What Should I Expect My First Time Through the Bible?

00:00:00.000 | Hello everyone, this is Tony and before we dive into today's episode I want to

00:00:04.320 | ask a favor from you. We love serving you on this podcast and we want to serve you

00:00:09.720 | better in 2020 and beyond and to serve you better means we need to know you

00:00:14.040 | better. And to this end we put together a brief survey that takes just a few

00:00:17.520 | minutes to fill out. It'll be up online until the end of January and if you're

00:00:22.240 | willing to help us out go online to DesiringGod.org/survey

00:00:26.640 | That's DesiringGod.org/survey and I'll mention this

00:00:30.960 | address again at the end of today's episode which starts right now.

00:00:36.320 | Well if this is my first read through the Bible what should I expect? So many

00:00:42.640 | great Bible reading questions arrive at the start of a new year like this one

00:00:45.440 | from a listener named Mike. "Hello Pastor John, I have been blessed by your

00:00:49.320 | ministry for many years and in the year ahead I hope to read my Bible from cover

00:00:53.880 | to cover for the very first time using the Discipleship Journal Bible reading

00:00:57.720 | plan that you use. I feel a little excited and a lot intimidated and

00:01:02.400 | enormously unprepared for the year ahead. I've never done anything like this before.

00:01:06.720 | So what's your advice for me and what obstacles must I expect to overcome to

00:01:12.000 | pull this off?" Well amen and praise God for what Mike is resolving to do. I just

00:01:18.680 | what an hour and a half ago was reading my Discipleship Journal reading plan

00:01:23.760 | reading so I've been on this system for good night what 20-25 years I don't know

00:01:29.280 | and I love this system. I try other things and I generally come back to it

00:01:35.280 | so good Mike. You should be excited and yes you should be intimidated. You are

00:01:41.600 | in significant ways unprepared. Me too. That's why we're reading. Paul said

00:01:49.920 | it's all inspired precisely to make us prepared that the man of God may be

00:01:57.240 | complete equipped or we could say prepared for every good work including

00:02:01.760 | Bible reading. So you gotta read to get prepared to read right? So that's okay to

00:02:06.440 | be intimidated by reading the Bible. So what should you expect? I'll give you

00:02:12.840 | three negatives to scare you off and ten positives to suck you back in. So number

00:02:18.960 | one negative expect opposition. Satan hates the Word of God and will disincline

00:02:26.400 | you, blind you, distract you, bore you. He will fight with all his might

00:02:32.920 | to keep this from happening. So pray and fight and ask God to make all four of

00:02:40.040 | those things that Satan tries to do to backfire to blow up in his face as you

00:02:45.360 | become a stronger warrior against him. So your heart inclined, your blindness

00:02:51.400 | removed, focus instead of distraction, excitement instead of boredom. So that's

00:02:56.520 | expect opposition. Number two, expect to be shocked. The outrage of sin and its

00:03:04.840 | graphic descriptions and the horrors of God judgments and the failures of God's

00:03:12.840 | people are appalling in the Bible. The Bible is stunningly graphic in its

00:03:20.280 | description both of our outrageous sin and God's breathtaking judgment on sin.

00:03:28.040 | You will want to throw up if you have any kind of sympathetic engagement with

00:03:34.800 | the Bible at times when you see what God ordains against sin in this world. So

00:03:40.680 | expect your views of man and God to be blown up in a good way. Shocked. Number

00:03:47.960 | three, negative, expect to be confused for three reasons. Number one, God conceals

00:03:54.440 | many things that we'd like to know. Deuteronomy 29 29, "The secret things

00:03:59.600 | belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us

00:04:03.920 | and to our children that we may do his word." So there are things you're gonna

00:04:08.120 | want to know and God says, "Nope, that's my business, not yours." Number two reason

00:04:12.680 | why you're gonna be confused, what he has revealed is often hard to understand.

00:04:17.640 | Peter said that flat-out in 2nd Peter 3 16. As Paul does in all his letters when

00:04:24.640 | he speaks of them in these matters, there are some things in Paul's letters hard

00:04:29.120 | to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction

00:04:34.760 | as they do the other scriptures. 2nd Peter 3 16. There are some things in

00:04:42.360 | Paul's letters that are hard to understand, which we should not expect to

00:04:48.600 | find easy. So we're gonna be confused at times. And number three reason

00:04:54.480 | why you're gonna be confused is that Christ has given teachers to the church.

00:04:59.520 | Have you ever thought about that? That in the New Testament, he didn't just

00:05:03.040 | give a Bible and say, "No, we don't need any teachers because we've got the Bible,

00:05:06.680 | we've got the Holy Spirit, so no human beings need to be teachers in the

00:05:11.440 | church." He didn't do that. He said in every church there should be elders,

00:05:15.400 | those elders must be apt to teach, which means people need explanations for what

00:05:21.320 | they see in the Bible, and teachers are called to figure things out and help the

00:05:24.840 | others. So just unless you're one of those teachers, and unless you're God,

00:05:29.600 | you're gonna run into confusing things in the Bible that you need

00:05:33.840 | help from other people. So the implication of those three, pray for

00:05:38.720 | illumination. Do whatever digging in study helps you. Put things together that

00:05:46.600 | you can put together, and what you can't figure out, put on the shelf for later

00:05:51.760 | attention and keep on moving. If you get bogged down with what you can't

00:05:56.400 | understand, you'll never finish the reading for the day. Those are my

00:06:00.400 | negatives, here are the ten positives. I'll just tick them off really, really

00:06:04.360 | quickly. These are things you can expect. Number one, expect your faith to be

00:06:08.800 | deepened and strengthened, because Romans 10 17 says, "Faith comes by hearing, and

00:06:14.440 | hearing by the Word of Christ." Or almost the same, expect your hope in God to be

00:06:19.920 | made more unshakable, because Romans 15 4 says, "Everything in the whole Bible is

00:06:25.760 | written for your hope." Number two, expect God to do serious, liberating work in

00:06:32.680 | your life, because Jesus said, "You will know the truth." When you read my Bible,

00:06:38.000 | you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Number three, expect new

00:06:44.360 | power in war with Satan, because that's the way Jesus defeated him in the

00:06:49.840 | wilderness. He quoted Scripture to the devil, and the devil could not stand

00:06:54.320 | before it. He won't stand before you either. He's a liar, he's a deceiver, he

00:06:58.680 | can't abide the truth. You're filling your head up with the truth, you're gonna

00:07:02.000 | be a valiant warrior more than you dreamed against Satan. Number four,

00:07:06.880 | expect a deep, sanctifying work in your life, because John 17 17 says, "Sanctify

00:07:14.600 | them in the truth." Your Word is truth. Number five, expect to become a more

00:07:22.320 | loving person to those around you, because Paul in Philippians 1 9 says, he

00:07:29.760 | prays that our love may abound more and more with knowledge and all-deserving.

00:07:36.960 | And he said in 1 Timothy 1 5 that the goal of his instruction, that is the goal

00:07:41.880 | of the Bible, is love from a pure heart. So unifying love for people growing in

00:07:48.240 | your heart as you immerse yourself in the whole sweep of Scripture. Number six,

00:07:53.960 | expect that even though you are now saved in a decisive way, you're going to

00:08:00.200 | go on being saved by the Scriptures. Most people don't think about this. 1 Timothy

00:08:05.240 | 4 16, pay close attention to yourself and your teaching the Scriptures,

00:08:13.320 | persevere in these, for as you do this, you will save both yourself and your

00:08:20.600 | hearers. The Bible is the means of God by which he goes on saving us. Number eight,

00:08:28.520 | expect joy—great joy, unshakable joy that the world does not know, because Jesus

00:08:38.360 | said, "These things I have spoken to you." So you're reading them now, "These things I

00:08:44.000 | have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full." So send the

00:08:50.540 | roots of your mind and your heart down into the whole Bible, and your joy will

00:08:56.640 | become indestructible. Number nine, expect to meet God. Meet God, not just truths

00:09:04.000 | about God. Expect to meet God, because it says in 1 Samuel 3 21, "The Lord appeared

00:09:11.960 | again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel by the word of the

00:09:22.760 | Lord." He revealed himself by the word— himself by the word—and he does that. He

00:09:31.000 | does that. Expect to meet him. And finally, number 10, expect to see the glory of

00:09:37.440 | Christ. 2 Corinthians 3 18, we all—we believers—we all, with unveiled face,

00:09:47.200 | beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image

00:09:52.240 | from one degree of glory to the next. Now how do we know that happens in the Bible?

00:09:57.800 | Because if you follow the flow of Paul's thought from 3 18 into 4 4 and 4 6,

00:10:05.320 | he refers to how we see the glory of Christ. Namely, we see it in the light of

00:10:12.880 | the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. And the gospel is the

00:10:18.080 | written narrative of the stories or the events and their meaning of the death

00:10:24.880 | and resurrection of Christ. So, Mike, I will pray for you what Paul prayed in

00:10:30.960 | 2 Thessalonians 1 11. He said this, "To this end, we pray for you, that our God

00:10:37.960 | may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every good resolve and every

00:10:45.640 | work of faith by his power." This is a great resolve before you. You've got a

00:10:49.600 | great intention on your heart. Be valiant. Make a vow to the Lord to keep it, and

00:10:55.600 | you won't regret it. Amen. This will be a wonderful New Year's vow to the Lord.

00:11:00.200 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the great question, Mike.

00:11:04.520 | And here's a post-production note. Later, after we recorded this episode, I noticed

00:11:09.360 | that there was no number 7 in the list of 10 above, so I checked with Pastor

00:11:13.400 | John, and he didn't have a number 7 either. So instead of 10, it's actually

00:11:18.600 | 9 total positives, if you're doing the math. And thanks for listening and

00:11:23.280 | subscribing to the podcast. Next up, one of the most 10 most asked about topics

00:11:28.480 | here on APJ, sexualized dreams. Yes, that's right, sexualized dreams. One of the

00:11:34.560 | most common topics in the inbox that we have evaded for seven years. No longer

00:11:38.880 | sexualized dreams. Up next time on Monday. Until then, if you are willing to help us

00:11:44.160 | out and fill out our online survey, go to DesiringGod.org/survey.

00:11:48.120 | That's DesiringGod.org/survey.

00:11:54.280 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

What Should I Expect My First Time Through the Bible?

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