I'd like to start this segment on the series in expository preaching by talking about something that I think is so important. It's learning how to read. Now, before you before you dismiss everything that follows here, you're probably some of you are thinking, " Well, wait a minute, I learned how to read when I was five years old, or when I was in first grade, I learned how to read." But there's a lot more to this to becoming a really great reader of the Scriptures than most people realize.
I think everyone who wants to be a great teacher should strive to become the greatest possible reader. And there are actually, I found very few great readers today.
And particularly, I think it's harder to be a good reader today than it was 20 years ago, with so much emphasis on widely accessible, relatively shallow knowledge with emphasis on short clips, YouTube videos, short, breezy books that don't have a lot of substance, that are quickly written, including on spiritual topics, that aren't deep and aren't necessarily challenging, and don't require a lot of thought to really wrestle with the text and dig out the meaning behind it.
A book that was very helpful to me, which I continue to look at, this is a book that came out first in around the year 1940s. It's called " How to Read a Book." This is an earlier version of it. And this is a book that's really helped me to get a clearer picture of what does it mean to be a great reader.
The irony is that while the book, one or both of the authors of the book were atheists, they really understood what it means to be a great reader, and they listed the Bible as one of the all-time classics that people really should read in the back of the book there. So this is how to read a book had a big impact by Adler and Van Doren. I don't think it's ever been out of print since it went into print in the 1940s. It's easy to get a hold of. I stumbled on this book early in my own life, I think, in my 20s.
And years later, I was at a conference of teachers, Bible teachers in Greece, and we were at a restaurant together, and we were having a discussion about what are the books that had the biggest impact on you in terms of becoming a teacher. And I was very surprised that one of the people sitting at the table near me, who was from another part of North America, said how to read a book had a big impact on him also. So I keep running into people that have the same testimony that this book had a big impact on.
So I want to share why this is important and what I learned, some of the basic concepts in here. I encourage you to get the book and read it yourselves. The really great books, the books that are worth the investment of time in reading, not just reading for entertainment, are over our heads. They're written by people that are wiser than we are, and we have to stretch to figure out what's in there.
Of course, the Bible is the greatest book of all time, the greatest collection of books of all time, inspired by the Holy Spirit. And so, looking at something that is as deep and rich as the Scriptures is going to be a stretch to really understand what is the main point, and how are the points developed, and what's the truth that's behind the text.
So the goal in becoming a great reader is to understand the author's intended audience, the context, the main points that the author is trying to make, the supporting points and the logic that he uses to make his conclusion. And then after that, we decide what do we want to do with that. So it's really important when we're reading the Scriptures to read things in context. One of the biggest problems that I see in the Christian world is people taking little snippets of Scripture out of context.
In a world where people like the little five-minute clip or the little inspiration of the day, it's very easy to do that, to just take a little piece of the Scripture and to read it out of context and make it say whatever we want it to say. And I think one of the biggest problems that I see in the United States is the influence of the Protestant reformers, with Luther and Calvin especially taking certain passages from Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians out of context and not reading the whole context of the message.
I was teaching recently to a group of disciples over in the Middle East, and they wanted to go through Romans. And even in the Middle East, they were seeing the influence of Protestant teaching and theology in the circles that they were running in. So they wanted to have a lesson on Romans. So reading Romans, we're going through Romans chapter 9, which is the text that's used extensively by Calvin and his followers regarding to support the idea of unconditional election that we have been the God chooses.
I'm going to save you and I'm not going to save you. The God arbitrarily picks and chooses who he wants to be saved. And they use this. This comes out of the passage in Romans 9. And I was explaining to my friends in the class, this is part of Romans 9 is part of a discussion that takes place in Romans chapter 9, 10, and 11, and you have to understand what's the question that Paul was asking and how does he answer it? And he answers it through a discussion that involves chapter 9, chapter 10, and chapter 11.
And you can't take the passages in Romans 9 out of context without understanding what's the question he's addressing and how does he ultimately answer it through all three chapters. So this is just one example of why this is so important to become a really good skilled reader. In how to read a book, the authors talk about the concept of active reading. And I'd really try to keep this in mind. Active reading is a process of discovery that involves thinking, mental work, and involvement.
The goal is to become enlightened in the process as you're wrestling with what the author is saying, not just understanding the facts, but understanding the what, but understanding the why and the implications and the reasoning behind it. So not only what is the author saying, but why is he saying it? How does this connect with other facts? And do you understand the author's argument well enough that you could restate the same thing in your own words? Do you understand what the author means and what he's saying?
I want to give you a good illustration from How to Read a Book from Chapter 1 about the differences between being an active reader and being a good listener. And so think about this. It says, " Listening is learning from a teacher who is present, a living teacher, while reading is learning from one who is absent." If you ask a living teacher a question, he will probably answer you. If you're puzzled by what he says, you can save yourself the trouble of thinking by asking him what he means.
If, however, you ask a book a question, you must answer it yourself. In this respect, a book is like nature or the world. When you question it, it answers you only to the extent that you do the work of thinking and analyzing yourselves. I thought about this. This makes a lot of sense. If I'm listening to a lecture by a speaker on the Bible and I don't understand what he says, either I can raise my hand during the class or go up to him afterwards and say, " I'm not sure.
Did you mean this or did you mean that?" With the Bible, if I'm reading one of Paul's letters, I can't do that. He's long dead, I can't communicate with him. The only way that I if I have a question to ask Paul, I have to dig into the text of what he wrote to find the answer in there. And if I can't find it in Romans, I might start by looking at some of his other writings if he's talking on the same subject to try to find the answer there.
So active reading, this kind of reading where you're questioning the text and then you have to do the work to find the hard answers, folk forces us to grow in wisdom and understanding, to read thoroughly and carefully with insight, and to discover what does the author think about this? Not what do I think, but what does the author think? What does he mean by this and why? There's a statement in the book that says the difference between active and passive readers.
The authors say, " Passive readers ask no questions," and they get no answers. So this is the hard work of reading. And so, when you're reading the Bible, are you an active reader? Are you a passive reader? When you're reading a text, are you asking the question, " Why is he saying this?" or " Why did this happen?" Because when you ask the tough questions and then you have to do the work of wrestling with the text and finding out the answer, that's where you grow in wisdom and understanding.
Passive readers ask no questions and they get no answers. So I want to be an active reader. I hope that you do as well. All teachers should strive to be active readers of the Scriptures, asking the hard questions and then digging in to find the answers. And you may be thinking, " Oh no, this sounds like work. This sounds like hard work. Can't I just use a canned lesson created by somebody else or pick up a popular commentary? Do I really have to do the work of digging into the Scriptures myself?
That seems like that would be so much easier just to have someone else do the thinking for me. Well, I want to just, let's remember what the scriptures teach about the concept of hard work and the blessings of hard work. And Proverbs 20:4 says, " The lazy man will not plow because of winter. He will beg during harvest and have nothing." This is God blesses a hardworking spirit. Proverbs 26:15, " The lazy man buries his hand into the bowl.
It wearies him to bring it back to his mouth." So the food's right there in front of him, but he doesn't want to do the work and he's going to starve to death when the food is right there. Same thing is true, I believe, with studying the Bibles. We need to do the work to bring it to our mouth. And then Ecclesiastes 10:18 says, " Because of laziness, the building decays.
And through idleness of hands, the house leaks." I've got an old house and I'll tell you it requires here in New England, it requires a lot of work to keep the house up and to keep it from leaking and falling apart. It's the same thing with the church. The church is described as a house in which the Spirit of God dwells as well. And it requires work to keep it up and to keep it strong. In how to read a book, it talks about four levels of reading. And I want to talk about those four levels briefly.
First one, elementary reading. Basic initial reading. This is understanding what the words mean and what a sentence mean. The cat ate the cat food. That's a simple sentence like that. You can read it. You understand what's going on. You understand the meaning of the words. Now you don't know anything about this particular cat, but you understand the meaning of that sentence. So this is something most of us learn by the age of five, six, seven, something like that. Just elementary basic reading.
We learn hopefully early in life. That's level one. Level two, so moving up to progressively harder levels of reading. Level two is inspectional reading or skimming systematically. This is very helpful by pick up a book, how to read a book. Well, I wonder what this is about. Let me take a look at the table of contents. Let me skim through the book. Oh, okay, I understand this is a book about learning how to do intelligent reading. And you get a quick sense by scanning through something, what is the book about?
Is this a historical fiction book? Is it a real history book? Is it a science book? Is it inspirational writing? Is it a spiritual book? Is it Christian? What is the book about? What are its parts? And one of the benefits is you can quickly decide, is this something that's worth my time to actually read seriously or not? So skimming systematically, inspectional reading, taking a quick look and getting a sense of what it's all about. That's the level two. Level three, we're getting into the tougher area here.
This is analytical reading. This is getting into serious reading. This is thorough, complete reading with no particular concern at the time involved. You're going to dig in and mine it, mine the text for whatever is in there and you're going to take whatever time it takes to do that. So the goal of analytical reading is to get as complete an understanding as is possible. This is very important in reading the Bible. I want to read from how to read a book in chapter 2 on page 19.
There's a quote from it talks about Francis Bacon. As Francis Bacon once remarked, " Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." And the author goes on and says, " Reading a book analytically is chewing and digesting a book." So this is only for those that are really worth it. This picture of Francis Bacon reminds me of some of the basic concepts from the Scriptures.
It reminds me of what it says in Psalm 1, the idea of chewing and digesting the books that are really worthwhile. In Psalm 1, it says from the New King James, " Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in season, whose leaf shall not wither whatever he does shall prosper. So this picture of meditating on the Word of God day and night. It's like very similar. It reminds me of what Francis Bacon said about some books are worth chewing and digesting. And actually, this also reminds me of what some of the early Christian writers said about in Leviticus 11, it talks about the clean and the unclean animals.
And you may remember the clean animals were those you were allowed to eat and there were two requirements. The first requirement is it had to have a split hoof. All right, so that rules out camels and horses which have one monolithic single hoof. So it had to have a split hoof which would be like an animal with a split hoof would be a sheep or a goat or a cow, for example. Pigs also have split hooves, but they're disqualified for other reasons. So the first requirement is split hoof.
The second requirement is it had to be an animal that chews the cud. And so that would include sheep and goats and cows. You watch a sheep or a goat or a cow, and they're out in the pasture, and they haven't eaten anything in the last ten minutes, but they're chewing on something. Basically, they have taken something from their stomach and they've brought it back up, and they're chewing it and chewing it and chewing it some more to get all the nutrients out of it.
So those of you who live in rural areas know exactly what I'm talking about here. On the other hand, pigs, they don't chew the cud. They eat garbage, they live in mud. They're a perfect example of spiritually what you don't want to be doing in life. So the pigs will eat anything and they just swallow it. So the early Christians said, " You know, there's a lesson for us." Paul said Paul did say, after all in Romans 15, " Everything written in the past written to teach us," referring to the Christians.
The early Christians several of them saw in this distinction between the clean and unclean animals lessons for us. So it talked about the split hooves. I think one early Christian writer says that unlike the Jews who believed in the Father, that the Christians believed in the Father and the Son, so that like the split hooves, we are more sure-footed, more stable as we're climbing the mountain. And then the other part was about the chewing the cud. Think about what Francis Bacon said about chewing and digesting.
And think also what it says in Psalm 1 about the man who meditates on the Word of God Day and night. This is like chewing it. After you eat it, you're chewing it over and over and over to get the good nutrition that's out of the Word of God. From Irenaeus, early Christian writer, this is in a work called Against Heresies Book 5, chapter 8 is talking about this. And he says, " In like manner too, those are unclean which have the double hoof but do not chew the cud.
They do not ruminate." This is plainly an indication of all heretics of those who do not meditate on the words of God. Neither are they adorned with works of righteousness to whom the Lord says, " Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things which I say to you?" For men of this stamp do indeed said that they believe in the Father and the Son, they have the split hoof, but they never meditate as they should upon the things of God. Neither are they adorned with the works of righteousness.
But as I've already observed, they have adopted the lives of swine or dogs. Giving themselves over to filthiness, gluttony, and recklessness of all sorts. So this is interesting to me. He's saying that the lesson the clean animals that are chewing that are eating the pure grass and chewing it and chewing it are a picture of how God wants us to be. Clement of Alexandria in the Miscellanies of the Stromata in book 7, chapter 18, which is in Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 2, says almost the same thing.
He says the heretics who don't chew the cud are while they may believe in the Father and the Son, they are incapable of grinding down the clear declaration of the oracles of God. So the idea is that they're not chewing. They're not chewing on the Word. They're not processing it. And he says as a result of that, their beliefs are messed up and their lives are disaster too. So he made the same points that Irenaeus did.
So the points that are made by both Irenaeus and Clement is that we need to be like the clean animals, like the sheep and the goats, not like the pigs. That we need to be digesting, chewing on, processing the Word of God to be like the clean animals. So many of the heresies, it's striking to me that what they're prescribing as the cure for the heresies of their time, which is in the 200s, here we are 1800 years later, I see the same thing, honestly.
It's astounding to me in so many Christian circles where people believe in the Father and the Son, but they don't take the time and make the effort to digest and chew on the Word of God. And therefore, they take little bits and pieces and they teach all kinds of things that go against the basic historic kingdom faith. They teach we don't have to lead holy lives, we don't have to actually obey the teachings of Jesus, just believe Him. He did it all on the cross so we don't have to do anything.
They teach that any of the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles that don't fit with our current culture and are unpopular can be ignored or discarded as culturally based. They teach we can't lose our salvation, or some even go so far as to teach some form of the prosperity gospel, which is the reason to become a Christian is because of all the wonderful blessings you can enjoy in this life.
Paul said, " If only for this life we have hope in 1 Corinthians 15, we are of all men the most pitiable." So that's definitely not the historic fate. So the importance of reading the Scriptures deeply and in context will clean out a lot of heresies that have plagued the church if we get back to good, solid reading.
I believe that if you devote yourself to being a great reader of the Scriptures, who can show people what the Scriptures actually mean in context, who can open up the Word of God and explain things to people accurately and in a balanced and correct way, you will be teaching others to do the same thing in the process and be a tremendous blessing to the church. The fourth level of reading, so the third level was inspection reading. The fourth level of reading is called syntopical reading and how to read a book.
This involves reading several books that talk on the same topic or similar topics where you need to compare, contrast, and construct an analysis that is based on more than one text. Now this is the hardest work of all in terms of reading, but it can also be the most rewarding. Now I see the Bible here not as one book, but as a collection of dozens of books by several different authors, all inspired by the Holy Spirit.
And so really teaching the Bible is always an exercise in syntopical reading where whenever I'm teaching what Paul is writing about in Romans, I'm looking at what he said in all of his other works. I'm looking at what Jesus said as the foundation for everything in the New Testament. I'm looking at how it ties in with basic concepts that were laid down in the Old Testament scriptures as well.
Let me give a few illustrations of the importance of syntopical reading, which is meaning you're reading not just one book or one text, but you're reading multiple different texts and then figuring out by looking at both of them how does this all fit together so that you get a deeper understanding than just by reading one single text. Classic one is what is the so-called contradiction between Paul and James regarding the relationship between works and our salvation.
Ephesians 2:8-9 Paul says, " For by grace you have been saved through faith. This not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast." So he says, " We are not saved by works." Paul says that in Ephesians 2:8 and 9. On the other hand, James said, and he asked a rhetorical question in 2:14. You know what the answer is? He says, " What does it profit, my brethren?
If someone says he has faith but does not have works, can faith save him?" And the answer is obviously if you read the rest of what he says, the answer is a resounding no. That kind of belief only without works of action is not going to save them. He concludes in James 2:26, " As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." So he says, " This is dead. It's useless if you don't have works accompanying your faith." Now what do you do?
With these two statements, which many would see it seems like a contradiction at first, Paul says you're not saved by works and James says if you don't have works, you're not going to be saved. Well, one way to handle the problem is the way Martin Luther did. In his introduction to the New Testament, his Greek translation, his German translation of the New Testament, he trashed the letter of James. He said it's an epistle of straw. It has nothing of the gospel in it.
That's one way to solve the apparent problem is you just destroy, you just destroy and bury one part that you don't want to deal with. That's what a lot of people do. You just focus on the scriptures you like and the ones that contradict what your conclusion is. You malign them or you ignore them and pretend they don't exist or explain them away. However, if you're a good syntopical reader, you're reading what Paul is saying in Ephesians 2 in light of all the other things that Paul said.
Say, " Okay, Paul's talking in Ephesians 2. Let's read that in light of everything in Ephesians, not just that one, those two verses there. Let's read it in context of what he said, for example, in Romans when talking about the same subject, faith versus works. In Romans 9:30 to 32, says, " What shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness even the righteousness of faith. But Israel pursuing the law of righteousness has not attained to righteousness." Why?
Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. That's Romans 9:30 to 32. So Paul wrote Romans and he wrote Ephesians. He's dealing with the same question. It's a contrast between works and faith. Which one are you saved by? In Galatians 2:16, Paul writes there as well. He says, " Knowing the man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.
Even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ, not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified." Galatians 2:16.
So if we take all of Paul's writings, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians in particular, and then also if we combine that with looking at this whole question about faith in Christ's law of Moses as it's developed in Acts chapters 10 and 11 and 15, if we look at all these things together, a clear picture emerges and we can discover by syntopical reading there's no conflict here. Paul is talking in Ephesians 2 about the works of the law. Same thing he's talking about in Galatians 2.
Same thing he's talking about in Romans chapter 9, where he uses the full phrase the works of law. We're saved by faith in Christ, not by the works of law. But faith in Christ is belief combined with obedience to His teachings. So there's no conflict at all. Just one illustration of the importance of reading. So you can figure these things out for yourself. You don't have to turn to a commentary.
Another benefit of syntopical reading, so often I hear preachers who are either teaching in person or teaching online, who are disparaging men in the Old Testament, like Jonah or Lot. Many preachers will take a look at the example of Lot of offering his two daughters up to the crowd of evil men, and they will disparage him as a coward, as a bad person, as a person who is lacking faith.
On the other hand, let's consider what Peter, the apostle Peter, taught by Jesus, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says about lot.
In 2 Peter chapter two verses seven to nine, speaking about the Lord, it says if Lord delivered righteous lot who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked for that righteous man dwelling among them tormented in his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds, then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment. So what does Peter say about Lot? Does he say he's a spiritual loser? He's deficient.
He was a coward? No. He says he describes him as righteous lot who was tormented in his righteous soul. He uses the word " righteous" applied to Lot three times. So Peter holds Lot up as a righteous man living in the midst of a corrupt and depraved generation as an example to inspire us and call us higher where we are in some cases in very similar situations.
So let's not disparage people based on just reading what it says in the Old Testament without looking together at all the passages to talk about that person to get a complete and accurate picture. He is held up as a hero of faith as a righteous man who was not conforming to the wickedness of the world around him. Another example, another person that is often denigrated from the Old Testament is Jonah. People read the story of Jonah and preachers are preaching through the story of Jonah.
Jonah is called by God to go to preach to Nineveh, and we all know the story. He books passage in a boat and goes off in a completely different direction. He's trying to run away from the Lord.
And Lord brings a storm up and he ends up being swallowed by the great fish, by the whale, comes out, goes to Nineveh, the people repent, and then at the end of the story, he is dejected that Nineveh isn't destroyed by God, and God has to rebuke him, has to correct him, that God shows that he cares about even all the people of Nineveh.
So while people will look down on Jonah based on his disobedience to God in the beginning, his fear and his refusal to go on the mission initially until he was cast into the depths of the sea, and then finally showing a lack of compassion towards their enemies, the Ninevites. Actually, Jesus says wonderful things about Jonah. In Matthew chapter 12, Jesus compares himself to two people in the Old Testament. And he says he compares himself to Solomon and he compares himself to Jonah.
And Jesus says regarding Solomon, " The Queen of the South came from the ends of the earth to hear the preaching of Solomon and now one greater than Solomon is here." So Jesus is saying, " Solomon was the wisest man on the earth, but I am even wiser than he was." Likewise, he compares himself of all the people in the Old Testament. He doesn't compare himself to Jeremiah or to Isaiah or Moses. He compares himself here to Jonah, who most people look down on.
And he says, " Jonah, the men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah." Think about Jonah from the perspective of Jesus, Jonah, as one man alone goes into the great city of Nineveh and calls the people to repent and from top to bottom, from the king down to the animals, the whole nation repents in sackcloth and ashes. Jesus' attitude is this was maybe the greatest preacher of repentance of all time before him, just like Solomon was the wisest man.
And Jesus says, " Now one greater than Jonah is here." That Jesus is a greater preacher of repentance than Jonah. So if we want to have a clear picture to have God's view of people, we have to read syntopically. When we're reading the story of Jonah, we look, what did other people say about Jonah till we can have a clear picture and not be denigrating him unfairly? So just to put this all together here, I want to challenge each of you to make it your life's goal to become an outstandingly good reader.
This is hard work. You need to read deeply. You're gonna have to be asking questions of the text and then doing the hard, difficult work of digging out the answers. You're going to have to be reading different books of the Bible and comparing them to see how do these things all true, how do they fit together? This is the challenge of a lifetime.
And as I said earlier, one of the main reasons that there are so many horrific heresies that prevailing in the Christian Church is because there are so few great readers who become teachers, men who can understand what the prophets and apostles actually meant, reading their statements in context, seeing how they fit together, and explaining it clearly and accurately to others, like the sheep and the cow who meditate on who are chewing the cud, representing meditating on the Word of God day and night.
So I strongly encourage you to find, get, and read how to read a book and take your own reading higher. And as you become a great reader and a great expository teacher, you will buy your own example of clear and accurate reading. Help others in the church to become great readers and teachers as well. And I believe this will be one of the most wonderful blessings to the church, a healthy way to immunize the church against all kinds of present and future heresies.