The Bible As Our Textbook

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV) -

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

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Following on from yesterday's illustration, let's take a look at the Bible's role. But first, a reminder of what we discussed yesterday: Submitting to God, like submitting a test, means giving ourselves to Him exactly as we are, without holding or taking anything back, so that He can judge us.

In order to pass a test, you have to study. You'll need to go through your textbook for the subject and learn what it says - even better than that, you need to understand it so you can apply the concepts in it to any situation that might come up.

The Bible is our textbook. In it is every single instruction that God has given to His people (both the Israelites and the modern day church). It is what God uses to teach us how to live and how not to live so that we can become more like Him and live according to His will - in other words, pass the test.

Like in a textbook, there are sometimes examples of how a particular concept is applied in real life (the book of Leviticus is full of these), but you can't copy these examples for every question, because the context changes. Even still, the basic idea can apply to almost every situation - you just need to learn the principle behind the example.

Everything that's inside a textbook has been written for a reason - either it's there to show you the principles, there to show you how that principle works (or doesn't work) in real life, or to give credit to the person who originally wrote/came up with the ideas and put it together. Similarly, the apostle Paul tells us that every single part of Scripture has been written for one of the same reasons - to show us God's will, to examples of that in real life (for both good or bad), or to point us back to Him!

However, textbooks can sometimes be a little confusing to study, and the Bible is no exception. It is so easy to misinterpret what the Bible actually says, and people have been doing that for centuries, whether by accident or on purpose. So how do we know what to look for in order to correctly interpret the Bible? For that, we need an answer key, which we'll talk about tomorrow.