A measuring tool for determining whether you’re gaining all you can from God’s Word.
The Human Element
Let’s be honest about how our human nature can get in the way of our personal Bible study.
First, we don’t like to do hard things. If we’re not disciplined, we tend to take the easy way out. In the area of study, it’s easy to convince ourselves we understand something but fail to work to deepen that understanding. Rather than digging into our personal study of God’s Word, we may kick back and casually read a booklet or article. How often do you look up the scriptures referred to in the Church publications? How often do you really use that article or booklet as the basis for personal Bible study? Our natural tendency is to say, Oh I know what that scripture says, and not look it up. Or, when we do look up the scripture, we may glance at it quickly and say, Oh I remember, I know that scripture—and not actually read it. Our predisposition is to get lazy and sloppy: to assume we know more than we actually do; to assume we thoroughly understand a particular scripture; to assume we remember more than we do.
That points to a second obstacle presented by our human nature: We forget things. It’s frustrating, but true. Even if we proved something a while back, we can’t assume it’s locked in our memories for good. God made us so we have to maintain what we have, or we lose it. We need to regularly review the fundamentals of God’s truth.
But that leads to another problem: We become desensitized to things. For example, after wincing at a foul smell when we first experience it, we can become completely unaware of it after being around it for a time. Likewise, immoral content in the mass media, after having an initial shock value, eventually seems pretty tame once a person is around it long enough. Sadly, we can also become desensitized to good things—wonderful and awesome things—even God’s truth. We may be reading a breathtaking, mind-stretching truth in the Bible or a Church booklet, yet simply scan over it in a routine or ho-hum manner. Like that young man, if we only pick things up on a superficial level, even the greatest truths can start getting stale—because we become desensitized to them.
Another obstacle of our human nature is that we don’t like being corrected. Herbert Armstrong said that the hardest thing for any of us to do is admit we’re wrong. Toward the end of his life, he was shouting out to people, “Most of you just don’t get it!” The fruits show that they almost all thought he was talking about someone else: I wonder who it is that doesn’t get it, because surely I get it! This is a problem with human nature—and like it or not, we all have it. It’s very easy to hear or to read something God is directing right at us, and let it roll right off us. It’s very difficult, on the other hand, to respond, Yes, I’m doing that wrong. I’m going to change and conform my life to that.
We must admit that these are the types of tendencies we need to battle in order to really develop and sustain a rigorous, exciting, daily personal Bible study life. It requires honest self-examination to ensure we’re not falling into these traps of our human nature.
The Bible gives us a measuring stick to do that evaluation. The scriptures can help you determine whether your Bible study is all God means it to be. Several passages show what the effects of daily personal Bible study should be on us. If we’re studying the way God wants us to, we will be gaining some real, tangible, benefits from it—specific benefits God spells out. Not receiving these promised benefits means we’re not studying properly.
God actually demands that we study the Bible daily as a tool for conquering our human nature! So here is the measuring tool for how we’re doing in this battle: Are we studying rightly, gaining these benefits and conquering our human nature in the process? Or, is our study life being hindered by our human nature, depriving us of these benefits?
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