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Feed Yourself Lesson One

For the Video Lesson, click here: Part One -

Part 1 - Introduction

"Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." Acts 17:11

INTRODUCTION

One of the most important things in growing in Christian maturity is knowing how to feed yourself. Many Christians are spiritually starving. Often they are only eating once or twice a week. Sometimes their main diet is either junk food or just plain poison. Their spirits are so hungry that they just swallow everything that comes their way.

"Many preachers preach to be popular, instead of preaching to change lives. Their sermons are 95 percent their own thoughts and 5 percent God's truth. And the average church member cannot tell the difference because he or she is Biblically illiterate!" Anne Graham Lotz [Billy Graham’s daughter]

When you listen to a Sunday morning sermon or a Bible study message, how often do you check out the references and look for context?

This is not throwing doubt on the speaker, but being diligent in knowing and apply what is taught. The Bereans were happy to hear from Paul and went to the Scriptures to seek confirmation. Studying it for themselves implants the message deeper in the mind and heart. Paul was not insulted that they researched his teaching. Any Bible Teacher who is confident in his/her message welcomes people to confirm it with Scripture [as long as it is not turned into a verbal assault if there is a disagreement]. Respect and honour are the key words always.

Church is a vital part of spiritual food, but it is not enough. If we only eat naturally once or twice a week, then we are not going to be healthy. The same is true in the spiritual realm. If we only listen to the Sunday morning message and maybe an adult Sunday School lesson or mid-week Bible Study, we are starving spiritually even if the meals are top quality nutritious meals. If the Sunday morning service is basically geared to evangelism or motivation, then it is not providing a full meal for the sheep. There is nothing wrong with evangelistic or motivational messages. They have their place depending on the goal of the service, but they will not provide the sheep with a meal that will last a week. In fact, no message can do that. We must learn to feed ourselves.

Read 1 Peter 2:2, Heb. 5:11-14

Feeding ourselves does not mean that we leave the church with a "me and Jesus" attitude. That is a sure sign of immaturity and it is extremely dangerous. We need the church and the church body. It is essential. However, we also need to know how to feed ourselves. We cannot rely on others - no matter how great they are - to provide us with all the food we need. We have to know how to study and apply the Word of God correctly ourselves.

Satan is on the watch for the lone sheep, the easy target. We need to “flock” together for many reasons:

1. It is the Lord’s command,

2. We can give and get encouragement and instruction and,

3. We have leadership to watch over us and protect us.

Also, it is vitally important that we do not despise the food we are being served at church. We have to guard against pride and a "I already know that" attitude. If we begin to think we know more than our pastor or to criticize his messages we are headed for disaster not Christian maturity. God has placed our pastor over us because He knows that he is the best person for us. We always treat him with respect and honour. However, God never designed the pastor or Christian teachers to feed us full time. We must know how to feed ourselves.

Can you remember what last Sunday’s sermon was on? How many major references can you recall? The Puritan pastors used to speak for two hours or more, have 20+ points and expect their members to recall all the points and intelligently discuss them during the week. Have we progressed or regressed?

There are a ton of books, CDs, and DVDs available on almost every topic imaginable. Some of them are great, many are simply junk food, and some are even downright poison. If we do not know how to feed ourselves from the Word of God, we will not know how to judge what is good and what is trash. Even well-known speakers/writers can serve junk food and poison. Our spiritual life depends on being able to know and judge the Truth.

Sometimes we accept teaching simply because the teacher is well-known or is someone we personally enjoy. We have to realize that everyone is human and subject to error. Only the Word of God is without error so we must measure a teaching against the Word of God not against our admiration of a person or even the fact that God is or has been using him or her in powerful ways.

Sometimes a person can go into error because they move from the ability God has given them. For example, a person may be a gifted writer on the subject of Christian marriage - and we respect him/her for that - but that doesn’t mean God has gifted him to write on evangelism. If he leaves the area God has given to him, he will be more likely to go into error. Sometimes God gives a person many areas or general teaching skills, sometimes He limits them to one or a few areas. In every case, though, we need to judge what is taught by the Word of God, not simply accept it.

Every Christian is responsible before God to feed themselves without withdrawing from the church. We are not even the prime objective of feeding ourselves. If you have taken any first aid courses, you will probably have learned that when you enter a situation you have to look to your own safety first. If you are injured while trying to help not only will you be no help to the hurting person, but also you will complicate the situation. In the same way, if you are not feeding yourself from the Word of God you will not only be unable to help others in need, but also you may actually feed them poison just because you don't know any better. It is vital that we know how to feed ourselves so we can be effective in helping others. So, even in this, we are not the center. The most basic ingredient of Bible Study is allowing the Holy Spirit to be the Teacher. Without Him we cannot properly understand the Scriptures.

My goal over the 20 weeks of this course is to teach you, step-by-step, how to feed yourself. For some of you this may not be new, for others it may be a refresher course, and for still others if may be the thing that will save your life. You have to know [and practice] how to feed yourself.

*****

PRESUPPOSITIONS

Presuppositions are beliefs we accept and build on. Everyone - Christian and non-Christian - operates on presuppositions. For example, Christians have the presupposition that God exists and He is what the Bible describes Him to be. Atheists operate on the presupposition that God does not exist. Neither group could scientifically prove their belief. They accept their presupposition as a fact and build from it. Obviously someone is right and someone is wrong. Each group interprets the facts based on their presuppositions - what they have already chosen to believe. [This also explains why evolutionists and young earth creationists can look at the same facts and come to different conclusions.]

Presuppositions are not the same as blind faith, although they can degenerate into blind faith. Presuppositions are the framework we use to examine the facts. If the facts do not fit our presuppositions then we are either looking at the facts wrong or we need to change our presuppositions. For more details on presuppositions take Rev. LeRoy Davis' course on Presuppositions and World Views.

I said all of that to say this: If you are going to get the most out of your Bible Study you will need to believe the following presuppositions. Of course, you may study the Bible without believing the following, but it will be more like studying Shakespeare than the Bible. In other words, it may be interesting, but it will not have the same spiritual impact. If you are in that position, I trust a study of the Bible will cause you to question your current presuppositions.

Presupposition One: God is Truthful. God does not lie. He may not tell us everything, but everything He tells us is true.

As finite human beings we can never understand everything about an infinite God. In fact, the ONLY way we can know anything reliable about the spiritual realm is through revelation - i.e. God has to tell us about it. Discovery through observation and experimentation is the way to increase knowledge in the physical realm. It does not work in the spiritual realm. Knowledge of the spiritual realm and how it operates must come through revelation. God reveals to us what we need to know about Him, His ways, and His salvation. God chooses what and when to reveal Himself. Everything He says is true.

Presupposition Two: The Bible is the infallible Word of the Truthful God. We believe that the autographs were completely without error. The autographs are the original writings. No autographs exist today. However, the copies that we do have, have proven to be remarkably accurate. Textual Criticism is the science of making sure we have the most accurate copies possible.

Textual Criticism is the legitimate work of making sure we have the most accurate copies of the Bible possible. They examine and compare ancient manuscripts as well as compare Bible quotes in ancient writings to the Bible manuscripts available. Higher Criticism, on the other hand, is an attack on the Scriptures by trying to cast doubt on the Bible as the Word of God. Some Higher Critics may say the Bible “contains” the Word of God, others doubt that any of it is divinely inspired.

Presupposition Three: The Bible is a unity. Although it was written by different people over a period of more than a thousand years, it never contradicts itself. We may not understand how seemingly opposite statements can be reconciled, but we know there is an explanation. Part of Bible Study is understanding how different statements work together. At times in the past the Book of James was questioned because it was thought to teach salvation by works in contrast with Paul's teaching of salvation by grace alone. However, when correctly understood, there is no contradiction but they flow together in unity.

Presupposition Four: The Bible is the ultimate authority. Bible study is not theory, but the living Word of God. It gives us direction for our life. When we see something in Scripture, it is our obligation to change our life to be in unity with the Word of God. Many people don't want to study the Bible [or they only study things like "end times"], because they don't want to change. Bible Study will change your life. It may be difficult, but it will be for your benefit and the benefit of others.

May God bless you as launch into learning how to feed yourself.

WEEK ONE PROJECT

1. You will need a binder [or a file folder]. Commit to printing off each of these lessons and placing them in the binder. You will also need lined paper or a notebook to do your projects. Later on you will need a set of pencil crayons - 12 different colours is fine but 24 would be better.

2. Take notes on each Sunday message and look up each passage quoted.

Note: Next lesson you will be given the location and password to a very special page. This is available only to those who are taking this course. This page contains links to many on-line Bible Study resources from Bibles to commentaries to maps and more!

Return to Feed Yourself Lessons.

Please note: We no longer have the commenting feature [maybe again in the future]. Joshua Institute students who have questions or comments on their courses can use the contact button and mention the course name and lesson number in the email. Thank you. Glenn

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