This morning everyone walked across the parking lot for Bible Study Training at Garden City Chapel.
Elliot Stokes went through what the Bible is and why we read it.
“Here are the most important things about the universe … and you’re being walked through those things (when you read the Bible),” he said.
Elliot started by explaining that all of the Scriptures are about Jesus.
“If we miss that, it’s not just that we’re reading the Bible wrong. It means we have a heart defect.”
He stressed how the Bible is God’s spoken word – that God literally speaks things into existence. He creates and defines truth by his words. He referenced 2 Timothy 3:15-16 and 2 Peter 3:15-16 to explain this.
Elliot called everyone to open the Bible realizing that they are hearing from God.
He also talked about how “the Bible tells you who God is, and people don’t like that.” People like to make up things about God and choose what they like or don’t like to believe.
“The real God is way, way, way better than anything you would make up,” Elliot said.
Titus 3:3 says, “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.”
“That’s you,” Elliot said. “The Bible tells you the hard truth about yourself.”
The last point Elliot made was that “the Bible didn’t die for your sins.”
“The Bible is not God,” he said. “It reveals God.”
After the message, some of the students said this was convicting, reflecting on how it can be easy to seek forgiveness by getting in the Word rather than falling before the cross.
Bible Study Training is a weekly event. Every Friday morning, a different message is presented, and then we practice the inductive method of reading the Scriptures. This morning, we read today’s verse from Colossians: Col. 1:24.
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.