HOW TO READ THE BIBLE — a short course from Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church • Pastor Chuck Trusty • Lesson 7 of 13 • a new lesson every two weeks
Last Time
Last lesson you took John 14:15 home, and read its next-door neighbor:
"If ye love me, keep my commandments." — John 14:15
You read the whole verse, then its neighbor, verse 16: "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter." The neighbor promised help — you do not keep His commandments on your own strength; the Spirit of God abides with you. That was last lesson's tool: a verse has neighbors; read them.
Now weigh one word in it — keep. Do not read it as merely "behave." In the Book, "keep" is a watchman's word: to guard, to watch over, to hold safe. Paul could say at the end, "I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7) — he guarded it whole, to his last breath. So "keep my commandments" is more than good conduct. It means guard His words: treasure them, hold them fast, and let no one twist them or take them from you — the way you saw last lesson that a verse can be twisted. Love guards what it loves. Now, one more tool.
The Verse
"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." — John 13:34
The Question
Jesus calls it a new commandment — to love one another. But turn back to the Old Testament, and God said it long before: "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Leviticus 19:18). If love was commanded all the way back there, how is this one new? Does the New Testament throw out the Old? Do the two halves of the Book fight each other?
The Tool — walked together
First, the tools you already have. Ask your questions. WHO? The Lord Jesus — and this is a command, so who is it spoken to? His own disciples; the "one another" is the family of believers. WHAT? A command: love one another. WHEN? The verse does not date it — an empty box; but the neighbors (John 13) fill it: the Last Supper, the night before the cross. WHERE? The upper room, from that same chapter. WHY? The verse gives its reason in four words: "as I have loved you."
Run the rest of your tools before we name the new one. Read the whole verse to its end — "as I have loved you, that ye also love one another"; the measure is in the last words. Every command has an address — you found it: His own, the family of believers. A verse has neighbors — and John 13 gave you the when and the where. Is there a word for the Bible's own dictionary? Yes — new — and we draw it up below. Does a clear verse need to explain a dark one? Not here — that tool rests; this is not a dark verse, but two verses that seem to disagree. And settling that is the new tool.
So here it is. TOOL #7: the Bible agrees with itself — it never contradicts itself. When two verses seem to fight, the fight is in our reading, not in the Book. Read closer, and they lock together like a key in a lock. (When two verses seem to clash, look up the word they share — The Helper page shows how.) So "new" cannot mean the old command was wrong or thrown away. Look closer at that one word.
ONE WORD
NEW. The language the New Testament was written in has two words for "new," and they do not mean the same thing.
One means new in time — young, lately come. A calf born this morning is new that way. It did not exist yesterday. Yet it is no different from every calf before it — the same old kind of creature, only younger.
The other means new in kind — a thing of a sort that never was. The first airplane was new that way. Men had traveled for thousands of years — on foot, on horses, in carts, in ships. But when that first machine lifted off the ground, it was not a faster horse or a bigger cart. It was a new kind of thing altogether.
John 13:34 uses the second word. So the duty to love is not young — it is old as Moses: "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Leviticus 19:18). What the Lord makes new is the KIND. The old command measured love by yourself — love your neighbor as you love you. The new command measures it by Him — "as I have loved you," all the way to the cross. It is the same old duty to love, lifted to a new order — the way flight is still travel, but travel of a kind the world had never seen. The New did not throw out the old command; it raised it. The Book agrees with itself.
Try It This Week
Here is your verse. As you read it, watch for a signpost in the very first words:
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." — 1 Corinthians 2:9
Did you catch it? "As it is written" is a signpost — it means Paul is quoting Scripture. He reaches back to the Old Testament, to Isaiah (64:4), and sets it down in the New. Two Testaments, hundreds of years apart, one Book, agreeing perfectly. That is the tool in your hand. And do not miss what it says: no eye, no ear, no heart has ever taken in "the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." That is your hope — and the reason to love Him and follow on.
Your Toolbox So Far
1. Start with the questions — WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY. 2. Read the whole verse — all the way to its last word. 3. Every command has an address — ask who it was spoken to. 4. Let the Bible define its own words — the Book is its own dictionary. 5. Clear explains complex — let a plain verse light up a deep one. 6. A verse has neighbors — read the ones just before and just after. 7. The Bible agrees with itself — when two verses seem to clash, read closer; they lock together.
Next lesson, in two weeks: sometimes the word we need is bigger than our own can carry — and the Book reaches for a stronger one.
‹ Lesson 6 — Read a Verse's Neighbors • The Course Index — all lessons
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