Living by the Book/Living by the Book Workbook Set (25 page)

You will have a reward: when you do your righteous act to be seen by men, that will be your reward. But it will not be observed by the Father, Jesus says.

Then He moves from that general principle to three specific illustrations. First in the area of giving (vv. 2–4), then in the area of praying (vv. 5–15), and then in the area of fasting (vv. 16–18).

Another beautiful example of this movement from the general to the specific can be found in Genesis 1. Verse 1 gives you an overview: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

If the account ended there, you wouldn’t have any of the details on how God created the heavens and the earth. You would just know that He did. But the rest of the chapter fills in the specifics: on day one, He created light (vv.
3–5); on day two He separated the water from the skies (vv. 6–8); on day three He formed the dry land and vegetation (vv. 9–13); and so on.

Whenever you come across a broad, general statement in Scripture, look to see whether the writer follows with specific details that flesh it out in some way.

The question is one of the most powerful tools of communication. If I ask you a question, doesn’t it more or less force you to think? Sure it does. Granted, if someone only asks questions and never provides answers, that can be very frustrating. You begin to wonder whether he knows what he’s talking about. But we’re going to discover that the biblical writers employ both— strategic questions and helpful answers.

The book of Romans is a classic example. It is written like a legal treatise, as if Paul were a lawyer. He’s constantly raising questions and then answering them. For example, look in Romans 6:1: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” (NIV). Then he answers that question: “By no means!”

At verse 15 he again uses a rhetorical question: “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” (NIV). That’s the question. Again the answer is, “By no means,” and he goes on to spell it out in detail.

Sometimes the question itself carries so much weight that it needs no answer. Have you ever looked over the barrage of questions that God fires at Job? “Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me!” (Job 38:3).

“I will ask you!” That’s sarcasm. God launches into a cascade of questions that continues for two chapters, until Job briefly interrupts (40:3–5). Then the torrent starts again. They are questions that carry their own answers.

How about the pointed questions that our Lord throws at the disciples: “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matthew 6:27, NIV). Or, “Why are you so timid? How is it that you have no faith?” (Mark 4:40). Or how about, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour?” (Matthew 26:40).

Questions and answers demand your attention. They are important keys to help you unlock a text.

This is the principle of the billiard balls. You strike the cue ball with your cue (that’s the cause) in order to knock the colored balls into the pockets (that’s the effect). In Scripture we find all kinds of cause-effect relationships ricocheting around the text.

I want to point out a dynamic illustration of that in the latter part of Acts 8:1: “On that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem.” You are led to ask, what day? Checking the preceding context, you find that it was the day when Stephen had been martyred. That intensified the persecution, and all the believers except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. But verse 4 says, “Those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.”

In other words, the persecution was the cause, and the preaching was the effect. The believers didn’t stand around, crying, “What in the world is God doing to us now? Here we prayed that He would use us, and now all we’ve got is persecution.” No, they used the pressure as a means of leverage to get the gospel out to the ends of the earth.

In
chapter 18
we studied a paragraph from Nehemiah 1. Remember Nehemiah’s prayer? He reminded God of some promises that He had made back in the books that Moses had written. God had said that if the people disobeyed Him, He would eventually send them into exile. Sure enough, the people disobeyed (that was the cause), and God had kept His promise by allowing the Babylonians to carry them away (that was the effect).

As a matter of fact, Nehemiah was banking on that cause-effect relationship, because God had also promised that if the people repented (cause), He would return them to the land (effect). That’s why Nehemiah was so interested in confessing his sin and the sin of his people. Did God respond? Yes, and He used Nehemiah to fulfill His promise.

What promises of God are you banking on? For instance, Psalm 1 says that the person who plants himself in the counsel of God’s Word will flourish like a well-watered tree. Notice, that’s a direct cause-effect link between
Scripture and God’s blessing. Are you experiencing that effect? The real question is, are you activating the cause by delighting and meditating, as it says, in what God has said?

As you do, look for things that are emphasized, things that are repeated, and as we’ve seen in this chapter, things that are related.

T
wo of my six granddaughters are identical twins. In fact, they look so much alike that I can hardly tell them apart. Neither can their father half the time. Especially when they were little girls and out in public, you could see strangers reacting to them as if seeing double. People would point and remark, “Look! Look! Twins.” Why is that? Because the moment you see two of anything alike—especially when you least expect it—the similarity immediately draws your attention.

The same phenomenon is true in Bible study. Similarities stick out. And so do contrasts. That’s why the fourth and fifth clues to look for whenever you observe Scripture are:

We’ve assigned things that are emphasized to the thumb, things repeated to the index finger, and things related to the middle finger. So things alike can go with the ring finger, and things unlike with the little finger.

The biblical writers give you a number of terms that flag similarities. The two most common expressions to look for are
as
and
like
. They indicate a figure of speech called a simile, which is a word picture that draws a comparison between two things.

For instance, Psalm 42 begins, “
As
the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for Thee, O God” (v. 1, italics added). That’s a grabbing image, isn’t it? It creates atmosphere. The psalmist compares his longing for God to a hot, thirsty deer.

Think back to 1 Peter 2:2, a verse that we saw earlier when we asked the question, Why study the Bible for ourselves? Peter uses a simile: “
Like
newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation” (italics added). Peter draws a poignant comparison between the appetite of a baby for its mother’s milk, and the appetite of the believer for the nourishment of God’s Word.

Consider one more comparison—actually, a comparison that cannot be made. In Isaiah 44:6–7, the Lord asks a pointed question:

Answer: nobody. God alone is God, uniquely supreme and sovereign. But the word
like
, which ordinarily signals similarity, in this case heightens the contrast.

A device related to the simile is the metaphor, where comparison is made without using
as
or
like
. Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and My father is the vinedresser” (John 15:1). He’s obviously talking figuratively, not literally. He’s painting a picture that illustrates His relationship to the Father, and, as the passage develops, to believers as well.