welcome to the subset of real Christianity on your house Dale Partridge and as many of you know you can find the show notes for these episodes and our Ministries website at free learn.org this is a podcast that's completely funded by our listeners and financial supporters at either end. Org if you guys would perfectly consider supporting our work at rather. Org you can go to relearn. Org forward slash donate and that really helps us continue on this ministry put it on producing this podcast supporting her other Ministries I getting more content out to the Christian Community today I wanted to have a short discussion about the need for rigorous study of your Bible
 now as you guys know we are inundated right now with ideas and information and perspectives more than ever before and I want you to I think I'm going to offer you a pastoral perspective on this 100 years ago as a pastor you know the last thing a church member heard
 as they were entering your church on Sunday the last thing they heard about the Bible was from your sermon the previous week today people leave the teaching of their pastor and the sermon that they heard on Sunday and between that time and the following Sunday they're consuming several different podcast from varying Bible teachers are listening to nearly a hundred different worship songs there possibly skimming articles said by friends on moral issues on issues relating to politics you know to doctorate in theology they are commenting and engaging on online posts regarding Christian Life for Christian issues and they're probably reading a book or two by a Christian author
 and this all happened in one week and I expect it you is the average listener are one of these people this podcast is one of those points of content that I'm specifically talking about that next Sunday as you enter in to the church you know these church members returned with hundreds of new influences regarding doctorate in Theology and moral issues and political issues and how does interplay with the Christian Life to which the pastor and that is the spiritual Shepherd in your life the 1st Timothy 3 Titus one qualified Elder who is your spiritual guide in your local church
 he has to in a sense compete with all of these outside influences and in many cases he has to help the church member sift through what they've consumed to verify what is true or false and in addition for my own experience the past dress to be constantly on guard and really willing to correct and even detox church members from the lies that they learned throughout the week and in a very real way you know the pastor has to help people unlearn the false ideas that they picked up throughout all of this content consumption and relearn that little plug for relearn. Organize right I relearn the Orthodox biblical historical Christian faith of the Christian
 and so I just want to give you guys some perspective of how things have changed in church history for the pastor and for the church member from 100 years ago to today how you know in the eighteen hundreds of The Sixteen hundreds of the 1400 you know you would have your pastor and you would hear a sermon and you would just study that sermon and and read your Bible based off of what the pastor pot and any questions you might have had would have been directed maybe to your parents your father or a deacon or Elder in your church there would have been no other you know intense varying outside spiritual influences competing with the river of truth that comes from your trusted local pastor and so as you can see this is just a daunting task for today's
 Masters and in his emotional culture that we live in you know people are easily swayed and spiritually impressionable and this should bring concern for any pastor and it does for me as a pastor for sure and personally I find myself praying regularly for our congregation to pray for their protection against the adoption of heretical or false ideas about God I pray for wisdom and conviction and discernment regarding the truth I pray for revelation of the doctrines by the Holy Spirit while they are reading the scriptures I pray for resolve that they're not going to be easily influenced removed by the attractive yet deceitful and deceptive Christian content it's all over the internet right now
 but the prayer that I pray the most and I think every Pastor shouldn't be Christian just needs to know this to pray for themselves is I pray for an increased appetite to study the word of God I'm not talking about a task to do I'm not talking about a behavior modification to make sure there is some ground in that but what I'm saying is I don't want you to just go out and just do something more I want you to have an increased appetite for the word of God and for understanding sound Doctrine in Theology and so that's my prayer for you and I I'll close this podcast today with a prayer asking God for that for your life I don't want you just go read the Bible because I'm telling you to read the Bible more I want the Holy Spirit to come in
 and divinely produce a stronger and intent appetite for the truth
 and to seek that out through a variety of means
 and and so that's part one of what I wanted to talk about this idea of just having this increased appetite because we're dealing with these things we have lots of confusion in the church today we have lots of counterfeits in the church today and we need solid sound Doctrine and we need Christians to know where to find that how to increase biblical literacy how to increase doctrinal and Theological literacy and I want to give you a few pieces of scripture that would ground my reasoning for doing this and then I'm actually going to share with you several
 resources that I think you could take over a year that if God will increase that appetite and you can accomplish these seven steps that I have I really think that you will be prepared to stand and defend the Orthodox Christian faith so let me just talk about to passage of scripture that really call us to do that so this is not Dale telling you to do this this is the Holy Spirit the word of God tells us to seek out the truth diligently Sophie 2nd Timothy 2:15 I'm definitely done sermons are a done podcast on this verse I don't know exactly which podcast they were but if you've been a longtime listener you've heard me hard on this passage before you should memorize it in the ESV it says do your best to present yourself to God as one approved
 a worker who has no need to be ashamed rightly handling the word of Truth this passage is a call to be diligent to do your best this isn't to work yourself into Oblivion where you're just studying and pouring I see so many Pastors in so many students of the scripture actually study the word so much they're actually compromising their health or compromising their family or compromising their priorities in their home but do your best with what you have and if you only have seen a 30 minutes 45 minutes a day that you can fit in right now work the increase that time but do your best to present yourself to God as one approved
 one that is that knows the truth that is prepared to fulfill Great Commission work to go therefore and make disciples of Jesus Christ says a worker who has no need to be ashamed we are as Great Commission Christians workers in the Kingdom in varying degrees and we have a duty and a call to preach the gospel and we need to be prepared to do that it closes with rightly handling the word of Truth you can handle the truth wrongly you can handle the scriptures incorrectly and many people do so there's a call for doctrinal accuracy and a proper interpretation of these are not scholarly issues these are average Christian issues you must learn how to
 interpret the Bible correctly okay I'm just I just cannot
 talk about that enough we as average Christians need to learn how to interpret the Bible
 that means you need to understand the basic rules of grammar she probably understand the basic structure of an argument or Clauses you should read carefully you should understand contacts in his eye in history and culture so that you can best extract the meaning Faithfully from the scriptures the next passage is 2nd Timothy 3 16 through 17 another one worth memorizing and again do we need to be memorizing scripture as often as we can because every possible at least a digital bibles are going to be taken off the shelf I know that Amazon I just recently heard Amazon is starting to eliminate the sales of certain books that stand against political convictions of Amazon and so I expected that we're going to see a lot of books
 no longer be carried at least by secular places and including Bibles and so I expect that we are going to see a need for increased memorization scripture but 2nd Timothy 3 16 through 17 all scripture is breathed out by God that Greek word is Step new status ride breathed out it's it's it's his it comes from within him all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching for proof 44 correction and for training in righteousness that to this is that is a it's called a purpose Claus sometimes it was so that that means why what what what's the purpose why is it like this that the man of God that word man is a pass in the Greek and a process is mankind humans it doesn't necessarily mean mail it just means mankind that the man of God may be competent equipped for every good work
 some people have translated that big man of God may be complete and prepared and capable equipped for every good work the word of God has an ability to equip us for anything that life throws at us therefore we should not let it sit as a Dusty book on our Shelf or not let it be simply you know 10 minutes in the morning I promise you that you will never regret the hours that you pour into the scriptures one thing I often tell people it's not how many years you've known the lord it's how many hour and what I mean by that is how many hours do you spend if that's really what determines spiritual maturity or biblical literacy people have been Christians for 25 years
 but they only do you know they spend 5 minutes every 30 days in the Bible but then there's people who have known the Lord for only two years and spend two hours a day studying in labor and poring over the word of God and so I just want to encourage you that the bible promises us that the scriptures are enough complete us and equip us for every good work and I could teach a whole sermon on that and why I got to keep moving on so again let me just offer you some useful direction for increasing not only your biblical literacy but again your doctor let the illogical literacy dr. Steven Lawson
 it's one of my professors at the Master's Seminary I hit a short video for Ligonier titled something like how to increase my biblical litoris my biblical literacy you can find that on YouTube but it's a simple search in a really good resource I'll be saying a few things that he says and not that he was well but the first thing that I want to help you distinguish is the difference between reading your Bible and studying your Bible reading is really understanding The Narrative the story of scripture while studying is understanding the implications of scripture the connection of scripture the theological claims the you know what is this mean for me how does this actually have jurisdiction in the way that I change my behavior I think or for my ideas about God and you need do you need to read and enjoy that's why there's really wonderful readers Bibles that you would actually just read to enjoy and then there's actually study Bibles there's exegetical Bibles there's
 you know Bibles it'll help you understand some of the cultural and historical historical issues that are going on in the Bible but again you need both and I want to offer you guys seven resources that I believe will catapult any Christian far beyond the average churchgoer the average Christian and equip you for being ready to face the onslaught of false ideas in the church with conviction boldness and sound arguments and unfortunately we have so many Christians that are not sitting under the regular faithful expository preaching of the word of God from qualified Elders on a weekly basis there so many unchurched or under church or nomadic Christians in the world right now that we often need some of these supplemental resources to
 you helped frame up and form up our correct the ology and I want to offer those tools to you now again there is nothing better than just making sure that you are in a faithful Church of good Bible Church I would say a good reformed Bible Church Reformed Baptist Church or a faithful Reformed Presbyterian Church Bazaar this is critical to be under expository preaching on a regular basis if you don't know what it's positively preaching and I did an episode with Dr Steven Lawson a few episodes back on expozitura preaching you could also listen to his preaching you can also listen to dr. John MacArthur preaching on a regular basis he does episodes on the podcast I think it's the pulpit podcast is but it's called every single week and in my opinion doctor MacArthur is the greatest Expositor of our time era and will be viewed that way
 in church history for all of time he is a fantastic gifted called expository preacher and I think if you just use him as a an example that you can measure your church experience against I think that'll be very helpful for you you can also use their website they have on their website at I think it's the Master's Seminary or might be a Grace Community Church other churches that are associated with their church or men that have graduated from the master's Seminary and if now planted churches you could find a church directory there so those are some great resources for you to check out as well but these seven resources okay so I'm going to give you seven of them and I think if you can do these over a 1-year. It'll absolutely
 put your maturity your spiritual maturity into overdrive and put you at a place where you probably already should be but we are so again anemic lacking regular expository preaching
 lacking regular biblical Church community
 lacking teaching a Doctrine in theology we need supplements and sadly we have thousands and thousands of options for us and supplements with all the podcast in the Articles and so I'm just going to narrow it down to some really great resources that I've used over the years that I have talked to the people in my church that I have talked to the students at our school at Reformation Seminary self number one step one by a study Bible and imma give you to study Bibles by the MacArthur Study Bible in the nasb if you can or the ESV Study Bible and if you have not read the entire Bible Genesis to Revelation I want you to do that in one year
 and I want you to read the Old Testament they're called oti and NTI Old Testament introductions and New Testament introduction and read them there's one in every book all 66 books have an Old Testament reduction or new testament introduction about one page give you the background the overview the the audience the author Etc. I want you to read those and read the entire Bible you don't need to read all the commentaries at the commentary below are available for you if you get stuck on something or see something that you have a question about I just encourage you to step one if you haven't read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation straight through please do that that's step number one
 step number two I want you to read a book on how to interpret the Bible and I want you to start that book at the same time when you start your Bible reading and my favorite book on interpretation I think it's a simple first step it's not overwhelming it's on the concept in need the discipline of hermeneutics which is the Art and Science of biblical interpretation but it's not overwhelming and you can read this it's called grasping God's word and I want you to get the 4th edition on Amazon this will be a great tool for you to learn how to interpret the Bible properly okay number three I want you to read a book on biblical theology this is the theology that basically shows that that scripture is one unified story from Genesis to Revelation that is preparing you for and pointing you too
 Jesus Christ and there is a simple small short little purple book called biblical theology by nine marks that you can buy on Amazon as well I'm talking maybe 110 Pages very short I want you to understand biblical theology
 I want you to buy and read Wayne grudem Systematic Theology now I don't agree with everything and groom Systematic Theology but I agree with a lot of it and he is a trusted resource he's over at the leave at the Phoenix seminary in Arizona this is a longer book you're going to read this again in tandem with your Bible reading it'll take you probably several months to get through it if you have a decent pace it is a vital resource for you to understand the system at how the systems of theology work together how soteriology works with God's Providence in the doctor of God you just need to understand that until I can talk too much about that but again read Wayne grudem systematic theology
 number for I want you to read all 150 Psalms all the way through I want to do that twice in 30 days
 okay the Psalms are so rich and understanding the character of God there is just no replacement for doing that so I want you to just to read the Psalms all the way through 150 Psalms twice and want to do that in 30 days
 number six I want you to read John Romans and Ephesians and want you to read them 10 times each over 90 days I know it's a lot before I preach on a book I try to read it if I can depend on the timeline I tried to read it ten times before I preach on it I think John MacArthur as even said that he's not even tried to read it twenty-five to fifty times before he would preach on it so if you can at this is again I think just the ultimate setup for you just taking your spiritual maturity your biblical literacy from zero up to 90 or from 25 up to 90 right read John Romans and Ephesians those are some of the I think those are three books of the towers of core New Testament gospel theology
 and then number 7 I want you to read the 1689 London Baptist confession of faith and you can order a copy of that in Modern English at founders.org it's like less than five bucks to buy it so again Step 1 by the MacArthur Study Bible ESV Study Bible read the entire Bible step to read the book on a contribution grasping God's word step 3 read the book on biblical theology that for Reed Wayne grudem Systematic Theology that 5 read 100 off 150 songs twice in 30 days number 63 John Romans Ephesians 10 times each over 90 days number 7 read the 1689 London Baptist confession of Faith you can order it again at founders.org it short I think it's like 80 Pages it's a shorter but the small book but it will give you a robust understanding of the historical
 confessions what that is what we have believed to be true organized written down collection of what is the faith what is the Christian faith j.c. Ryle once said we should know more tolerate false Doctrine then we would tolerate sin mean that the same effort that you exert to examine if any citizen your life should be put forth in examining if you have any heresy in your mind we need to be careful that we aren't believing false Doctrine and the reality is is that at some degree
 all of us are holding some sort of false ideas but we are working diligently and prayerfully to get to that Orthodox truth and there are some areas that are Mysteries there's some areas that you have Godly men and women who would have two different perspectives on the same passage so but we do need to be on a Pursuit just as equal to eradicate send from our lives as we are to eradicate false Doctrine or just ignorance ignorance from our minds as well John MacArthur said people always say to me the doctorate in theology are divisive to which I respond yes they are they divided the truth from Air
 and I think it's a wonderful perspective is that when we have Doctrine yes it'll divide you from people but what it's really doing this is dividing truth and are we are entering a guy says I close here an era of Christianity that will not sustain you if you hold two false ideas about God when the suffering comes when the persecution comes when the Affliction comes you're not going to be able to stand you have to be able to view those things I should say through the lens of scripture and peace and Clarity and if you can't do this you're going to either fall or compromised or shutter or or crack under the pressure of the coming times for the Christian church now is the time to solidify at the cement of your doctorate in theology to prepare your hearts for the increasing hostility against the church
 I'll close with Richard Baxter quote he says why are not our hearts continually set upon Heaven wide well we not there in contrast
 why are not our hearts continually set on havin wide well not they're in constant contemplation been thy soul to study eternity busy die self about the life to come habituate yourself to such contemplation and let not those thoughts be seldom are cursory obey thy self and Heavens Delights I love a reading from the Puritans they remind us of that desire for Heavenly things guys if your regular listening to show thank you you guys can follow us on Instagram and Twitter you can look at at Dale Partridge for Twitter I'm putting out content there on a daily basis on Instagram or putting out content every single day and Facebook just a tree learn.org you could find us there at your regular listener also thank you for those who have left a review if you've not left a review for this podcast please do so the reviews
 we helped the exposure of the show you don't even need to write anything you just have to start but if you do write something I will read it I have been encouraged by those of you who have left those reviews on that note, thank you for joining us on this episode of real Christianity again I'm your host deal Partridge will see you next week
 thank you for listening to this episode of real Christianity if your regular was no to this show would you personally consider making a donation to support our ministry efforts simply visit relearn. Org forward slash donate again that's relearn. Work for donate and for those looking to explore the idea of joining or planting a church in your home you can download our free pdf ebook titled the basics of biblical House Church by visiting relearn. Org for house last week do you have a theological question you would like answered on the show submit your question at relearn. Org forward slash question thanks for joining us on this episode of real Christianity we will see you next Wednesday