Let's pray.
Father, we do thank you that time in your word is good for us.
! And we want to pray that this evening would be useful.
! We thank you.
We thank you that your word is intelligible to us,
that you've not obscured the realities of who you are and what you're like,
but that you have made them plain for us in your word,
and that we are able to read and understand
because of the way that you have made us
and because of the way that you have written your word.
And we pray that that's a task that we would get better and better at.
And maybe this evening would be a small step forward in that task,
we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.
So, if you remember back to last week,
we were thinking about how to understand the Bible.
And I suppose it, in a sense, is experimental
because it's a bit more seminary than it is a sermon, right?
So it's a bit more training than it is teaching.
And we thought particularly about a couple of things.
We thought first that the Bible has a divine author,
so the Bible has a coherent message to tell from the beginning to the end.
The Lord superintends the message of the Bible,
and so he is the author who stands behind it.
And yet it also has human authors,
those people who write the Bible,
who write it in a particular context at a particular time,
and who, while not compromising the authority or divine intent behind the book,
also bring their personalities to bear on the text as well.
So that it is understanding them and their situation
that also helps us understand what God is saying through them as the divine author.
We then said, too, that our main responsibility when we read the Bible
is to see then the author's purpose,
both the human author, but also behind that, the divine author.
And we're to ask the question, what is the point of this passage?
What is being said and why is it being said?
What is the intent of this piece of Scripture?
We said, if you might remember,
that the job of a responsible Bible reader or preacher or teacher
was to make sure, as far as they are able,
that the point of their talk or the point of their Bible study
or the point of their kids' talk
is the author's point in that passage in the Bible.
Because if we take the Bible and make it say something
that it is not intending to say,
we might say something that's true,
but we might also say something that is not true,
and we can end up in all kinds of mess.
As we looked at last week,
we found that the devil himself loves to use God's Word
to teach things which are not the point of the Bible.
Now, this evening, we're going to look a little bit further
and pick up another couple of additional tools
from that book, Dig Deeper, which I held up last week
and which Florence took from me.
So she's reading it and so I haven't got it to hold up.
But anyway, the first thing we're going to look at
is the context tool, the context tool.
So reading a passage in its context.
Now, the book's example, so Andrew Satch
and Nigel Byron's example of this,
dates the book, I think, a bit,
because they talk about the difference
between an encyclopedia and a novel.
Who has an encyclopedia today, right?
Nobody.
We have ChatGPT for that.
But I guess, Mike, you have encyclopedias,
do you, in your home?
Yeah.
The tailors have encyclopedias, all of them.
So there you go.
But an encyclopedia, when you turn and look up something
in an encyclopedia, then what it says on a given subject
is totally unrelated to the entry that's above it or below it, right?
It is just an isolated piece of information.
So if you look up London, it doesn't matter if before it comes lobsters
and after it comes lounges or something.
Am I alphabetically correct?
I think I am.
Right?
That they have nothing to do with London.
It's just the way that it is structured.
And if you approached a novel like that,
so if you just opened a novel and randomly read a paragraph
as if it was isolated from everything around it,
you would end up not really understanding what the book was about
and you'd be quickly confused and probably give up reading.
But that approach, the encyclopedia approach,
is the approach that is often taken by Bible readers
that we expect to sort of randomly pick out a section of the Bible
and presume that it is written directly to us
to answer the question that we had on our hearts as we opened it
and not written in a specific context
with something that goes before it and below it,
which dictate what it means.
Now, one thing that is pointed out in the book
is that the context of a Bible passage is rich and complex.
So each sentence comes in a paragraph, right?
And each paragraph comes in a chapter.
Each chapter comes in a book.
And the book comes in a testament.
And the testament come in the whole Bible.
And so actually, we need to kind of zoom out slowly
from passages of the Bible to see the context in which they're given,
to see how that shapes how we understand it.
Now, I'm going to try and show you that with 1 Kings chapter 19.
So if you turn to 1 Kings 19, I don't think...
Did I print it out on your handout?
No, I didn't because it was a bit long.
So 1 Kings chapter 19, it's page 361 in a church Bible.
1 Kings chapter 19.
Now, you may, I guess, recognize this story in 1 Kings chapter 19 when you get there.
It's taking me a bit of time to get there.
There you go.
1 Kings chapter 19.
It is Elijah after the victory over the prophets of Baal on the mountain with the sacrifices.
And what I want to do, I'm going to read it to you,
and then we're going to have a little think about it in its context.
I'm going to pick it up in verse 9 and read to the end of the chapter.
There he went into a cave and spent the night.
And the word of the Lord came to him,
What are you doing here, Elijah?
He replied, I've been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.
The Israelites have rejected your covenant,
torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword.
I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.
The Lord said,
Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord,
for the Lord is about to pass by.
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart
and shattered the rocks before the Lord,
but the Lord was not in the wind.
After the wind, there was an earthquake,
but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake came a fire,
but the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
When Elijah heard it,
he pulled his cloak over his face
and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him,
What are you doing here, Elijah?
He replied, I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.
The Israelites have rejected your covenant,
torn down your altars,
and put your prophets to death with the sword.
I am the only one left,
and now they are trying to kill me too.
The Lord said to him,
Go back the way you came.
Go to the desert of Damascus.
When you get there,
anoint Hazel king over Aram.
Also anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel,
and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel-Mahola
to succeed you as prophet.
Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazel,
and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu.
Yet I reserve 7,000 in Israel whose knees have not bowed down to Baal,
and whose mouths have not kissed him.
Elijah went down from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat.
He was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen,
and he himself was driving the 12 pair.
Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him.
Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah.
Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye, he said,
and then I will come with you.
Go back, Elijah replied.
What have I done to you?
So Elijah left him and went back,
and he took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them,
he burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat,
and gave it to the people, and they ate.
And then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.
Now, the passage is quite famous, isn't it?
And so you might well have heard something about listening
for what is called the still small voice,
I think in the old translation,
which is here in the NIV,
the gentle whisper of verse 12.
So you read it and you think, well, okay, God speaks in a gentle whisper.
So we need to be listening for gentle whispers.
That's what Elijah's heard.
But when you look at it in the context,
you realize that actually is not what's really going on.
So think about the immediate context of what's happening.
Elijah's on the run.
Yeah.
So Elijah has had this great contest on the Mount Carmel
where the fire came down from heaven,
consumed his offering,
and then he slaughtered the prophets of Baal.
But then in the beginning of chapter 19,
Jezebel is out to get him.
And she is determined to kill Elijah
like he killed the prophets of Baal.
So Elijah is so worried about this
that he tries to save Jezebel the bother
and prays in chapter 19, verse 4,
that God himself would kill him.
Take my life.
I am no better than my ancestors, he says,
in chapter 19, verse 4.
Instead, though, God feeds him.
And still, though, Elijah is not in great shape
and ends up hiding in a cave on Mount Horeb
in the end of verse 8 and the beginning of verse 9,
complaining to God that he is the only one left
and they're trying to kill him too.
So much so that when you hear the voice
at the end of verse 13,
it's a direct reflection of the voice
that was spoken in verse 9, isn't it?
There's nothing new for Elijah.
In fact, it's the same question.
What are you doing here, Elijah?
Before telling him in verse 15
to go back and get on with what he'd started.
Now, that's the immediate context, okay?
So you get the impression
that there's something going on
in this interaction between God and Elijah
as he believes himself to be the only one left.
He's under a great threat by Jezebel.
But then when you expand it
to think about the context of the scriptures more broadly,
you can see that there's even more going on here.
So he is on Mount Horeb, right?
The mountain of God.
This is Mount Sinai.
This is the mountain where the covenant
with Moses was given,
where Moses met God.
You find that Elijah is hiding in a cave,
literally the cave, right?
So he is here on the mountain in the cave,
presumably the cave where,
or at least a reference to the cave
where Moses was when God passed him by,
when he gave him the replacement tablets in Exodus 34,
when God originally meets with the people
on that same mountain.
He then meets later, doesn't he,
with Moses as he hides his face from God
as he passes by in Exodus 34.
But when God originally meets with the people in Exodus 19,
what is it like on Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai
when he meets with them?
Exodus 19, verse 16,
I've put this on your handouts, I think.
On the morning of the third day,
so this is as the people are gathered
at the foot of the mountain.
On the morning of the third day,
there was thunder and lightning
and a thick cloud over the mountain
and a very loud trumpet blast.
Everyone in the camp trembled.
Then Moses led the people out of the camp
to meet with God
and they stood at the foot of the mountain.
Mount Sinai was covered with smoke
because the Lord descended on it in fire.
The smoke billowed up from it,
like smoke from a furnace,
and the whole mountain trembled violently
as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder.
Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.
Now, that is the context for then 1 Kings chapter 19.
What does that mean for 1 Kings chapter 19?
Well, it means here that what you've got in 1 Kings 19
is Elijah going to Moses' place on the mountain,
hearing the same things that Moses heard
right back when the covenant was originally given,
but God is no longer in them.
Elijah is in effect saying to God,
listen, God,
this whole covenant thing is not working, right?
You need a plan B, God,
because I'm the only one left.
So I'm going to go back to where all this started
and you're going to start with me, right?
This would be like the equivalent of an English footballer
lying in the center of Wembley Stadium
and going, you know,
you're going to have to start again with me.
It's been a total disaster since 1966
and we've not won a single thing.
You know, start again with me, right?
That is Elijah there saying to God,
this covenant is not working.
And so what does God say to him then?
Well, he's not in the thunder.
He's not in the wind
because God doesn't agree with Elijah.
God doesn't think his covenant is failing.
He doesn't think his covenant's collapsed.
In fact, he says,
there are 7,000 in Israel who are still faithful.
And actually then the still small voice
is a gentle rebuke saying,
listen, Elijah,
you shouldn't really be here
and you shouldn't really be asking this question.
You should be getting on with the things
I've already given you to do
because my covenant still stands.
My word to Moses is still good.
And in that context then,
the application of 1 Kings 19
is not so much listen out for a still small voice,
not because God is not capable of speaking to us directly
in whatever way he would like to,
but rather the context says that's not the point.
Rather, the point is,
you better listen to what God has said
because what God said still stands.
His word does not fail.
Maybe perhaps especially his word does not fail
when you might fear that it has.
When you feel like you might be the only one left,
go back to God's word
because God is faithful to his promise
and will keep it.
And so that, I think,
is like just an example
of how expanding out
and seeing the context
that a passage comes in,
in the context of the Bible,
in the context of the covenants,
you get to see what a passage means.
I'm going to give you an opportunity
to do this yourself,
which I know you've been so excited for.
So Exodus chapter 20, verse 3.
What do you think Exodus 20, verse 3 means
as a standalone?
Okay, so if you were just reading Exodus 20, verse 3,
what does it mean as a standalone?
How does the context of verse 1 and 2
change that meaning?
So go for that with the person next to you
for a few moments
and then we'll feed back together.
Okay.
What do we think the difference
the context makes
to understanding Genesis 20?
Okay.
Oh, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yep, so we know that it's God speaking
and that he's been good to them
and he's brought them out of slavery.
Yeah.
Anything else?
Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, so it's not
an angry, jealous demand,
but it's the word of a God
who has rescued and saved.
Yeah.
Does anyone want to make me really happy
and like link it
with what we were thinking about before
with grace and works?
You know, like,
you're my people.
This is what my people are like.
My people worship me.
Yeah.
They don't worship anybody else.
They worship me.
You belong to me.
You're mine.
I've rescued you.
I've saved you.
This is what we live like
in my kingdom.
We worship this one God
and this God only.
Yeah.
So I think it's easy, isn't it,
to see them as just a list of instructions,
but if you see the instructions
coming in the context
of the God who has saved them,
I have rescued you,
not because you did these things,
but I have rescued you
so you will live like this
and so you will do these things.
Great.
Any other comments
or questions on that?
Exclusivity.
Yes.
Yeah.
So he has saved and rescued them
for an exclusive relationship with him.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Okay.
Let's go on to a structure tool
and let's really nerd out.
One of the things
that you need to do
as you're reading the Bible
is that you need to understand
the Bible is divided up
into essentially kind of like thought units.
Okay.
So that there is,
the Bible is divided up
in units which explain
a particular point, right?
Now there might be,
you might be able to argue
that there is one point
from the beginning
to the end of the Bible.
Of course you can,
so it is one unit.
But that is almost impossible
for you to read
in any one sitting
for your devotional time.
You know,
what did you read
in your quiet time this morning?
I've read the whole Bible, right?
That's going to be impossible.
So actually what we need
to be able to do
is identify how the Bible
is divided up
into thought units
so that we can wrestle with
and think over
what the Lord is saying
in different sections of the Bible.
And the way that you do that
is by recognizing
the structure of a passage
or the structure of a book
or the structure of a section.
Now you might think,
brilliant,
because someone's already done that
for me in the Bible, right?
They've written big numbers in it
and they've written bold type headings.
Now often that is really helpful
and they do,
you know,
they do help.
But sometimes they're not super brilliant,
are they?
So like you might notice
that in 1 Kings chapter 19,
verse 9 is divided into two parts
when actually I think
that's maybe slightly obscuring
the section.
They say,
I don't know whether this is true,
but someone told me this,
that the person who actually
put the verses in the Bible
did it while he was riding
on the back of a horse.
It was a long time ago
and the horse went over a bump
and sometimes he got it wrong.
There you go.
So yeah, there you go.
They do follow the Hebrew numberings
in certain places.
Yes.
Chapter divisions are different
and obviously the New Testament
is in Greek and not in Hebrew,
so it's different there as well.
Anyway,
so we need to be good
at reading the Bible
to see the structure
as it stands out.
So I've put,
I think,
Matthew 5 with the Beatitudes.
So sometimes it's quite obvious.
So sometimes there's a repetition
of a sentence
which kind of begins
and ends a section.
So you might call them bookends,
the repetition of a line.
So blessed are the poor in spirit
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And then you go through
all the Beatitudes
and then you get blessed
are those who are persecuted
because of righteousness
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And then you've got a section
that has been marked out for you
by the repetition of
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And so if you were just reading it
carefully and thoughtfully
and were looking out
for that repetition,
for that bookend,
you would notice it
and see,
oh,
this is a section.
There's something being said here
about what it means
to belong to the kingdom.
Perhaps other times
it might be in a story,
so connected stories.
So if you turn
to Mark chapter 8,
have I put this on your handout?
I put it on your handout
but not on my notes
so I'm going to have to turn to it
and you're not.
Mark chapter 8,
verse 22.
So in Mark 8, 22,
you get the healing
of the blind man.
They came to Bethesda
and some people
brought a blind man
and begged Jesus
to touch him.
He took the blind man
by the hand
and led him
outside the village.
When he spat on the man's eyes
and put his hands on him,
Jesus asked,
do you see anything?
He looked up and said,
I see people,
they look like trees
walking around.
Once more,
Jesus put his hands
on the man's eyes.
Then his eyes were opened,
his sight was restored
and he saw everything clearly.
Jesus sent him home
saying,
don't even go into the village.
Now if you just read that
as a little section,
you might think,
well, interesting.
Jesus maybe kind of got it wrong.
Maybe he wasn't quite up to the task.
He had to have two goes.
But then if you keep reading,
you recognize that actually
there's a section that carries on.
Jesus and his disciples
went to the villages
around Caesarea Philippi
on the way he asked them,
who do people say I am?
They replied,
some say John the Baptist,
and others say Elijah
and still others,
one of the prophets.
But what about you?
He asked,
who do you say I am?
Peter answered,
you are the Messiah.
Jesus warned them
not to tell anyone about him.
He then began to teach them
that the son of man
must suffer many things
and be rejected by the elders,
the chief priests
and the teachers of the law
and that he must be killed
and after three days rise again.
He spoke plainly about this
and Peter took him aside
and began to rebuke him.
But when Jesus turned
and looked at his disciples,
he rebuked Peter,
get behind me Satan,
he said,
you do not have in mind
the concerns of God
but merely human concerns.
Now it turns out,
doesn't it,
those stories go together
because one of them
explains the other one.
So Peter is like this man
born blind,
or blind man,
sorry,
of Bethesda,
who sees in part
but doesn't see fully.
He sees that Jesus is the Christ
but he does not see
that he has to suffer and die.
He sees Jesus as a man
walking around as a tree.
He doesn't fully recognize
who he is
because he doesn't recognize
what Jesus has come to do.
Jesus' healing miracle
is explaining Peter's situation.
So what does Peter need?
He needs a further intervention
of the Lord Jesus
to open his eyes fully
to see not only who he is
but also why he came
and what he came to do.
And so as you read it,
you see,
oh actually those things go together
and there's a structure here
that Mark intends those stories
to explain one another.
Other times,
you get other kinds of structure.
So we normally,
we write a story in English.
It's a long time
since I've written a story in English
but if you write a story in English,
you would generally kind of build
to a point that you come to
towards the end.
Whereas often in a Bible,
the point is in the middle
and not at the end.
And so the ends reflect one another
and then they build in
and the main point is in the middle.
And that's what we're going to look at
as we finish this evening.
It's called the chiastic structure
or a chiasm.
So John chapter one,
verses one and two
are a chiasm.
In the beginning was the word
and the word was with God
and the word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
You see it?
So in the beginning was the word,
goes with in the beginning.
Right?
And the word was with God.
He was with God
and the word was God.
So John's point there is to emphasize,
the point he's building to
is the point in the middle
which is that Jesus is divine.
Jesus is God, was God.
And that's the way he's structured
at the story.
The bigger example then
about one of the ways this works
is in Genesis chapter seven.
Now this is,
I think this is,
I think this is possible.
It is possible for us to do it.
But it's slightly more difficult,
I think.
But we're going to work on it together.
Genesis chapter seven
is a chiasm.
It's the story of Noah.
And so let me,
let me read it to you.
And then you can work on it in groups
and find the chiasm.
So let me read chapter seven,
verse one.
The Lord,
so you might want to circle
the numbers as you go along.
Okay, just a little tip.
The Lord then said to Noah,
go into the ark,
you and your whole family,
because I have found you righteous
in this generation.
Take with you seven pairs
of every kind of clean animal,
a male and its mate,
and one pair of every kind
of unclean animal,
a male and its mate,
and also seven pairs
of every kind of bird,
male and female,
to keep their various kinds alive
throughout the earth.
Seven days from now,
I will send rain on the earth
for 40 days and 40 nights,
and I will wipe from the face
of the earth
every living creature I've made.
And Noah did all
that the Lord commanded him.
Noah was 600 years old
when the floodwaters came
on the earth,
and Noah and his sons
and his wife
and his son's wives
entered the ark
to escape the waters
of the flood.
Pairs of clean
and unclean animals
of birds
and all creatures
that move along the ground,
male and female,
came to Noah
and entered the ark
as God has commanded Noah.
And after seven days,
the floodwaters came
on the earth.
In the 600th year
of Noah's life,
on the 17th day
of the second month,
on that day,
all of the springs
of the great deep
burst forth
and the floodgates
of the heavens
were opened
and rain fell
on the earth
for 40 days
and 40 nights.
On that very day,
Noah and his sons,
Shem, Ham,
and Japheth,
together with his wife
and the wives
of his three sons,
entered the ark.
They had with them
every wild animal
according to its kind,
all livestock
according to their kinds,
every creature
that moves along the ground
according to its kind,
and every bird
according to its kind,
everything with wings.
Pairs of all creatures
that have breath
of life in them
came to Noah
and entered the ark.
The animals going in
were male and female
of every living thing
as God had commanded Noah.
Then the Lord
shut him in.
For 40 days,
the flood kept coming
on the earth
and as the waters increased,
they lifted the ark
high above the earth.
The waters rose
and increased greatly
on the earth
and the ark floated
on the surface
of the water.
They rose greatly
on the earth
and all the high mountains
under the entire heavens
were covered.
The waters rose
and covered the mountains
to a depth
of more than 15 cubits.
Every living thing
that moved on the land
perished.
Birds, livestock,
wild animals,
all the creatures
that swarm over the earth
and all mankind.
Everything on dry land
that had the breath of life
in its nostrils died.
Every living thing
on the face of the earth
was wiped out.
People and animals
and the creatures
that move along the ground
and the birds
that were wiped
from the earth.
Only Noah was left
and those with him
on the ark.
The waters flooded
the earth
for 150 days.
But God remembered Noah
and all the wild animals
and the livestock
that were with him
in the ark
and he sent a wind
over the earth
and the waters receded.
Now the springs
of the deep
and the floodgates
of the heavens
had been closed
and the rain
had stopped falling
from the sky.
The water receded
steadily from the earth
at the end
of the 150 days
the water had gone down
and on the seventh day
of the seventh month
the ark came to rest
on the mountains of Ararat.
The waters continued
to recede
until the ten month
and on the first day
of the tenth month
on the tops of the mountains
became visible.
After 40 days
Noah opened a window
he had made in the ark
and sent out a raven.
It kept flying back and forth
until the water
had dried up
from the earth.
He sent out a dove
to see if the water
had receded
from the surface of the ground
but the dove
could find nowhere to perch
because there was water
all over the surface
of the earth.
So it returned to Noah
in the ark.
He reached out his hand
and took the dove
and brought it back
to himself in the ark.
He waited seven more days
and again sent out
the dove from the ark.
When the dove returned
to him in the evening
there in its beak
was a freshly plucked
olive leaf.
Then Noah knew
that the water
had receded
from the earth.
He waited seven more days
and sent the dove
out again
but this time
it did not return.
By the first day
of the first month
of Noah's six hundredth
and first year
the water dried up
from the earth.
Noah then removed
the covering
from the ark
and saw that the surface
of the ground
was dry.
By the twenty-seventh day
of the second month
the earth was completely dry.
Then God said to Noah
come out of the ark
you and your wife
and your sons
and their wives.
Okay
have a look at that
with the person next to you
just for a couple of minutes
and try and work out
what is at the centre
of the story.
So
I'm sorry to interrupt
your conversation
we've run out of time.
I think if you
spot the
link between
the sevens
and the forties
and the hundred and fifties
what you end up with
is one sentence
which is in the middle
of the story
which is what?
Yeah
God remembered Noah
yeah
so the
point of the story
is in the middle
of the story
which is that God
whilst
judgment is going on
is remembering
and saving
Noah
and the wild animals
that are there
in the ark
which is
which makes the story
really beautiful
doesn't it
because it means that
in judgment
God is remembering
salvation
and is saving
Noah
in the midst
of the judgment
to come
he will remember
us
in the way
that he has
remembered Noah
sorry we've done
that quite quickly
because I think
yes
go on you can ask
whatever you like
is that
something
that is
instinctive
to come
so from what
I have read
and I'm sure
that Mike will
correct me
if I'm wrong
but from my
what I have read
is that it is
quite common
in Hebrew literature
to put the meaning
of a story
in the middle
of it
it is unusual
that would not
be quite so
common
no
yes
it's like any
cultural difference
in the way you
tell a story
yeah
good example
yes
so when it's
shared orally
and repeated
you will see
these patterns
perhaps more clearly
yeah
the repetition tool
is one that they
actually have a chapter
on in their book
which is really helpful
I mean if you look
at it Romans 6
the passage we looked
at this morning
basically almost
every sentence
says pretty much
exactly the same thing
and so it's just
a sort of repetition
with a slight addition
or a tweak
in the way that they say it
yeah
which I think is because
originally it would be
read out
and the thing that you
were supposed to go
is oh okay
I am dead
I will be alive
I'm dead
I will be alive
and you
you get that
so many times
great
anything else
brilliant
I mean really
it's just a taste
isn't it
we could
this is like
a taster
of a
I don't know
a semester's
lectures
at Bible college
so
we could maybe
keep going with it
at another time
but hopefully
it's whetted
your appetite
for thinking carefully
about how we
understand the Bible
let me pray for us
and we'll head out
Father we thank you
so much
that in your gracious
generosity to us
you don't actually
depend on us
understanding the Bible
perfectly
because that is
beyond us
Lord
and that in your
gracious kindness
you use the Bible
even in
my fumbling hands
in our fumbling hands
and speak to us
words of grace
and mercy
so we thank you
so much
that the gospel
is so clear
in the Bible
that even people
like us
can't miss it
and so we thank you
for your generosity
to us
but we want to pray
that you would make us
better and better
Bible readers
who have a rich
understanding
of your word
and through that
have a rich
relationship with you
we pray
in Jesus name
Amen
Thanks everybody