Have You Not Read?

Posted on Mar 13, 2021 in General |

A trend that I find bizarre in churches is when its members get upset at the teaching of God’s Word.

I’m not talking about the false teaching of the Word. I’m not talking about when people get upset because of a harsh delivery of the Word either. I can understand people being upset, rightly, about those things.

What I’m referring to is the thoughtful, skillful, kind and precise teaching of the Word that still upsets the believer.

Another part of the phenomenon is where that upset feeling then get released. Many times, it’s to the one who taught it, the teacher or preacher. Other times, it’s to the elders of the church. Other times it’s to friends or family members or anyone else that will listen.

There was a time, and not that long ago, considering all things, that people didn’t have access to the Bible. English speaking people first began to have access the Bible, in English, in the late 1300’s when John Wycliffe organized groups of scribes to transliterate the text, by hand, into English.

Today, even the laziest man in an English-speaking country can easily get his hands on an English Bible, in a physical or electronic format.

In Jesus’ time, not many people had access to, what we call, the Old Testament, but some people that did have access, were the Pharisees.

Jesus gave lots of grace to the common people who didn’t have access to the Bible and didn’t have a ready means to study it for themselves. He had less grace for those who claimed to be Bible experts and taught the common man a false teaching. The chief false teachers of Jesus’ day were the Pharisees.

Because the Pharisees hated Jesus, they were always trying to trap himself with his own words. And often when they would ask him a Biblical question, one of his favorite responses was, “Have you not read?”

The question oozed with divine sarcasm. Of course, they had read. But they weren’t asking questions looking for real answers. They were asking questions with sinister designs in mind.

Why say all of that? I say all of that so that I can say to the person who gets upset at the thoughtful, skillful, kind and precise teaching of God’s Word, “Have you not read?” Which is another way of saying, “Is this the first time that you’ve ever heard this teaching?” “Do you not own a Bible, and if so, do you simply never read it?”

We can’t expect everyone to understand all of the Bible, that’s why God calls some to be teachers. But, at a minimum, we should all be readers of God’s Word. There are many reasons why. I won’t cover them all, but here’s some things to think about.

If we read God’s Word for ourselves, it affects our hearts differently than when we hear it preached. Why? Because most of us have too hard of a time separating the man from the message. What I mean is this – When you hear me preach, for instance, you’re hearing a perfect message from an imperfect vessel, versus, when you read the Bible yourself, you have a perfect message coming from a perfect vessel. Learning from preachers isn’t wrong, but it is different.

Also, if we read God’s Word for ourselves, it’s harder to get away from its clear teachings. Don’t get me wrong – If people want to believe something other than what they read in the Bible, they’ll find a way. It will be wrong, but they’ll find a way to make it seem right so they can feel good again.

But when a teacher of preacher is involved, it often becomes much easier to villainize the person and simply not deal, personally, with the difficult text.

We have to understand this church – The Word of God is perfect. It is not the problem. If it isn’t, then what is? We are. We have deeply ingrained sinful natures and we have rebellious hearts that resist God and His truth.

With God’s help though, through Jesus, even these things that are stacked against us can be overcome.

If you find yourself getting upset when the Word is being taught, ask yourself, “Am I upset because this is something I’ve never heard before?” Or, “Am I upset because something in my nature is rebelling against God’s Word?”