it again at founders.org.

00:25:14.740 It's short.

00:25:15.520 I think it's like 80 pages.

00:25:17.460 It's a shorter, but it's a small book.

00:25:19.060 But it will give you a robust understanding of the historical confessions.

00:25:25.100 that is what we have believed to be true, organized, written down collection of what is the faith,

00:25:37.280 what is the Christian faith. J.C. Ryle once said, we should no more tolerate false doctrine

00:25:44.980 than we would tolerate sin. Meaning that the same effort that you exert to examine if any sin is in

00:25:52.780 your life should be put forth in examining if you have any heresy in your mind. We need to be

00:25:59.060 careful that we aren't believing false doctrine. And the reality is, is that at some degree,

00:26:06.540 all of us are holding some sort of false ideas, but we are working diligently and prayerfully

00:26:12.880 to get to that orthodox truth. And there are some areas that are mysteries. There are some areas

00:26:19.780 that you have godly men and women who would have two different perspectives on the same passage.

00:26:28.340 So, but we do need to be in a pursuit just as equal to eradicate sin from our lives as we are

00:26:33.220 to eradicate false doctrine or just ignorance, you know, doctrinal ignorance from our minds as well.

00:26:41.620 John MacArthur said, people always say to me that doctrine and theology are divisive

00:26:47.860 to which I respond, yes, they are. They divide the truth from error. And I think that's a wonderful

00:26:55.040 perspective is that when we have doctrine, yes, it'll divide you from people, but what it's really

00:27:01.540 doing is dividing truth and error. And we are entering, guys, as I close here, an era of

00:27:09.020 Christianity that will not sustain you if you hold to false ideas about God. When the suffering

00:27:16.500 comes, when the persecution comes, when the affliction comes, you're not going to be able

00:27:20.460 to stand. You're not going to be able to view those things, I should say, through the lens

00:27:26.860 of Scripture and peace and clarity. And if you can't do this, you're going to either

00:27:32.100 fall or compromise or shudder or crack under the pressure of the coming times for the Christian

00:27:38.920 church. Now is the time to solidify the cement of your doctrine and theology, to prepare your hearts

00:27:47.580 for the increasing hostility against the church. I'll close with a Richard Baxter quote.

00:27:55.660 He says, why are not our hearts continually set upon heaven? Why dwell we not there in contrast?

00:28:06.160 why are not our hearts continually set on heaven why dwell not there in constant contemplation

00:28:15.820 bend thy soul to study eternity busy thyself about the life to come habituate thyself to

00:28:24.340 such contemplations and let not those thoughts be seldom or cursory but bathe thyself in heaven's

00:28:31.300 delights. I love a reading from the Puritans. They remind us of that desire for heavenly things.

00:28:39.720 Guys, if you're a regular listener to the show, thank you. You guys can follow us on Instagram

00:28:44.960 and Twitter. You can look at at Dale Partridge for Twitter. I'm putting out content there

00:28:50.120 about a daily basis. On Instagram, we're putting out content every single day and Facebook just

00:28:56.060 at relearn.org. You could find us there. If you're a regular listener, also thank you for those who

00:29:01.900 have left a review. If you have not left a review for this podcast, please do so. The reviews

00:29:07.820 absolutely help the exposure of this show. You don't even need to write anything. You can just

00:29:13.180 tap the stars. But if you do write something, I will read it. I have been encouraged by those

00:29:16.900 of you who have left those reviews. On that note, thank you for joining us on this episode of Real

00:29:22.320 Christianity. Again, I'm your host, Dale Partridge. We'll see you next week.

00:29:52.320 biblical house church by visiting relearn.org forward slash house. Lastly, do you have a

00:29:57.760 theological question you would like answered on the show? Submit your question at relearn.org

00:30:02.460 forward slash question. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Real Christianity.

00:30:06.860 We will see you next Wednesday.

Dale Partridge - May 26, 2021

Real Christianity #148： 7 Essentials For Biblical Literacy

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