Knowable Word

Helping ordinary people learn to study the Bible

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Top 10 Posts of 2019—Written in 2019

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Many bloggers take advantage of this time of the year to reflect on their most popular posts. Now we know there is a time to follow the crowd (Zech 8:23), and a time not to follow the crowd (Ex 23:2). And I believe the present time to be akin to the former and not the latter. So here we go.

This post lists the top 10 viewed posts this year, from among the posts we wrote this year. Next week, we’ll list the top 10 viewed posts from the full KW archive. May these lists enable you to be warm and well fed while you celebrate the season with joy and delight.

10. Did Jesus’ Ministry Last 3 Years?

This post asks the question posed in the title. And while Jesus’ ministry could have had a duration of 3 years, it is far from certain in light of the biblical data. “The Bible doesn’t tell us exactly how many years Jesus spent with his disciples, going about doing good and healing. So we ought not to casually assert a three-year timeline as though it were self-evident.”

9. Bible Study Leaders Should Not Have All the Answers

Claiming to have (or attempting to have) all the answers is bad for both the group and the leader. Beware the guru. Resist becoming a crutch to your people. Let them learn to ride this bike of Bible study.

8. Context Matters: I Never Knew You; Depart from Me

When we learn to read the Bible properly—and not merely as a collection of isolated quotes or arbitrary threats—we’ll find that some of our most familiar sayings have more nuance or qualification than we typically assume. This year, we sought to address many Bible verses that are often used or quoted in isolation from their context. The results of careful, contextual study often astound. See here for many more examples.

7. New and Old Garments

All three synoptic gospels mention Jesus’ parable of the new and old garments. This year was the first time, however, that I noticed that Luke’s version says something quite different than Matthew’s or Mark’s. I wrote this post to give an example of the necessity and difficulty of overcoming ignorant familiarity to really observe what’s there.

6. Three Approaches to Ecclesiastes

Just as you’d expect, this post describes three quite different approaches to the book of Ecclesiastes. Your approach might depend on how you’ve heard others teach the book. But which approach (if any) seems most likely when you observe the text itself?

5. What does “Meaningless / Vanity / Futility” Mean in Ecclesiastes?

This post followed up on #4, and ended up being viewed just a shade more times. The approach you take toward the book of Ecclesiastes is closely connected to how you understand the word translated as “meaningless,” “vanity,” or “futility.”

4. Did Jesus Walk Through Walls?

He certainly could have. But the Scripture nowhere says he did. Why does it matter? “Simply the fact that traditions snowball over time, with the end result of making void the Word of God (Mark 7:13). In this case, the tradition has led many to speculate on the physical properties of either the resurrection body or the new heavens and the new earth. This can lead many to make too sharp a division between the “natural” and the “spiritual”—and then we use those adjectives more like Plato than like Paul, which promotes unbiblical asceticism (Col 2:20-23), among other things.” You can see more on the topic, including what some ancient commentators had to say, here.

3. Why was Baby Jesus Laid in a Manger?

Though published only a week ago, this post skyrocketed to the #3 slot on this list. Maybe for some reason, people are thinking about the Christmas story this time of year? Of course, an a la carte link from Tim Challies really helps as well. Just keep in mind that the way Luke would answer this question might not be the same way you and I would want to answer it.

2. A Sermon Notes Sheet for Young Children

There is a huge jump in traffic from post #3 to this post (from about 5,000 views to 10,000 views). And for good reason. This sermon notes sheet created by my co-blogger Ryan is fantastic. My own children use it every week, to great profit. Perhaps yours would benefit from it as well. And here is Ryan’s sermon notes sheet for older children. Please take them and revise them to make them work for you and your kids! It’s a noble task to train your children to listen to the sermon.

1. Context Matters: God Will Give You the Desires of Your Heart

And just eking past the children’s sermon notes sheet for the #1 slot is our most popular “context matters” post of the year. Yes, God promises to give you the desires of your heart. But only when your heart is delighting in Him. The promise is a promise of more of Himself. The best thing He could possibly offer.

The Gospels are Reliable Documents

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Scholar Craig Keener has a great piece at Influence Magazine on the reliability of the Gospels. With clarity and relative brevity, he covers:

  • Four reasons we can trust the Gospels:
    1. Across the theological spectrum, most scholars today recognize the Gospels are ancient biographies.
    2. The Gospels are from within living memory.
    3. The overlap shows their dependence on and respect for sources.
    4. The Gospels retain elements from Jesus’ time and location.
  • Responses to four common objections:
    1. There are differences among the Synoptics.
    2. The Gospels include miracles.
    3. The Gospels include demons.
    4. Jesus made predictions.

If you have questions about whether we can trust these ancient documents, or if you have a friend with such questions, this article is a great place to start.

Check it out!

Unbelief, and Not Busyness, is What Keeps You from the Word

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Please do check out this piece by Rachel Jankovic on “Lies That Keep Women from the Word.” Nobody neglects to take a shower, eat a meal, or put on underwear because they are too busy to do so. Such things never fail, because we assume that we must do them, like it or not. They are part of life.

So why does “busyness” become an excuse for not devouring the words of eternal life?

Imagine if you thought that in order for a green bean to nourish you, you had to eat it in a calm place with nice lighting and no kids. What if a shower cleaned you only when you had a journal on hand to write about it? Or what if toothpaste worked only in Instagrammable moments?

Many Christian women do without the word of God. We have set our standards so unbiblically high for the moments in which we will read the Bible that we have devalued the word itself. The value of the Bible is not in the accessories we bring to it. It is not in study guides and long talks with friends. The nourishment of the word is not found in our organization, or in our self-discipline, or in our achievement of any kind. The word has priceless value without us — and we are invited to partake of it all the time.

At its heart this issue is not an issue of whether we will make time for God’s word. It is an issue of what we believe God’s word to be and do.

If you have recognized yourself in any of this, I would like to invite you to make a change. Not a change of increased intentionality or thoughtfulness. A change to start believing in faith that the Bible really is what it says it is. We call ourselves Christians — and Christ himself said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).

As Ryan has written, you have enough time to study the Bible. We always do what we want to do. And Jankovic will help you to address the underlying beliefs that get in the way.

Check it out!

Why 2 Chronicles is the Most Underrated Book in the Bible

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Andrew Wilson has a thought-provoking piece at the Gospel Coalition on “Why 2 Chronicles is the Most Underrated Book in the Bible.”

Second Chronicles is the most underrated book in Scripture.

Partly this is because its prequel gets off to a slow start. The lengthy genealogy of 1 Chronicles 1–9 is extremely boring for most modern readers, even though it plays a crucial role in the author’s overall project. The final chapters of 1 Chronicles also go into extensive detail on priestly and musical responsibilities, which take a fairly committed theologian or animated worship leader to get enthusiastic about. So by the time people reach 2 Chronicles, they are ready to regard the chronicler as a pedantic, laborious bean-counter who cannot seem to get out of the weeds.

And partly it’s because it seems to repeat the content of 1 and 2 Kings, but with Elijah and Elisha taken out. (Elijah does make a brief appearance in 2 Chronicles, but there is no Mount Carmel, no still small voices or miraculous meals or stolen vineyards or fiery chariots ascending into the sky.) The temple building is still there, and the ups and downs of good and bad kings are still there, but the action heroes have been edited out. A dismissive reader could think the chronicler is trying to make life difficult for us.

This setup explains why 2 Chronicles is easy to overlook, but Wilson goes on to explain the glorious themes of redemption through priest, king, and prophet woven masterfully through the book. For example:

Priests lead the people spiritually by leading them in worship, through music, song, praise, and prayer. And they guard the presence of God as gatekeepers, preventing people from unauthorized entry to the sanctuary, whether to offer sacrifice (like Uzziah) or to pilfer the gold to buy off their enemies (like Ahaz). Elders have a lot to learn from the way priests carry out their duties, and from what happens when they don’t.

There is much here worthy of your consideration.

Check it out!

5 Ways to Read More of the Bible

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J.A. Medders has some terrific advice to help you read more of the Bible. At its core, his essential counsel cannot be improved on: Just read the Bible. But we have so many expectations regarding what Bible reading time should look like, that we often fail to read simply because we can’t meet our accumulated expectations!

So Medders offers 2 rejections and 3 practices to encourage you to just read.

  1. Reject needing the Instagrammable scenario (you don’t need an undistracted 30 minutes or a perfect cup of coffee; just read).
  2. Reject the checkbox (you don’t need to wait for enough time to complete a predetermined selection of text; just read).
  3. Read on your phone (make use of technology and downtime; it is no less valuable or spiritual).
  4. Read without study speed bumps (just keep going and don’t feel like the time is wasted if you don’t look into every curiosity).
  5. Read in community (“teamwork makes the dream work”).

This is great and encouraging advice. Just keep reading, and God will use it.

Check it out!

Preaching the Work of the Holy Spirit

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The campus ministry I serve, DiscipleMakers, recently held its annual Fall Conference in Harrisburg, PA. Our topic this year was the Trinity, and our keynote sessions worked their way through Ephesians 1.

Of particular note was the talk on Eph 1:13-14 on the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is often either the most forgotten or the most misunderstood member of the Trinity. And my colleague Dave Royes did an exceptional job explaining the person and work of the Spirit from this text in Ephesians.

This talk is exceptional for a number of reasons. David’s presentation, of course, is compelling. And his handling of the text (his skill in Bible study) is both expert and imitable. You can, in fact, try this at home in your own Bible study:

  • He observes the grammar and structure of the passage, landing the weight of his interpretation where the author places weight.
  • He takes his observations and interrogates them with insightful interpretive questions to figure out the meaning.
  • He correlates the text with many other Scriptures, particularly following the organic connections signaled by allusion or echo.
  • He applies the text quite personally and specifically to head, heart, and hands.

Here is world-class Bible study, which I eagerly commend to you for both nourishment and imitation.

You can find more audio and video from the conference here. Check it out!

The Importance of Isaiah’s Servant Songs

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J. Nicholas Reid presents a compelling devotional of Isaiah’s Servant Songs, where he first zooms in to observe each of the four songs before zooming out to consider their impact on the New Testament.

Some of the most memorable questions in the New Testament are answered in relation to the Servant Songs. Whether it is the eunuch asking Phillip if the fourth song is about Isaiah or someone else (Acts 8), or John the Baptist sending his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Luke 7:20), the significance of these songs cannot be overstated. “Phillip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35).

Here is much worth considering. Check it out!

When “Literal” Interpretation is Not as Straightforward as it Seems

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Michael Heiser makes a helpful point in his article on “How to (Mis)Interpret Prophecy”:

“There’s no shortage of advice on how to interpret the Bible. One maxim … advises, “When the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense.” I’ve heard it quoted when it comes to biblical prophecy—encouraging people to interpret literally, at face value. Although that sounds like good advice, some New Testament writers didn’t get the memo.

Heiser then analyzes James’s use of Amos 9 in the Jerusalem council, recorded in Acts 15, where James (and Luke, the narrator) appears to take a non-literal approach to the fulfillment of Amos’s prophecy.

There are textual and translation issues involved as well, which Heiser briefly sorts out. But Heiser does well with this example to show us that “Interpreting biblical prophecy cannot be distilled to a simple maxim, and everything cannot be taken literally. The New Testament shows us otherwise.”

Check it out!

Advice for Awkward Moments in Bible Studies

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Megan Hill interviews three women’s Bible study leaders for practical counsel on how to handle awkward moments in group meetings. They address situations such as excessive talking, direct challenge to the leader, off-topic questions, and theological hobby horses.

These seasoned leaders have some great thoughts on how to serve all the members of the group in such challenging situations. Check it out!

HT: Andy Cimbala

Do You Handle the Word Rightly When You Teach Children?

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“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

We think of pastors needing to handle the word of truth rightly. We think of seminary professors and Sunday school teachers needing to handle the word of truth rightly. But do we think of parents, or anyone else who teaches children, as needing to handle the word of truth rightly?

Alison Mitchell thinks so. In a fabulous article at GoThereFor.com, she argues that 2 Tim 2:15 applies to all Bible teachers, including those who would teach children. Including those who teach children Bible stories. Including those who read storybook Bibles to children.

To help you obey this command, Mitchell offers 6 suggestions:

  1. Always start with the text.
  2. Be cautious about addition.
  3. Be thoughtful about subtraction.
  4. Build your application from the main teaching point.
  5. Choose supportive visuals and activities.
  6. Be careful with published material.

Her counsel pierces, soothes, and motivates God-honoring excellence. All throughout, she encourages us to make sure our teaching materials focus on the main point of our biblical text, and not merely on a creative re-telling of the plot. The main points are the main points, and must be communicated as such. Here is a taste of Mitchell’s counsel:

“When considering an addition to the story, ask yourself whether it supports or detracts from the main point, and whether it is really necessary. Children won’t know what has been added and what hasn’t; they simply accept the story as they hear it. If they find out later that only some of what they heard came from Scripture, they may also end up questioning the rest of what they were taught. This means I tend to add very little.”

And another:

“So check re-told Bible stories carefully. The authors of children’s story books are usually gifted, creative storytellers. There’s a lot we can learn from their gifts. But, in my experience, creative storytellers often add to Bible accounts. So check carefully, comparing their version with the Bible text. If there are only a few small changes or additions, you may be able to adapt the story and use it successfully. But if you find that too much has changed, you’ll need to tell the story yourself or find a more accurate story book.”

The “checking” she suggests extends even to the illustrations. For example, if an illustration of Daniel in the lions’ den portrays Daniel as a young man, it is not being faithful to the text.

There is much food for thought here, which is well worth your time.

Check it out!