Jesus' thoughts on the Bible - Why we don’t hear God speak, Part 3a

John 5:31-47

(3) Why do we not hear God speak?
On the last day, Jesus says here in John that Moses and the writers of the Bible will call you into judgment because “you did not listen.” Remember who Jesus is talking to - serious Bible students. This is VERY FRIGHTENING to me and it should to churches across America. Jesus says that it is very possible to believe in the “infallibility”, “inerrancy”, and “inspiration” of the Scripture AND be as deaf to what God is saying as if you did not believe any of it at all. Jesus is telling this to the people that have ‘the right view!’ He is criticizing their use of scripture. In a sense Jesus is saying that although you may have the technical view of the Bible, it can be for naught if you do not use the scripture in the right way.

Jesus is telling the Bible students how they are missing the Bible in 2 ways:

1. They are missing the whole purpose of the Bible. V39 Jesus says that the Pharisees believe that the study of Scripture and the knowledge of the Scripture is how people are going to get favor with God. I would say that this view is NORMAL today. Many people starting out in Christianity often say something like, ‘I am going to be really good now - I am going to start reading the Bible. I am going to read it everyday and then I am going to know that God is in my corner. I will study, read, memorize, know the Bible...’

I am not saying you should not be studying the Bible. I just remember how many times I have gotten up in the morning, or sat down throughout a day, and I would feel so much better after simply doing the deed. It would not be because of a meeting with Jesus or having the Holy Spirit work on my heart, it was often simply that my conscience felt better. I thought I was more in tune with God and that I had more sway with God and that only then would He be answering my prayers and, honestly, only then that He was pleased with me. I was really not doing anything with the Bible, I was not learning, growing, seeing the point... I felt that just by searching and studying the Bible that I would be okay and that God would love me then... and only then.

Do you see how dangerous that is?

One BIG, HUGE reason why people today don’t believe the Bible is because of how conservative Christians use the Bible. Conservative Christians use the Bible in a certain way because of how they study the Bible. The study the Bible like this: to feel good about themselves, to feel superior about themselves, to feel that God must love them because they know the Bible so much... People who study like that cannot judge the central to the less important things in the Bible and so they get into all kinds of theories and calculations about creation or about the ‘end times’ and then fight for absolutely every little bit of ‘their view.’ They buy more into their view of the Scriptures rather then the Scriptures themselves. They hit people over the head with it. They study the Bible simply for facts and information and not for the gist and for what it is really teaching.

This is a very dangerous approach. I should know. I was and still can be there.