“When all your favorite preachers are gone, and all their books forgotten, you will have your Bible. Master it. Master it.” — John Piper

Bible study is an important topic for all of us trying to help people grow in the knowledge of God and for pointing unbelievers to Jesus Christ. There are very few people in our communities who really know how to open up the Bible properly, exegete it, and then apply it to their lives correctly. I started a Bible study with a couple recently who had never studied the Bible before, and one of them remarked to me: “Sometimes I will pick up a Bible and it just magically makes me feel better.”Therein lies one of the problems of our day. Too many people think the Bible is about them, when it’s actually all about Jesus. Often, it is used like some sort of self-help manual for the depressed, the sick, and the addict. Feeling down? Pick a verse. Yet, it is far more wonderful and profound than that.

Maybe the problem of why so many people remain untouched and unmoved by our Bible studies is because we are not correctly handling the Word of truth. Now that’s a sobering thought. There is a great post by Jen Wilkin here on some of the ways we misuse the Bible and the devastating results in our communities.

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” (James 3:1)