Living by the Book/Living by the Book Workbook Set (27 page)

Often we study or teach Scripture as if it were some academic lesson, rather than real life. No wonder so many of us are bored with our Bibles. We’re missing out on the best lessons of God’s Word by failing to pick up on the experience of the people in it.

Let me mention a few individuals that I think help us see the text in realistic terms. What I love about the Bible is that it always returns me to reality. It never paints its characters with whitewash. If necessary, it hangs the dirty laundry right out the front window to tell me what really happened.

In Genesis 22:2, God says to Abraham, “Take your son, I mean your only son, I mean the one whom you love, the seed—and offer him up as a sacrifice.” So Abraham starts walking up Mount Moriah with his son, Isaac, who is about twenty-two years old. Isaac says to him, “Hey, Dad, we’ve got the wood. We’ve
got the fire. But where’s the sacrifice?” Abraham knows that his son is to be the sacrifice. How do you suppose he felt? How would you feel?

Moses was an incredible leader, probably the quintessential leader of all time. But he never gets into the Promised Land. Why? Because he struck a rock twice (Numbers 20:1–13). One act of bad temper, and he’s eliminated from going in. How did that punishment affect him? How might it have made him feel toward God? Toward life? (See Psalm 90.) How do I respond to the consequences of my own sin?

Noah was a man of great righteousness. In a generation shot through with wickedness, he obeyed God and thereby saved his family from the Flood. And yet the account tells me that he also got dead drunk (Genesis 9:20–21). I think,
How was this possible?
Well, the Scriptures paint him not as a perfect individual but as a real, live person. Righteous? Honored by God? Absolutely. But also failing, weak, and sinful. What insight does that shed on me?

Of all the biblical characters, King David is probably my favorite to study. He is brilliant and gifted in so many fields. He’s almost the ultra-competent individual. I don’t know about you, but whenever I study a person such as him, I almost feel inferior. Not only is he a great warrior, not only is he a great athlete, not only is he a great poet and musician, he’s also a great leader. He seems to have it all. He’s the one person in Scripture that God describes as “a man after [My] own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14).

Yet this choice man of God is shot down in flames one day, when he’s home instead of out on the battlefield with his troops. It only takes one woman to wipe him out. What is the Spirit of God saying to us by including this tragedy in the narrative? What warning does it give us? What flags does it wave about our humanity?

The reason most of us like Peter is that he reminds us so much of ourselves. Every time we want to write him off we realize, “Good night, he’s saying or doing exactly what I would have said or done.” For instance, he’s willing to take on a hundred men single-handedly to rescue the Lord (John 18:10). Yet one servant girl comes up and says, “Hey, weren’t you one of His disciples?”

He keeps repeating, “Who, me?”

“I know you were one of them,” she insists.

“Drop dead, woman,” he tells her. “I don’t know what in the world you’re talking about.”

So finally she says, “I recognize the accent. You’ve got a Galilean accent. You were one of the disciples, weren’t you?”

And Peter starts swearing and cursing at this young woman.

When we back up and look at that incident, we wonder, Who is saying that? Why, the man who told Jesus, “You can count on me.” But at the moment of crisis he failed—just as you or I might have. Peter was human.

John Mark is one of those characters that you are liable to lose because so little is said about him. He starts out with Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey. They sail from the coast of Palestine over to Cyprus and then eventually to Asia Minor. And as soon as they hit the mainland, John Mark takes off for home (Acts 13:13).

Later Paul and Barnabas decide to take another journey, and Barnabas suggests, “Let’s take John Mark.” But Paul says, “No way. We’re not taking him. He flushed out the last time, and I don’t want to run that chance again.” The text says that they had such a strong disagreement that they parted company (Acts 15:36–39).

It’s not until the end of Paul’s life that he writes, “Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service” (2 Timothy 4:11). How in the world did John Mark become useful? It certainly wasn’t through Paul. No, it was Barnabas who took him and developed him and made him into a person that God could use.

There’s a ring of authenticity to the accounts of all of these people. But
it’s easy to miss if your eyes are not looking for things that are true to life. When you study the Word of God, make sure you plug it into real life. Then you will discover that the people in the biblical narrative are just like you and me. They are cut out of the same bolt of human cloth.

Well, there you have them: six clues to look for every time you open your Bible.

Is there biblical precedent for asking those questions? I think so. Consider Proverbs 20:12. It’s the most “audiovisual” passage in the Bible: “The hearing ear [that’s the audio component] and the seeing eye [that’s the visual component], the Lord has made both of them.”

On the basis of this verse, your task is clear: Learn to listen. Learn to look.

I
n this chapter we come to the college department in the school of Observation. Remember that we started out with a verse, Acts 1:8. That was a piece of cake. Then we moved up to a paragraph, Nehemiah 1:4–11, where we observed a collection of verses revolving around a common theme, Nehemiah’s prayer.

Now we’re going to look at what is called a segment, a collection of paragraphs united by a common theme. First I’m going to go through a section, to show you what observation looks like on that scale. Then I’ll list some specific suggestions to help you observe biblical sections on your own.

The section we’re going to look at is Mark 4–5. I encourage you to open your Bible there, as the passage is too lengthy to reprint here. Take a few minutes now to read those two chapters before proceeding.

Actually we have two segments in this portion. Mark 4:1–34 contains what I call the parable segment. Notice that chapter 4 begins with Jesus teaching by
the Sea of Galilee. Verse 2 tells us, “He was teaching them many things in parables.” So this is a teaching situation, and parables are the main medium of communication. In fact, in verses 33–34 we read,

Then, beginning at 4:35 and continuing through 5:43, we have the miracle segment. This involves a series of four miracles: the miracle of the storm (4:35–41); the miracle of the demoniac (5:1–20); the miracle of the hemorrhaging woman (5:25–34); and the miracle of Jairus’ daughter (5:21–24, 35–43). What can you observe about the order in which Mark has related these? Notice that they are arranged climactically.

Now looking over the parables, what key expression is repeated? “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (4:9, 23). I still remember the first time I came across that. I thought,
What in the world does that mean?
After all, what else would you do with ears? Since then I’ve discovered that people do all kinds of things with their ears—put earrings on them, collect wax, everything but hear.

I’ll let you examine this first segment in detail on your own.

After Jesus finishes the teaching, He moves into the testing. You see, He was a great teacher: He gave tests. But not the kind of tests we give in schools today, to see how much a student can cram into his brain and then spill out on an exam. When Jesus gave tests He tested at the reality level, at the level of life-experience. So we can say that the first thirty-four verses of chapter 4 represent the lecture; then things move into the laboratory. Jesus knew that you learn faith, not in a lecture, but in the laboratory of life.

I want to focus on the four miracles, and I want to do it in a rather unique fashion. You are going to make a lot of discoveries in the Observation phase of your Bible study. But that poses a problem: how can you organize the material in order to make efficient use of it? Let me suggest one strategy, drawn above. It’s called a
grid chart
. When we have a lot of paragraphs and a lot of material, as we do here, a grid chart can help us summarize it in a manageable way.

Mark 4:35–5:42

We can list the four miracles down the left-hand column on
page 178
. Then we can compare them in five areas, as listed across the top: What was the realm in which the miracle took place? Who were the people involved? What means did Christ use to effect the miracle? What was the result? And finally—and most important, in light of the parables section—what was the component of faith?

Let’s begin with the stilling of the storm (4:35–41). Clearly that takes place in the physical realm. So we can write that on the chart. They are out on the lake when a tremendous storm comes up, and Jesus calms the storm.

What about the demoniac? That’s a bit more difficult to say. Without question he was demon possessed, which is largely a spiritual problem. But I think most people would say that as a result he was mentally deranged and had a psychological problem.

What about the woman with the hemorrhage? She had an obvious physical
affliction. But after trying for twelve years to find someone to help her, there was probably an emotional need there as well.

What about the raising of Jairus’s daughter? It really involves all three— physical, emotional, and spiritual. That’s important to observe. It’s why this miracle climaxes the section.

You see, someone could say about the stilling of the storm, “Well, that was just a fascinating coincidence.” Someone else could say of the demoniac, “He lived before the days of psychiatric help. We could solve his problem if he were living today.” Likewise, someone could say of the woman, “All she needed was a good gynecologist.” But what can you say about the raising of Jairus’s daughter? Who’s solving that problem today? I don’t find many people out at the local cemetery bringing them back.

So the four miracles are arranged climactically: Jesus not only has power over the mental, the psychological, and the physical, He also has power over death.

Let’s move on to the people involved. Notice who experienced the stilling of the storm—the disciples. A number of them had been fishermen. It’s very important to notice the connection between the realm of the miracle and the people involved in it. This was not a group of seminary professors scared spitless that the boat was going down. It was a group of professional fishermen. They had lived on this lake and seen storms before.