Trust the Bible, Please!

NICOLE STEVENSON | Co-Host, Former Adventist Podcast

Recently I had the opportunity to visit with another believer whom I hadn’t seen in some time. As we talked, questions came up that are beautifully and articulately addressed in the book of Hebrews. I asked this friend if she’d ever read Hebrews. She confessed she hadn’t and carefully shared her intimidation of the book. I encouraged her to push through the avoidance and to consider listening to the book as she read along and to pray that the Lord would help her know what He wants her to know. 

I then shared my own avoidance of Hebrews just after becoming a believer. I was intimidated by it even while knowing that the Holy Spirit illumines the words and teaches us what He wants us to know. Like so many others, I avoided “the hard books”. I told her how I’d been encouraged to read Hebrews by those God had given to disciple me. I decided I would listen and read along to increase my focus— and perhaps even my retention. By the time I was done I was in tears; I understood! 

This habit of avoiding books that intimidate us is not uncommon— especially among former Seventh-day Adventists who’ve been spiritually abused with elaborate false teachings which were allegedly derived from particular books of the Bible. We can often assume that if the books were confusing enough to sneak in complicated false doctrines, then they must be inherently difficult to understand.  

Even after we break free from false religion, our head is full of misinformation about the Bible that we’ll never rid ourselves of until we take back those books. They are, after all, our books. They are written to believers for the purpose of revealing God and His plans to us. God is not hiding from us or choosing “favorite children” to whom to reveal the hard stuff. His Word is clear and for all of His people. It is knowable and worthy of our time and our best efforts to grow in our understanding of it. 

“If You Abide in My Word, Then You are Truly My Disciples.”

In John chapter eight, beginning in verse 12, we see Jesus engaging in a discussion with the Pharisees who had once again begun to challenge Him publicly. Jesus answered their challenges with the truth of Who He is, and by exposing the reality that these Pharisees did not know God. He exposed their error, revealed His deity, and onlookers came to faith! “As He was speaking these things, many believed in Him,” (Jn 8:30).

 Jesus, being Omniscient, intimately knew who these Jews were who had just come to trust in Him. He then broke away from His confrontation with the Pharisees and gave His full attention to these new believers, with His first instructions to them as their Lord. 

“So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him,‘If you abide in My word, then you are truly My disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free,’” (Jn 8:31,32). 

After this Jesus returned to His conversation with the Pharisees continuing to expose their nature and to reveal who He was to all who would hear. 

I love the fact that the Jews in this chapter who came to faith did so while watching the Apologist of all apologists! As they watched the Lord Jesus defend the truth and expose the lies, they were given faith and were rescued out of the domain of darkness! The charge Jesus gave them is the same charge given to all those who’ve been rescued from the domain of darkness today, “If you abide in My word, then you are truly My disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Jesus knew those newly believing Jews still had much to learn. He knew there was more for them from which to be freed! When we hear the gospel and believe it, placing our full trust in Jesus, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and we are both born from above and adopted by the Father (John 3:1-8; Eph 1:13-14; Romans 8). We are also rescued out of the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of the beloved Son (Col 1:13-14). Our salvation and our inheritance are secure and kept for us by the power of God through faith (1 Peter 1:3-5)! We no longer live for salvation as we did in a false religious system. When we are born again we live from salvation—this is where the journey begins, and this is when the learning begins. 

Once we come to faith, abiding in the Scriptures is the first step on the path of obedience. As we remain in the Word, making it our chief aim to read it, obey it, study it, and to meditate upon it, some pretty amazing things begin to happen. The Scriptures not only reveal God to us, they also reveal us to us, and the great work of sanctification begins, 

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account,” (Hebrews 4:12,13).

“You Will Bear Much Fruit.”

On the last night Jesus spent with His disciples, before He went to the cross, He gave some of His most cherished promises and instructions. In chapter 15 Jesus spoke again about the necessity of abiding in Him.

“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit from itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing,” (John 15:3-5).

We cannot bear fruit apart from Jesus. When we abide in Christ and His words abide in us, we bear much fruit. Jesus went on to say in verse 8 that in doing this, we bring glory to the Father by proving we are Jesus’ disciples. Our commitment to remain in the word of God and in relationship to Jesus bears out the evidence that we are discipled by Him. 

 Remaining in God’s word is not merely a suggestion. Being a disciple of Jesus means submitting to His discipleship of us, and Scripture is the means by which He has chosen to disciple us. While Jesus is our salvation and our life, our abiding in Him and His word is where our life is lived out, it’s where our submission is displayed, and it’s where we experience freedom and are useful and pleasing to Him. 

Difficult Times Will Come: Continue in the Things you Learned 

In Paul’s second letter to Timothy he wrote to him about the reality that in the last days difficult times would come. He then went on to talk about what the world would be like for believers and encouraged Timothy to continue in the things he had learned in the sacred writings.

 In verses 12-17 Paul wrote, 

“Indeed, all who desire to live godly lives in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you, continue in the things you learned and became convinced of, knowing from whom you learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Difficult times have come, and more difficult times are ahead. Paul’s instructions to Timothy in the face of this reality are also Scripture’s instructions to us today. We must continue in the faith and in the sacred writings which are able to make us wise and which are profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, for training in righteousness, and to thoroughly equip us for every good work in the face of whatever comes next. 

Distractions will Come: Don’t Go Beyond What is Written

We are constantly faced with distractions. Whether it’s the pace and demands of life, social media, the news, theological focuses, preferred teachers or authors, or our denominational loyalties, we can drift away from the call of Christ to personally abide in His Word, and we can give far more of our minds over to these other things. 

One temptation for us after we leave Seventh-day Adventism is to go to a preferred teacher, author, website, podcast, or YouTube channel for the bulk of our learning. The number of questions we have after leaving can be so overwhelming that we believe beginning with and remaining in these venues will help us grow and learn faster than attempting to read Scripture on our own. 

I pray you do not fall for this lie. It is Scripture and Scripture alone that sanctifies and renews the mind. For sure, God raises up gifted teachers to serve the church, and He establishes a variety of important ministries that are actively doing His work! It isn’t wrong to engage in these, but they must not be a substitute for abiding in Scripture. Further, if you are not homebound, they ought not replace committing yourself to a local body of believers where you can serve and be discipled by those more mature in the faith who are committed to abiding in the Word. 

In 1 Corinthians Paul went to great lengths to admonish the church at Corinth over the divisions among them related to their learning preferences. Some claimed to be followers of Paul, some of Apollos, some of Peter, and some even divided Christ away from these men saying they followed Christ! As we spend time in Scripture we can see the stylistic differences between Paul, Apollos, and Peter, but their message is unified and Christ is their head! 

“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building…This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful… I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another ” (1 Corinthians 3:5-9; 4:1, 2, 6,7).

In a Christian culture made up of countless denominations, hermeneutical preferences, interpretation and preaching styles, pulpit politics, celebrity pastors, popular musicians, favored authors, trending conferences, and social media ministry, we, too, can easily be distracted by the game of preferences and position. 

As followers of Jesus, we must know the Scriptures personally, and we must constantly grow in our knowledge of them as we navigate todays “Christian climate”. As we know the word of God, we are better able to discern the ministries that are united in the essential message of Scripture and the ones that are not. We cannot do this if we are not ourselves abiding in the Word of God. And if we are not abiding in the Word of God, we are too easily tempted to boastfully over-identify with people and ideas that go beyond what is written in the word of God. 

30 Minutes Per Day…

I recently found a collection of helpful info-graphs on the Crossway website as I was doing some research about how long it takes to read various books of the Bible. You can see these at the link above but I want to share with you the information from a couple that caught my attention. First is a list of activities that people engage in daily and we’re told what percentage of people engage in them for at least 30 minutes a day. This is compared to how much of the Bible one could read in the same amount of time each day. The results were as follows:

Taken from “Infographic: You Have More Time for Bible Reading than You Think” by Crossway, Copyright © 2018, (Link). Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.

The point here is not to say that books, hobbies, housework, or media are inherently bad or a wrong way to spend one’s time. It’s only to say that as busy as we are today, we do collectively appear to have the time to read the Bible. If we only devote a small amount of time each day to reading, we can cover a lot of ground and begin to grow in our knowledge of God and in our love for Him and for His people. 

Second is how much time a day a person would need to set aside in order to read the Old Testament, the New Testament, or the entire Bible. The results are seen below:

How much time per day would the average person need to set aside to read through the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the whole Bible?

Taken from “Infographic: You Have More Time for Bible Reading than You Think” by Crossway, Copyright © 2018, (Link). Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.

What Will You Say?

I remember one particular night at my women’s Bible study at the first Christian church I ever joined. Dr. Elizabeth Inrig was teaching during the general session just before we would break out into our small groups to discuss the week’s lesson. I’m not sure how her comments were connected to the particular book we were studying, but Elizabeth often tucks in thought-provoking questions or comments as she teaches ,and this night was no different. 

Elizabeth addressed the fact that there are people who resist reading particular portions of Scripture. Sometimes it’s due to fear or disinterest, other times it’s just a matter of feeling confused or overwhelmed, and occasionally it’s because some claim they aren’t important to their own walk of faith. 

I remember Elizabeth engaging our imaginations and saying something to the effect of, “When I get to Heaven and see Jesus, I want to be able to stand before Him and be able to give an answer if He asks me what I thought about His Bible. I want to be able to respond if He asks, ‘What did you think about my letter to the Hebrews?’ or ‘What did you think about Isaiah?’” 

As she engaged our imaginations, I realized that unless we read the Bible, we will not be able to discuss it with Him. 

If you’re struggling with the idea of reading certain books of the Bible, please know that if you’re born again, those very books are full of treasures for you! You need not fear them. The Holy Spirit will illumine them and teach you what you need to know. 

It’s time to take back the Word of God. Scripture is a living and Holy gift for the people of God. We cannot allow the lingering deception of false teachings to rob us of the blessing of it’s pages or to prevent us from obeying and abiding in Jesus. We cannot let the distractions of life—whatever they are— prevent us from taking responsibility for our own commitment to obey the Lord. Further, we cannot give in to the temptation to over-rely on teachers for our spiritual growth while neglecting to abide in the Word on our own. When we do this, we risk deceiving ourselves into thinking we are abiding when in fact we are finding vicarious contentment in someone else’s relationship with Him. 

Whatever it takes, I pray you persist in the Word of Christ and that you grow in knowing Him personally on His terms through His Word. It’s in this abiding that we will grow, and it’s here where we will find ourselves rapidly shedding the questions and fears that will otherwise lie dormant in our minds and covertly hinder our walk of faith. †

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Nicole Stevenson

Nicole Stevenson lives in Southern California with her husband Carel and her two children, Joshua and Abigail. Nicole graduated from La Sierra University with a degree in social work and is currently staying home to raise their kids. Nicole, with her husband Carel, was on the launch team of Redeemer Fellowship, an evangelical church in Loma Linda, California.

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