I have started a new Precept course. This time we are doing 2 Timothy. I am so thankful that God has gifted me with the desire to study His word in such an indepth way. Too often I am tempted to be lazy and just see what others have to say about the Bible, or too busy to really take a portion of Scripture and contemplate its place in God's word as a whole. Another temptation is to skip the putting Scripture into context, and just jump to the application. However, you can't have correct application without studying the context, which I believe is best accomplished by studying inductively (meaning observation, interpretation, then application). What is so convicting so far about 2 Timothy is that we are to learn Scripture not just for personal edification, but so that we can teach. I think that we tend to skip this step in our churches. What I mean by that is that we talk too much about application without really teaching someone how to teach by our style of teaching. I know that I am tempted to do that (and do it quite often unfortunately). When someone can tell that we have observed a passage so that we know the basic who, what, where, when, and why, and can tell that we have interpretted the passage by using Scripture to interpret Scripture, then they can trust our application. Also, they can learn by our example how to study the Bible for themselves and how to teach. The goal of Bible study should not just be about personal edification or relationships (although both are important), but it should be to glorify God by equipping the Saints to be prepared to give a defense in season and out of season. This means that the gospel should be central to all that we teach because we need to equip the Saints to share the gospel and there may be someone there that needs to hear the gospel.
I think I kind of changed subjects there near the end. Here are my personal goals for 2 Timothy:
(1) Learn the book so well that it is etched on my mind and heart. This tends to happen with the book Precept studies. There are certain words and phrases that should become a part of my Christian vocabulary as a result of this study (i.e., The righteous man shall live by faith from Romans, Contend for the faith from Jude, Be prepared to meet your God from Amos).
(2) Be prepared to teach the book. I like to teach. I always have the desire to teach. However, I have to prepare before I teach, and part of that preparation should be studying a book indepth before I teach it. I think that this is the step that too many teachers in our churches skip, in part because too often we do not give them enough time to prepare to teach. You can't ask someone to teach a month before the study starts and expect them to be prepared to teach properly. You also can't just give them a packet of literature and expect them to teach properly (in part because too much of our literature is focused on application instead of observation and interpretation, but that is the subject of a future blog when I have fully thought through how to approach that subject -- stay tuned!). I am not saying that God isn't able to use teachers who are dependent on literature or anything like that. What I am saying is that we could be more effective at equipping the Saints for good works if we taught in the way that Paul tells us to teach in 2 Timothy (and his other books such as Ephesians). That having been said, I hope that I will be ready to teach 2 Timothy at the end of this study if I am called upon to teach it at some point in the future.
I have to confess that this blog may be a little unorganized and seem to ramble at points, but I really don't feel like going back and editing it or making it flow better.
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