As we celebrate students who are graduating this month, we recognize all the hard work in studying they’ve done to receive their diplomas. As Believers, we also must be students in knowing God’s Word. Our Bible Journaling verse today says, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15 ESV) This is so necessary for the Christian life. We cannot fight against attacks from Satan if we have no idea what the Bible says, and we will not be able to use God’s Word to fight back when the enemy attacks. We also need to study so that we can grow in our walk with the Lord. The more we study the Bible, the more we will grow, the more we grow, the closer our relationship with God will become.
The Apostle Paul is giving Timothy instructions all through this epistle, to help Timothy become a better minister of the Gospel. Paul tells Timothy that he must study the Scriptures to be approved unto God. The Enduring Word website states that Paul was explaining that “Timothy’s goal was not to present himself approved to people, but to God. He wasn’t to regard the job of being a pastor as a popularity contest but instead as a call to faithfulness to God.” He encourages Timothy to be diligent in studying and to learn all he can so that he can minister effectively to the church. We also are to show the Lord that we have studied His Word and have been faithful to obey it as we walk out our faith.
Reading the Bible is a good thing to do, but if we just read it and do not allow it to sink deep into our hearts, we are learning nothing and we are not benefitting from the morsels of truth buried deep in its pages. It is when we do deep study into Scripture, that we gain and grow. One reason we should study God’s Word is stated later in our verse so that we are “rightly handling the word of truth.” When we don’t dig deep to see what a passage means, asking God to open our eyes and our minds to understand what is written, we can misinterpret Scripture and make it say something it doesn’t. That is one problem with the cults. They take a passage and change something around so that the verse says something completely different than what God intends in His Word. We must be vigilant in knowing what the Bible says so that we don’t do the same thing. Those especially who are pastors and teachers must be very careful because, as leaders, God will hold them responsible for what they teach. (Hebrews 13:17) Not just leaders of ministries need to be careful, but each one of us also must search the Scriptures, digging deeply into what it says so that there is no error in what we share with others.
As we begin our studying, we should first ask God to open our eyes, our understanding, and our hearts to receive what He wants us to learn and to hide in our hearts. The psalmist says, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” (Psalm 119:18 ESV) It was the cry of his heart that he would learn what God’s Word said. Then as we open the Scriptures, we need to utilize tools that are provided to us in many forms, to help us understand those things that we find difficult to understand. In using those tools, we should be discerning, checking to be sure that those tools will not lead us astray, but will teach us truth. Once we have searched the Scriptures and hidden those treasures in our hearts, we need to apply what we have learned, thereby growing in our walk with the Lord. The more we study, the deeper a relationship with God we will acquire, and the more we will mature in our Christian walk. We can then come before God “as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed” and hear His “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
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