HOW TO READ THE BIBLE — a short course from Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church • Pastor Chuck Trusty • Lesson 2 of 13 • a new lesson every two weeks
Last Time
Last lesson we handed you a verse to work on your own — Mark 1:35:
"And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." — Mark 1:35
Did you work the five questions on it? Here is what the verse gave up. WHO is "he"? One step back, verse 34, tells us — Jesus. WHAT did He do? He went out and prayed. WHEN? The verse says it twice — "in the morning," and "a great while before day." WHERE? A solitary place, off by Himself. And WHY? The verse itself would not say — that box stayed partly empty. But read on to verse 38: "Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also." The quiet morning prayer was getting Him ready to leave the crowd and keep going.
Did you find it? Then you already know the tool works. Now let us learn one more.
The Verse
"And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise." — Luke 23:43
The Question
Here is another verse most of us know by heart. And most of us quote it — and stop halfway. We say, "today shalt thou be with me," and there we leave off. We drop the last word of the sentence. And the last word is the whole point. Let us pick the five questions back up, and watch how much of this little verse answers itself.
The Tool — walked together
WHO? "And Jesus said" — right there in the verse. And He is speaking unto him — a dying man on the cross beside Him.
WHAT? A promise: "thou shalt be with me."
WHEN? "To day." Two words, in plain sight. Not someday — today.
WHERE? "In paradise." That is in the verse too — it is the very last word.
WHY? The verse itself does not say. That box is empty. Good — an empty box is our shovel. Read one verse back, to verse 42: "And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." There is our WHY. The man asked. He called Jesus Lord — he believed in a kingdom he could not see — and he asked to be remembered.
Four answers on the surface. One empty box that a single step back fills. The Book wants to be understood.
Now here is this lesson's new tool. TOOL #2: a verse is a sentence — read it to its last word. The chapter numbers and the verse numbers were added long after the Bible was written, to help us find things — not to tell us where a thought ends. So when we stop reading too soon, we keep half of what God said and lose the other half.
See it right here. Half of the verse is a comfort: "today shalt thou be with me." That much alone would be sweet. But it is only half. Read on to the last word and you learn WHERE that promise lands — paradise. Stop early, and you have the promise without the place. Read the whole verse, and you have both.
ONE WORD
And that last word is worth stopping on. PARADISE.
In the language Luke wrote in, that word is a picture — a garden. A walled garden, the kind a king plants and keeps. Not a cloud. A garden.
Now think of where this man was. Nailed to a rough beam. In the dirt. Outside the city wall. And the last word he hears from his Lord is — garden. The Bible opens in a garden, back in Genesis. And here, to a dying thief who has only just believed, it promises a garden again.
One word — and the whole verse grows a size larger.
Try It This Week
Here is your verse. Read it slowly — all the way to the last word:
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." — Ephesians 2:8-9
Most people quote the front of it — "For by grace are ye saved through faith" — and stop right there. But the sentence keeps going. Read on to the end, and ask the verse one plain question: what saved you — something you did, or something you were given? The tail of the verse answers it: "it is the gift of God: Not of works." Stop early, and a man can still wonder if he must earn it. Read the whole verse, and the wondering is over. It is a gift.
Next lesson, in two weeks: every command has an address — so who is a verse really speaking to?
No comments:
Post a Comment