Bound By Truth

To the guys who grew up in my hometown of Lamar, SC, and played any kind of football growing up, these words will likely immediately conjure up images of our Pee Wee Football coach, Shot Windham, walking through our exercise lines firing off commands that we were to obey. If you had come by on a late summer afternoon you would have heard, along with the statement above others like:

“Up, out, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it (come on coach you are killing me) in, down.”

or “Circle up, bull in the ring.”

or “Jordan, are you asleep over there (I had about as much business playing football as a fish does climbing a tree)”

Those afternoons could be long and hot and hard, but they were also very intentional. They were all designed to get us into condition to play our hearts out during our games, and, whether we realized it or not, we were also learning lessons about life at the same time.

The fact is I was not one that lasted on the football field, I played my a couple of years and then accepted the fact that I would not be the next superstar, but I carries away from that time something much greater than a total understanding of my lack of ability when it came to playing football, I carried away character and strength that continues with me even today.

There are no doubts that those days made an impression on my life, but there was one thing that would cross my mind occasionally and I would ponder…what was the purpose of “halfway back and beat on it”? If you are unfamiliar with this particular command, let me explain. It would come in the middle of doing sit-ups. We would have a specific number of sit-ups to do and they would be marked out by the cadence of up/down and usually just as we were coming to the last few repetitions there would come the command, halfway back, which meant that we were to go halfway back in the sit-up so we were reclining and holding it with our stomach muscles, and beat on it would be added, which meant beat on the contracted muscles of your stomach, until the command to go all the way back was given.

In taking some time to research that particular action, and to my astonishment, there was very little out there containing that specific command, I had to resort to other methods to determine what good this particular activity was doing. What I found was that when the muscle is in a contracted state and an activity like squeezing the muscle or striking the muscle can increase muscle growth, improve the connection between the mind and the muscle, enhance endurance, add time under tension, improve joint stability and give better posture and form to the exercise!!

At this point you are probably wondering what a post like this is doing on a site dedicated to truth, specifically Biblical truth, and the simple answer is that much like that simple addition to a normal and simple exercise has a profound impact on the results, there are simple steps you can take to have a much greater impact in your study of God’s Word.

Now, this post is not to give you recommendations on resources, authors, websites, etc. We will be posting some of those things later, this is a few simple steps to help you with some basic Bible Study. In 2022 Ligonier Ministries partnered with LifeWay to conduct a “State of Theology” survey and they summarized our (believer’s) responsibility by saying that:

“the people of God must continue to obey the Great Commission by communicating the whole counsel of God in biblical evangelism and discipleship.”

Unfortunately, this assumes that the people of God are actually being obedient to the command of Scripture found in 2 Timothy 2:15:

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), 2 Ti 2:15.

The command here is simple, yet complex. Studying God’s Word should be a joyous adventure to every believer. Our great passion should be to understand this truth, as much as is humanly possible, and then to share it with others. Christ, in His final moments prior to the ascension gave us a command to “go and make disciples”. For many believers this means that their whole responsibility is to learn John 3:16, the “Roman Road”, the “ABC’s of Salvation, or some other evangelical technique and we fail to follow through with the command of Christ to “make disciples… TEACHING THEM TO KEEP ALL THAT I COMMANDED YOU.” (LSB, emphasis mine)

Often times, we shy away from this because of a lack of knowledge, but in truth, the lack of knowledge stems from our laziness as it pertains to the study of God’s Word. We excuse it with statements like, “I just don’t understand it”, “I don’t have time to study”, or my personal favorite, “that’s the preachers job, not mine”. I recently saw a quote from Voddie Baucham that I thought summed up this issue well “Work is not a product of the fall. Laziness in the face of the work we have to do is a product of the fall.” Along with this, I would add the following quote by the late R.C. Sproul

“Here, then, is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God’s Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy.”

Oof, statements like this hurt because we immediately recognize the truth in the statement. For the rest of this post I want to give you four, EXTREMELY simple suggestions around studying God’s Word that I hope you find helpful.

First, and this may come as a HUGE shock, especially in light of the last couple of paragraphs, but here it goes…STOP being LAZY and STUDY God’s word. It really is that simple, put away all the excuses of this world, the thoughts that run through your brain, the hesitations and reasons why you need to wait till tomorrow and just start. The Holy Bible is an entire LIBRARY of God’s Word just waiting to be consumed. According to studies done in the past, the average American household has 4.3 Bibles…go find one of dozen that you have and start reading. If you are of unsure where to start, I always find that it is best to start the same as you would with any book, in the front, Genesis, the creation of everything by the mere Word of God. Again, I know it sounds simple, but I would assure you, by just starting, you have conquered the greatest part of the battle.

Second, develop or find a reading plan. It doesn’t have to be complex or grandiose, but it does help to have a plan. An extremely simple plan that was shared with me years ago was just read three chapters per day and by the end of the year, you will have read it all. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of plans out there designed to take you through God’s Word in a year. Find one and start reading, keep in mind that according to studies it takes approximately 21 days to develop a habit, stay after it, do not give up.

Third, read it out loud to yourself. Step three, and step four that we will talk about in a minute will help with retention and understanding. Most people have a primary style of learning (auditory, visual and kinesthetic) but when the primary style is supported by one or more of the secondary styles then retention increases. So, even if you aren’t an auditory learner, you are a learner of some type and hearing the Word helps solidify it in your mind. Don’t like to hear yourself read, there are great apps available that will read it to you so that you can take it with you anywhere. Now, here is an EXTREMELY important note about this, do not let this take the place of you reading it silently. Whether you read it to yourself or you listen to someone else (follow along when doing this) you still need to take the time to actually read the physical words for yourself. Again, these are two separate learning (visual and auditory) styles and engaging in both will only help you.

Fourth, and hear me out on this, write it, ALL OF IT. When you see, hear and write something your retention goes through the proverbial roof. Honestly, if you ask most Pastors about their sermon prep (and they are REALLY a Pastor that is REALL prepping) they will tell you that they write out their text for that sermon. It is the first thing I do when I begin my study, and it doesn’t matter if it is 1 verse or 50, I still go through the exercise. I cannot tell you how important this step can be in your comprehension, understanding and retention. On a separate note, this is going to take a while and a lot of paper, find a simple plan month by month (available online) and just follow it, I think you will be amazed how much it will help.

As we come to the end of this conversation I want you to realize how serious it is that you spend time in God’s Word. Hopefully you read my last post, (if not, there is no time like now, unless you were picking up your Bible to get started) and in that post we talked about how Sacred Scripture is true truth, laid on the foundation of the one true God who is unchanging…and in this day and time, when things change moment by moment, wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to place your trust in something that never changes!!

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