Applying the Bible in Bible Teaching with H.B. Charles | Bible Study Magazine Podcast

[Music] i recently read a book about bible preaching that i truly do believe would be useful for anyone who ever teaches the bible whether formally from a pulpit or from a chair in kid's sunday school or even just informally around the dinner table it was a book by my guest today on the bible study magazine podcast h.b charles the book is called on preaching here's what was so remarkable to me about this book charles took all of the best pieces of advice that i was ever given personally about bible teaching counsel that it took me about 20 years to amass and he put it all within the slender covers of a very accessible little volume it takes real mastery to do that mastery of your content and mastery of the tools of communication careful and theologically minded bible teachers are the ones who have to think the most often and the most carefully and deeply about the theme of this second season of the bible study magazine podcast application i wanted to ask brother charles for his insights into this topic as a week by week bible teacher from the tender age of 17. what applications are illegitimate which ones become legalism and i want to speak to those of you who are not preachers i want to encourage you not to assume that this discussion is only for preachers if you listen to this podcast you've already proven that there's something here for you you probably teach the bible to others in some way even through informal conversation and if as one of my mentors said to me just recently preaching is just bible reading and if you are a servant of christ who is obligated to apply his words to your life then there is something here for you listen [Music] in pastor h.b charles it's really wonderful to have you here on the bible study magazine podcast can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what kind of ministries the lord has placed in uh in your lap what do you do for the church yeah thank you for having me it's a joy to be with you i am a third generation baptist pastor i am also a boy preacher uh that started at a very young age under my father's ministry and when my father passed away when i was 16 years old a year later the church he served for 40 years caught me to succeed him and i served that church for 18 years until the lord moved me to jacksonville in 2008 i am in my 12th year now serving this local church i am primarily responsible for prayer and the ministry of the word which i understand pastoral work to be focused on as uh acts chapter six acts six verse four it's how i understand excellent work and whatever ancillary stuff i do uh is uh secondary to prayer in the ministry of the word amen praise the lord that story is one i've i've heard the beginnings of you know that is i've heard of other young men who were raised into the pastor at very young ages but i personally don't know of people who have subsequently lasted as long in the ministry as you have are you aware of others who've done that my father was a friend of preachers and they were not as young as i but just he was surrounded by a young man that had a calling on his life so uh that opened my eyes to the possibility that god could use my life but to be honest with you my father did everything he could to discourage me like spurgeon said do any other job you possibly can well my father first told me that if you can keep from preaching do it it was the most discouraging thing it ever said to me and it took me years to understand the significance of what he was saying he wanted to make sure the lord called me and he didn't so he was not pushing me to the pooper he was trying to hold me back but uh there was a call on my life at a very young age and i knew as a boy i didn't know the details of what my life would look like but i expected as a boy that i'd spend the rest of my life preaching and i've this has been the course of my life ever since and i pray the lord give me many more years to preach my father was and is a writer and editor and teacher and he never sat me down and said if you if you could do anything other than writing editing and teaching please do it he so i didn't have that conversation okay so we're we're in the second season of the bible study magazine podcast and the theme of this season is application i asked you to come on um because you are a bible teacher i read your book on preaching i've actually got it up on the screen behind me yes sir i really loved the way that book just just distilled tons of advice that i've heard now i you know in my training many many times but put it in such brief space and made it so accessible and i just kept saying amen amen amen all the time i'm reading this book this podcast is aimed at helping people who aren't necessarily preachers but who most certainly are doing some kind of bible teaching whether it is just to their own kids or in a sunday school class or in some less formal way than maybe you or i who do preach on a regular basis at our churches do so as we talk about application today i'm going to ask questions that naturally will yield your experience and wisdom from the pulpit but we're going to try to help others who are in somewhat less formal bible teaching roles and i want to jump right in with a difficult question and see what wisdom you can give to us because as soon as somebody starts talking about application the specter of legalism comes up when does application of bible truths become legalism what would you say so i i am a student of expository preaching and teaching and by that um i just simply mean that i believe the bible should be taught in a way in which the main idea of your sermon of your message of your lesson is rooted in in alignment with and flows from the primary meaning of the text i believe the the first statement i would say about avoiding legalism is to is to let application be shaped by the text of god's word so in god's word there are both um indicatives and imperatives telling people what's true and then telling people what to do yes like the different halves of paul's epistles yes the gospel is an announcement the gospel is an invitation the gospel is a promise and as you read how it is presented in text you must let the text shape how you talk about application um we're we're i'm planning something um for prayer soon and i just want to do a meditation in this prayer meeting on first thessalonians 5 17. pray without ceasing i expect however that it's all going to be pretty much application after a brief explanation because it is an exhortation i mean that's what the text is it is an application the whole point of the meditation the devotional will be what does it mean to pray without ceasing how do you do this but that's rooted in the text and i think that would be my first piece of advice the second one is that you just in a larger sense you have to remember the gospel of jesus christ and so it not only should be text based but application should be gospel-shaped uh there is nothing we can do to earn the favor of god uh this we trust the finished work of christ and we must be careful uh to guard our hearts and minds and thinking and thus our teaching from pharisees that seeks to earn its way to god and and saturating our minds with an understanding of the gospel and keeping the gospel foremost helps us do that so what i like so much about your answer i mean i'm just saying amen again all the time silently here is that no matter if someone who's listening or watching the podcast is a preacher or just a bible student who never actually sits down and teaches others everything you said is still perfectly relevant to them because we expect people to be not just hearers but doers of the word and if they're going to be doers of the word they've got to keep these very things in mind and if they don't if they never get to that stage of application then james especially and those verses about you know people who are just here and don't do has warnings to give them absolutely now when it comes to a difficult passage or any passage where you get to the end and say okay this this wasn't application the passage itself was mainly let's say explanation and you're scratching your head a little bit saying then what do i tell people to do is it ever okay to have the application which is basically know this thing you've read it know it would you ever just stop there absolutely i do think so i am glad to talk to you i hope what i share is helpful i must confess that i don't consider myself an expert at application um i'm i'm i'm bent toward research and i am a i feel like i've been masquerading in the pulpit i'm a glorified sunday school teacher in the pulpit i mean i just want to explain stuff and there are times however i do feel like our primary job in preaching and teaching is to be a mouthpiece for the text and there are times when i have presented something maybe a section of a passage or a passage that is all teaching and i my application is do you believe this do you believe this this is wonderful truth or this is a hard truth or this is a fundamental truth and the bible is saying this without apology what are you going to do with this there's no middle ground here i think it's totally appropriate to teach that way without necessarily trying to uh put something up to run away with practical points to practice um i do think calling people to believe the truth and affirm the truth is an appropriate way to handle the other factor i would add very quickly is that as we do application we're not the primary applier right the holy spirit's job it you know it's our job to get the word from people from it's our job to get the word from our mouths to their ears it's the holy spirit's job to get it from their ears to their hearts and sometimes he'll take our ideas out of context and minister to people's hearts and minds in ways we never expected that's very humbling isn't it i've definitely had that happen yeah however is it possible for a bible teacher of any kind or even just a bible reader to let's just say culpably even sinfully fail to apply a passage whether they are whether the teacher is maybe afraid to step on toes or the individual is sensing where this is going and simply not wanting to obey how do i know when i've actually like morally failed to apply a text yeah so i do really think this is um the conscious the heart the mind being yielded to the authority of god's work any teacher is going to stand in three positions as it relates to the word of god there are people who claim to be bible teachers who stand over it and say what they think is true and not true in the bible and then there are if i may kind of life coach kind of teachers who seem to stand alongside the word and the bible got some stuff to say and i got some helpful stuff to say but the the proper place to stand is under the under authority under the authority of god's word and let god's word speak and in as much as the word of god says it i can say it and then as you're right i must say what the word of god says and i must not apologize for things that the word of god speaks so very clearly i do have an ephesians 4 15 responsibility to speak the truth and love um but i that that notion of being loving cannot be used as an excuse to avoid speaking which inevitably will be hard truth at times because we are centered speaking to centers in the final analysis and in my own training to be a bible teacher i didn't really know exactly what i was going to do for the church i just knew i was going to serve in some way i was called to this i desired it i wanted to know the word i was continually warned not to flinch when i stand in the pulpit i i've got to be able to speak god's truth boldly as a herald and i as a young man i'm just kind of scratching my head thinking i mean why wouldn't i do that it seems so obvious i got into this business quote unquote you know brothers we are not professionals i know that but that's you know what i mean in order to teach the word but i've gotten older i've stood before congregations and realized there's somebody really hurting over there there's somebody who is very sensitive about such and such issue over there it is i've now understood the temptation to flinch by god's grace i don't think i have flinched i've stood up and told the truth have you ever faced that temptation to flinch when it comes to applying god's word because you know somebody in that eighth row isn't going to want to hear it i have experienced that over the years as i started as a young pastor and in a very established church and i just knew that some things were going to get me in trouble in fact that is the practical not exegetical theological philosophical reason for me beginning to preach consecutively to books of the bible i it was just out of fear because you could say hey i didn't choose this this is what god says yeah i mean i could i could act as surprises there oh my goodness look at here this is an attack so we might as well deal with it but i i and i have to admit even to this day as a pastor who now literally all of my adult life have been a pastor publicly teaching god's word week in and week out i still feel that pressure i still feel that temptation i know that there are soft-hearted people who will struggle with things and i know that there are hard-hearted people who are going to resist those things but i remember as a pastor uh in california i went to speak at an event and i took a nap before the service when i arrived in town and woke up and just wanted to catch the news and saw that there was a uh interview with um i won't say the name but a preacher whose books i have been recently reading and they were commending him for being such a courageous preacher in the interview and he did not accept the compliment and they said well no you have to be a courageous preacher to say the things you say and address the things you address and i never will forget his answer he said um to be a faithful preacher you don't have to be particularly courageous but if you are going to be a coward at least hide in the text you know um and so one of the things that i think helps us in teaching and preaching is to is to if i may be billy graham and just be able to say the bible says you you are not the cook you're the waiter you don't get a chance to to fix what you think people are going to like it is your job to present god's word and then get out of the way and let people deal with god you're not the public relations specialist you are the herald you're the person delivering the message you don't have editorial authority over the message right i grew up in awana clubs singing the songs and most importantly memorizing the verses awana is almost the sole reason i have so many verses of scripture hidden in my own heart i want to mention to you awana's new bright b-r-i-t-e digital weekend curriculum bright was put together to prepare kids to lead the church of 2050 and more importantly to love jesus for their entire lives bright was carefully designed by awana with flexibility scalability and adaptability in mind their team of discipleship thought leaders and practitioners has crafted a set of resources to fit your large group and small group model or a sunday school and children's church model plus since it's entirely digital you can download bright onto your tablet your smartphone or your laptop you can share the files with your leaders and volunteers and you can print lessons for ease of use downloadable elementary and student materials include fun videos leader training and flexible lessons want to see how bright fits your weekend space visit resilientdisciples.com forward slash curriculum to learn more because today's kids are the bright future of the church i want to keep applying the truths that we're talking about to regular lay bible readers and sunday school teachers in church and here's here's where i would take what you said you know i'm not the senior pastor of my church i don't have that whole burden on my shoulders i preach regularly but not frequently i love to preach the last time i preached was last sunday and uh we're doing video sermons actually this is my studio for video sermons too at my church right now during covet 19 and um i've been going through the sermon on the mount during my occasional opportunities to preach and the next passage in my you know in my subsequent exposition talked about the necessity of of giving and i had really just been thinking about that because the previous person i interviewed for this podcast was rosaria butterfield and her wonderful book on hospitality and i was honestly struggling in my heart against necessities that i knew the lord was laying upon me through his text and there's nothing more humbling to me and i do love this i want this then for me to be studying this passage and realizing i am the first person that needs to apply this this goes to my heart and needs to change my behavior that is going to be true of bible readers whether they are preaching and teaching or not but it's going to be more true of them if like your you know exposition of passage after passage and like mine if people are going through the whole bible and letting all of the various applications that the lord has for them come to them rather than only picking their favorite parts which have wonderful applications but aren't all that god has to say yeah i agree i um i as a young christian bought a lot of bible promises books and i set those verses to memory then when i went back years later and started studying those passages most of those promises have commands attached to them you know and it taught me that you cannot cherry pick just the parts that you like you have to um to use uh golfing terminology you got to play it where where the ball lies and you have to let the word of god speak as it will uh let it say what it means in context and those if you are processing god's word like that regularly um it's going to make you sensitive to the need of application in teaching publicly because you're going to be getting confronted with truth in your own life personally as you're studying yeah the the bible teachers that i've respected and loved and appreciated and benefited from the most over the years seem to me like people who have been doing that it's this is not a job this is the word of god and it is impacting me and i love to go in and get those treasures and bring them out to other people this would not be appropriate but am i thinking about this but when i'm listening to preachers not in teachers and i listen to others regularly and i listen as a sinner and as a student if you understand what i mean one of the things i'm listening for is a sense of vulnerability i get suspicious when someone is teaching as if they've got it all mastered and setting everybody else straight the the most faithful men and women who teach god's word are humbled before the truth and are seeking to live it out in their own life as they present it to others they tremble at his word those are the people to whom he will look absolutely you know i want to have mercy and grace toward people who are just getting started out toward people's limitations we all have them i think we've all come to realize later that there were times when we didn't quite understand a passage accurately and we taught it inaccurately but i i definitely have sensed at times that there's something immoral going on when as you talked about somebody stands either beside or certainly above the text and isn't humbling themselves before it they might even speak a whole message or give a whole bible lesson which is all true but doesn't happen to come from the passage that they had us all turn to and it makes me ask okay if you do that once hey we all make mistakes if you do that over and over and over again aren't you undercutting you know you're cutting off the branch that you're sitting on there's no authority there yeah i love that attitude you're talking about i have another question about application um do you do you have any resources that you turn to when you're struggling to to know how to apply this given you know eternal truth to the particular situation that your sheep find themselves under i wish um i i don't i i i use commentaries and um my i consider commentaries my tools that i that a workman needs and i consider commentators as friends uh just like spurgeon did the army of the commentators absolutely but i am reading on three different levels i am reading exegetical commentary to help me make sure i am in bounds in my understanding of the text i am also going to read something homiletical not to steal any other anybody else's message but i sometimes struggle i feel like i can understand the text and then struggle with how to put my arms around it for public teaching yes it has been there there's a two-fold process you understanding it and then you finding a way to communicate it are two different things so the homiletical helps me think through um how to get at it for teaching but i also read something devotional that is really not going to be any exegetical help it probably won't be any homological help but a devotional commentary helps me for instance i read harry ironside and i get a nugget of just um you can point me in a direction of application um i have been recently you mentioned him i have been recently reading more of spurgeon's sermons um one of the things i feel like he is underrated in is he is very skilled in application um to categories and groups in his congregation as he preached and as he as he wrote um that would be the only quote-unquote kind of formal tool i i use uh for that in my preference when in the first season of the podcast i you know released all these episodes i got many notes from people saying oh could you please like write down in the show notes all the books that she recommended so let's let that tail wag the dog here let's hear some of the exegetical and homiletical commentaries that you turn to for example in whatever series you're going through right now what are some series or individual volumes in both those categories that you found useful yeah so i have favorite commentators um i i i am i am uh i'm gonna if i'm in the new testament i'm gonna look up what john mccarthy says uh he did his homework and if you're going to disagree with him you better do yours you know um i i i learned from uh the cleanness and clarity of arkans use i have benefited over the years from the commentary work of james montgomery boyce in terms of exegetical commentary and i just said this to a young man on our staff yesterday he said something about my library and i said listen i i i would give a chunk of this back when i was a young pastor you i thought you were supposed to have these sets and and uh they look nice he looks so great on the shelf yeah so they look like one of those legal ads on tv you know that in front of all of these sets of commentary but if i could do it again and i told him as you were beginning your ministry um invest in the best commentaries on each book which usually doesn't mean a set you may end up with some in a series but your goal is to make sure you have the best resources for each comment uh each book of the bible and that's gonna look differently a a guy who is strong in one area may not be stronger than the other okay so your tools amen you you listed some homiletical commentators that would be macarthur and boyce of course they stray into the exegetical but these are sermons originally produced as sermons talk to me about some of those exegetical maybe a little bit more technical commentaries that you turn to what are some of your favorites yeah now for that i will tell you the uh the new testament um the name of it is escaping me new international greek testament commentary pillar new testament commentary yeah yes that is uh the first one you mentioned is the one i do have as a set there that i am going to use so it's just helping me kind of make sure i'm in bounds um exegetically uh is the primary one that i'm going to be using in my in my exegesis logos bible software is how i use all my commentaries because i'm doing the same thing i'm checking you know gifted interpreters who've dug deeper than i have in whatever the area is and sometimes that is my question often it is my question this idea that i have i think this is what the text is saying i've worked hard on it on my own you said in your book don't go to the commentators first i totally agree but i go to them once i've done my own exegetical work to make sure that my idea isn't crazy i'd like to see my idea represented you know in in these commentaries and i like to go to bestcommentaries.com to check out the recommendations i don't know if you've been to that site that's exactly what i recommended uh yesterday to uh the brother i was talking to just go to best uh commentary.com and review that um years ago i picked up uh james ross cups book on commenting which has been helpful to me over the years um d.a carson's book on commentaries of the brief brief but in a sentence you can almost summarize the value of a commentary uh that's also been useful to me over the years as well then i believe those two resources are now baked into bestcommentaries.com as far as you know the ratings go but those pithy comments aren't i don't believe they're on there yeah those are great resources i totally echo that now how do you determine when an application is something that you will let way in your conscience but you're you know wary of or loathe to make it weigh on other people's consciences does that ever happen yeah i am so when as a young leader i began to process things in terms of a graph i used to really use literally a graph about decision making in leadership um how on one side of the graph how sure am i that i am right and on the other side how much does this matter and um i um i have made mistakes over the years on both counts there are things that i have been right about and made a big deal about that just didn't matter and there are things that i was all in on that mattered much but i had not done my homework to make sure i was right about it that that also has now become a mental tool about application um how sure are you that you are right and how much does this matter so i i try to process in my own heart and mind there are things that um i really sense are important matters and i just feel like i need to spend more time so that i can say those things clearly and carefully and not leave my hearer astray there are things that um i feel like i'm totally right about but just i want to be careful not to be as the paul tells timothy you don't want to be unnecessarily quarrelsome right and i don't want to model that in my teaching uh so that there are those times where um i am more patient about how i present truth to those who i am teaching as i'm weighing through those matters in my own heart and mind one of the things that my pastor taught me my pastor of 18 years that took me from age 16 to 34 and really shaped me more than any other one man and i still think is the best expositor i've ever heard he talked about passages where the application is very specific okay pray continually yes that's not a wide band of applications there that's that's pretty narrow of course spirit inspired this that's exactly what we're supposed to receive but then you've got these very general statements in the new testament like don't be conformed to the world now those two verses narrow that somewhat at least exegetically i'd say by by maybe i should say grammatically ending up with this purpose that you may know what is the good and perfect perfect and acceptable will of god but still don't be conformed to the world is big don't love the world is big you know here are your sheep um or if you're an individual bible reader here's your own heart yeah how do you in that broad field of things that you could say to apply this text how do you choose the thing you're going to say in your message to those sheep in front of you when you have a general command to apply man that is a great great question and in my study and teaching i bump into that a lot i don't i don't have all the answers there but there are two ways i approach something like that well three ways very quickly the first thing i am going to do is affirm that passage i i think because it is a general statement using for instance romans 12 and 2 and because it had because it's a general statement and because it has been mishandled in application so much we are tempted to shy away i want to affirm if i'm teaching this that there is the scripture is drawing a line here there is something uh there is there is such a thing as worldliness right being conformed to the world and it is a big enough thing that we need to be on guard about it i don't think you should you know so you get in rather than being specific and saying well you shouldn't watch movies or you shouldn't listen to this kind of music as so many people are falling into so many legalistic i think rather than specifying what that looks like when no you have those general exhortations like that i try to work through for instance categories categories of financial stuff entertainment stuff how you manage your time and just and presenting this truth in terms of categories to be starting points for people to think through the third way i cheat in application when i can't figure out a way to present the application well i cheat and i think it helps though a lot by asking questions i think questions are a tool that we neglect sometimes they stir people's consciences i heard someone say absolutely and for the record um jesus used them so much in his teaching and if you you're not going to get far in the teaching of jesus without him raising some probing question are you not of more value than many sparrows absolutely absolutely uh what what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit that question or what in the world can a man give in exchange what's worth the price of your soul um i think using questions strategically are a way as you said to stir up the conscience and i think that's an effective way to deal with general exhortations like that that you want to help people get their arms around to raise probing questions for them to wrestle with and you've kind of gone back and answered my very first question implicitly i said how do you know when you're getting into legalism and this is the kind of verse and the kind of you know kind of situation where you might get into it where the bible doesn't get specific and you get so specific on something that really is debatable that ought to be a romans 14 issue and you're trying to take over the role of the holy spirit yeah that is that is certainly possible now you said in your book something you know similar to what you've said in this interview you said my default mode is to explain the meaning of the text and i have to work hard to be strategic in application one simple way i promote application is to put it in the outline stick a verb in the outline that calls for action write the points as exhortations then challenge you said challenge the congregation to live them out as you explain and illustrate the point i wonder if you could give me an example of that what does an application outline point worded as a call for action look like yeah so towards the beginning of this year for instance i started the year the first message i preached to my congregation was matthew 6 33. seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you and i did i thought it would be a it's a great beginning of the year verse i have not been able to shake that verse in all of these months um i have preached through the sermon on the mount and i preached in the natural divisions the sermon on the mount so i had already preached some years ago verses 25 through 34 where jesus gives his prohibitions against worry so it was a really interesting process for me to go back and lift this one verse out and just kind of linger in it it's got two major parts a command and the promise seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these other things will be added to you i made the point of the sermon um i leaned in in the introduction and i said to the church i can state the point of this message in three words put god first transitioning out how do you put god first well i think there are two ways indicated right here in the text seek god trust god now what i did with that second to seek god is the beginning of that verse seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness the trust god is and all these things will be added unto you and that is a promise it is not it is not a command it is a promise but i worded it i put an imperative i i i said it is a matter of faith do you believe this do you believe god has made a promise um do you believe that god if you put him first he will take care of everything else and then when i finish the message and bid the church to pray over what they just heard i bid them just pray this outline lord help me to seek you and then help me to trust you um so i i was able to use that outline in effective ways that might not be the i don't usually just preach one verse sermons like that um but i i felt a burden that they don't just hear and enjoy this famous favorite verse but that they kind of feel the marching orders of it right and putting verbs and specifically imperatives in the how i stated the outline seem to carry the force of a challenge to god's people uh and i i hope and trust without undercutting the spirit of it i've often heard that that is what distinguishes preaching from teaching and that i i find that to be valuable but um when i teach you know i've taught college and seminary level courses also i still can't find it in my own heart to be willing to just impart information marching orders of some kind even if it just is know this thing trust this thing that the text reveals marching orders of some kind seem to be demanded all throughout the bible because this is god speaking he's speaking from a place of authority over me yeah i'm totally with you there now my own pastoral mentor that i mentioned earlier he had a five-step process that he taught us budding and skinny young preacher boys at the time to use and i've been enforcing it with my students recently in an online course i've taught on the exposition of romans and it's been really heartening to me to see them grasp this and i hope they grasp the value of it i've just always found it to be so helpful he said the basic order of preaching goes like this explanation illustration application then argumentation which i'll talk about in a second to lead to a question and then exhortation okay the argumentation portion isn't maybe so obvious uh what that means he said when you apply the text often you are having to take maybe something general or maybe something that um you know focuses on a specific in that world that isn't in our world like first corinthians 14 has all this stuff to say about speaking in tongues and a great many of the churches where people attend that are listening to this podcast they don't speak in tongues at all does that mean the text has nothing to say to us well if you're going to make an application from a passage like that or from one of those general passages like we talked about people are going to have objections come up in their minds maybe they're sinful objections they just don't want to obey maybe they really just aren't sure that what you're getting out of this is accurate or maybe this is a long question sorry maybe that application involves reading the situation reading the culture of expressive individualism for example you know tim keller is very good at this reading the culture out there in order to know how to apply the bible and because there's all these factors that need to be weighed and judged people will have objections and you need to anticipate those and argue for the validity of your application so the question that i had for you is do you ever have a sense that your hearers are going to uh object in their minds to your application and you've got to address these implicit objections that you see on their faces does that ever happen to you so i have i think through [Music] my study process with five process with five terms of the inductive study bible method observation interpretation application my fourth one is correlation i want the analogy of faith i want scripture to interpret scripture my fifth term that i have used is argumentation is this is your argumentation i i call it uh refutation what what is this text contradicting yes yes yes yes yes and i i am thinking about that every week now in my study because i think faithful teaching in sunday school in pulpit ministry in a small group setting i think faithful study faithful teaching has to factor in um this whole i think faithful exposition has to be apologetic these days there are there is an attack of truth in our culture all around us and it is increasing we're no longer able to rely on sort of a basic christendom out there where even the unbelievers share a lot of the assumptions of christian faith my my my my daughter is um in her first year of middle school but in elementary school she was exposed to dynamics and family dynamics and things that i later in life i was exposed to things have shifted so rapidly and i think it is our job as teachers to help our people think through these things in a christian with a christian worldview and to be thinking about the ways error falsehood denial of truth is going to come at the text and and to be thinking apologetically about that i think the argumentation part is required for faithful teaching and preaching in the times that we are living there are people out there whose flesh is going to be objecting and there are people out there who are going to be absorbing i guess through their flesh because it's still sin the the the world view of the secular society around them and you've got to anticipate those objections yeah once again i just find myself in comp complete agreement and i always find it so i also would say though there is this there's there is this sometimes this rebellion in people's hearts and mind to the truth sometimes it is hard-hearted just resistance rejection but the other thing is we get them for 30 minutes on sundays and they are being fed other things all week long from so many platforms that i think sometimes not even consciously if you are not feeding on god's word every day and building yourself up in your most holy faith you start kind of getting back to romans 12 and 2 shaped into the world's mold and i do think when you get to discussing the will of god it sounds foreign to a believer whose mind is not saturated by the word of god yeah what a sad place to be in and yet it's the default mode you know if if you just go with the flow which is so easy to do then you are going to be put into the world's mode and praise god for preachers who are willing to stand up without flinching and apply god's word to them i've really appreciated the wisdom that you've been able to offer to bible readers if i could ask you one final question i again thank you for your time let's talk to that lay bible reader who is not teaching others who is just trying to apply the bible faithfully to his or her life tell us about anything from your experience or your knowledge of the word that could help them take the next step toward being a responsible and obedient applier of the word very general question here yeah i i really think um i really do think that it it would if you must you must take your time with the word um i think the temptation for public teachers and even personal students is you know a teacher you want to get an outline or a lesson out or you know the the believer wants to get some nugget to take with them through the day and you rush through this and you are rushing by what you need to spend time with and i think uh making sure you carve time to really in psalm 1 language to delight yourself in the law of the lord and meditate on it put your roots down deep into that soil next to that stream i think that is so important to a stable christian life and a growing christian faith i think psalm 119 reading through that regularly and there are two verses there where um i pray i pray as i study psalm 119 verse 18. open my eyes that i may behold wonderful things from your word and that is a prayer for illumination but it also makes me think about the things that close my eyes my circumstances a suffering um and sin can close my eyes the word doesn't have to be made wonderful it's already wonderful things there but i'll miss it if god doesn't open my eyes and i need to be sensitive that my own sin can close my eyes to the wonders of the truth of jesus christ in his word psalm 119 verse 24 is me painting myself in a corner where the psalmist praised give me understanding and i will i observe your word and keep it with my whole heart that 24th verse is a reminder to me that god does not reveal his truth for entertainment purposes only he he reveals his truth to people who have a pre-commitment to obey and so when you pray that verse give me understanding and i'll i'll keep it with my whole heart um it is it is obligating you to submit yourself to the authority of god's word and uh if you are constantly praying that as you study god's word sincerely openly and humbly god will honor those prayers yeah in our secular world we're not used to asking anyone give me understanding we think that even in this area of epistemology what what i can know i can pull myself up by my bootstraps but the reality of long term bible students and this is certainly true of me is i can look back and realize even at times when i was earnestly seeking what does the bible mean what is it what is it trying to teach me here when i was young there were times when the lord simply did not open up my eyes to what i think now i do see and i'm hopeful that in the decades i hope to have remaining in my life the lord will do the same and then i think to the eschaton to the last days to eternity where i will know as the king james says even as also i am known i'll have a greater knowledge in that day brother charles pastor charles thank you so much for the time you've spent for the wisdom you've given to bible readers and i'm sure you share this as a prayer for everyone listening to or watching this podcast the bible study magazine podcast that that we could pray for them when we pray for ourselves what we get from the psalmist give us understanding then we will obey thank you for coming on the podcast thanks for having me god bless you [Music] [Applause] [Music] thanks for joining us for the bible study magazine podcast our audio video technicians are jack underwood and brandon van beek i'm your host mark ward editor-in-chief of faith life's bible study magazine and let me make some application of the truth here to your life i hope you will subscribe to the bible study magazine podcast or to the magazine itself we are just here to help you study the bible with the best tools available [Music] you

Channel: Logos Bible Software

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Keywords: bible study, bible application, applying the bible, podcast, bible podcast, bible teaching, preaching, h.b. charles, mark ward

Id: RQB9dB6x_CA

Length: 53min 4sec (3184 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 06 2020