191 Different ways God speaks through the Bible – Part 1

Talk 7 Different ways God speaks through the Bible (Part 1)

In recent talks we have been considering the fact that God speaks to us through the Bible. We have seen why we should believe that God speaks to us through the Bible and how we can understand the Bible correctly. We now turn to considering different ways in which God speaks to us through the Bible. Today we will see that:

 

• He shows us what to believe and how to behave
• He teaches us through the lives of God’s people.

 

In future talks we’ll consider how:

• He encourages us by giving us many wonderful promises
• He directs us by bringing key verses to our attention

 

He shows us what to believe and how to behave

We dealt with this earlier when we were talking about how God speaks to us in the person, the words, and the actions of Jesus. In the person of Jesus, he reveals the true nature of God. In the words of Jesus, he tells us what we should do. And in the actions of Jesus, we have an example of how we should behave. This, I believe, is the primary way that God speaks to us though the Bible. It’s through the person, the words and the actions of Jesus. These are of course mainly revealed in the four Gospels, but actually, in one way or another, the whole Bible is about Jesus. We’re told in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that

 

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

And in Luke 24:27 we’re told that on the road to Emmaus Jesus explained to two of his disciples what was said in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. As he did so we’re told that the disciples’ hearts burned within them. This is something we can all experience as we read or listen to God’s word. The Holy Spirit makes a verse or passage come alive to us and we feel an inner excitement as we see how it fits so relevantly into our present situation. But I’ll be saying more about this when we talk about how God brings key verses to our attention just as we need them.

 

So God can speak to us through any part of the Bible and reveal to us more about himself and about his purpose for our lives, always bearing in mind, of course, the lessons we’ve already learned about the importance of examining the context of what we’re reading. But that leads us to another important way God speaks to us through the Bible.

 

He teaches us through the lives of God’s people

When Paul tells us that all Scripture is useful for teaching this clearly shows that God speaks to us not only by the passages that give us direct instructions as to what to do, but also by narrative passages that give us examples from the lives of God’s people in the past. For example, in 1 Corinthians 10 we read:

Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did (6)

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall (11-12).

In this passage Paul is warning the Corinthians against the sins of idol worship, sexual immorality and grumbling (vv. 7-10) and he does so by reminding them of what happened to God’s people in the Old Testament when they were guilty of these things. He uses a Bible story from the Old Testament to warn New Testament Christians of the need to live holy lives.

In a similar way, we can learn not only from the lives of God’s people in the Old Testament, but we can also read the New Testament accounts of the lives of Jesus’ disciples and learn from their mistakes. For example, as we read about Thomas and his doubts we see that he did not really need to doubt, and God speaks to us through the story and encourages our faith. And we can all probably identify with Peter and see in his shortcomings a picture of our own. But we also learn how Jesus forgave him and showed him that he still had a purpose for his life. 

So Bible stories are not just there to warn us. They are more often there in order to inspire us, to encourage and comfort us. In Romans 15:4 Paul tells us that everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Who, for example, has not been inspired and encouraged by the faith and heroism recorded in the story of David and Goliath? Of course, we know from the New Testament that today our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12), but although the enemy may be different the principles of victory remain the same. God speaks to us in both Old and New Testaments through the accounts of his dealings with his people[1].

 

So God speaks to us through the lives of God’s people in the past and it’s even possible that we learn more from them than we do from the passages that contain direct instructions to us. At the very least they shed light on the meaning of these passages. This is particularly true of the story of the early church as it’s recorded in the book of Acts. If all Scripture is useful for teaching – and Acts is certainly Scripture – then we can surely learn that the kind of things God did back then are just what we should be expecting today. I shall always be grateful to Laurie Dixon, the man who first told me about the baptism in the Holy Spirit, for challenging me to read the book of Acts and ask myself how the life and practices of the church I was attending measured up to the experience of the early disciples. That challenge was to radically alter the entire direction of the ministry God had called me to.

 

Although I didn’t realise it at the time, Laurie’s challenge involved a very important issue of hermeneutics – the principles by which we interpret Scripture.  The New Testament epistles are largely comprised of direct instruction, but I believe that some of the teaching found in them can only be understood correctly by reading the narrative passages in the Gospels and Acts. For example, in Ephesians 5:18 we’re encouraged to be filled with the Spirit. But what exactly does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? The immediate context does not make this completely clear. That’s almost certainly because Paul knew that his readers would have understood exactly what he meant by it. But that doesn’t help us very much. However, as we read the book of Acts we see several examples of people being filled with the Spirit. These examples paint a clear picture for us of what Paul means when he tells us to be filled with the Spirit. We learn that Paul is referring to a supernatural experience that is received suddenly rather than gradually and is accompanied by miraculous gifts that greatly empower our witness for Christ[2].  

 

A similar example might be what it means to be baptised. Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19-21). But what does it mean to be baptised? As we read the accounts of people being baptised in the Gospels and Acts we see that there is no suggestion that baptism was by sprinkling. Apart from the fact that the Greek verb baptizo means immerse and not sprinkle, the descriptions of people being baptised strongly indicate that baptism was always by immersion. To give just one example, in the story of Philip baptising the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:36-39) we’re told that both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and that after the baptism they both came up out of the water. This surely implies immersion rather than sprinkling[3]. However, my purpose in saying this is not to argue the merits of baptism by immersion but rather to illustrate how narrative passages in the Bible can shed light on what is meant by the terminology used elsewhere. The examples I have used show how Acts can provide a visual aid for us which helps us understand the terminology used in the epistles.

 

But that is not all. A distinction is sometimes made between what passages of scripture that are descriptive and those that are prescriptive. The narrative passages in the Gospel and Acts, for example, are seen as descriptive. They describe what happened. But the teaching in the epistles is referred to as prescriptive. It prescribes what we should believe and how we should behave. On this basis, some have argued that descriptive passages are not really suitable as a source of doctrine. Yet the major doctrine of the Christian faith, the resurrection of Christ from the dead, is based largely on the description we have in the four Gospels!

 

Furthermore, it seems to me that descriptive passages can at times have prescriptive value. Of course, when I describe an incident I am not necessarily prescribing a course of action.  But when I am in a teaching situation and I describe not just one event, but several, and all those events have certain features in common, my students may legitimately assume that my intention is not just descriptive but also prescriptive.  For example, if I relate how I handled certain cases in the course of my pastoral ministry, and in connection with each case I mention that I prayed for guidance in that situation, my students would be right to assume that my intention is to teach them that they too should pray in similar situations.  I am in effect teaching by example.  This is a powerful didactic method which may well be far more effective than straight instruction.  Understood this way the narrative passages in the Gospels and Acts really can teach us a great deal[4].

 

So let’s remember that God speaks to us throughout Scripture and as we read the historical accounts of God’s dealings with his people, and especially the lives of the early disicples after Pentecost, God may well challenge us, or encourage and inspire us. The things that happened to them are written as examples for us, and as we shall see in the next talk, the promises he made to them are often promises that he makes to us too.