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Am I Overusing Bible Commentaries? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: I hope you had a wonderful Christmas celebration with friends
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  Speaker 1: and family and with your family and faith as well.
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  Speaker 1: We're back to work today talking about Bible reading and
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  Speaker 1: commentaries and a question from an old friend of ours. Hello,
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  Speaker 1: Pastor John. My name is Calvin from Singapore, and this,
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  Speaker 1: by the way, is the same Calvin from Singapore who
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  Speaker 1: previously asked why did Demons ask Jesus for pigs? Which
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  Speaker 1: became APJA fifteen thirty four or one of our most
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  Speaker 1: popular episodes of all time.
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  Speaker 2: That was a surprise, so well, I.
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  Speaker 1: Know, total surprise. What in the world why did demons
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  Speaker 1: ask Jesus for pigs? ABJA episode fifteen thirty four? Great episode.
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  Speaker 1: If you somehow didn't hear it, check it out. Most
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  Speaker 1: of you have because it got lodged in the YouTube
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  Speaker 1: algorithm and generated huge amounts of traffic. I think it's
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  Speaker 1: got over two million views now just in YouTube alone.
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  Speaker 1: It's crazy, all right. So Calvin keep sending us your
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  Speaker 1: questions there great wins, and he has because Calvin is
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  Speaker 1: back to ask this question, Pastor John. Hello. Every time
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  Speaker 1: I read the Bible, I use a Bible commentary to
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  Speaker 1: help me understand it. But it very often end up
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  Speaker 1: not reading the Bible and finding myself just reading straight
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  Speaker 1: from the commentary, which can be very illuminating and edifying.
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  Speaker 1: But I don't want to neglect the Bible itself. What's
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  Speaker 1: the right balance of reading the Bible and reading commentaries.
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  Speaker 1: How do you move back and forth from text to
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  Speaker 1: commentary to benefit from great teachers, but not at the
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  Speaker 1: neglect of the text of scripture itself. How do I
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  Speaker 1: know if I'm over using Bible commentaries.
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  Speaker 2: It is possible to fall off the horse of independent
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  Speaker 2: thinking in two directions. In one direction, we fall off
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  Speaker 2: on the side of I don't need anybody else, just
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  Speaker 2: me and the Holy Spirit and my Bible, and I
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  Speaker 2: can see what I need to see. Or we can
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  Speaker 2: fall off on the other side of the horse by
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  Speaker 2: failing to think for ourselves at all and becoming almost
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  Speaker 2: entirely dependent on what others have thought. So if we
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  Speaker 2: make the first mistake, we're probably arrogant and we are
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  Speaker 2: denying the biblical reality that God has given to his
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  Speaker 2: church teachers. It's an amazing thing God has given to
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  Speaker 2: his church teachers. He didn't just give us a Bible.
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  Speaker 2: He gave us Bible teachers that has huge implications because
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  Speaker 2: no one person, apart from the help of other teachers,
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  Speaker 2: if he's in just four is going to see all
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  Speaker 2: that God has to teach us in the Bible. And
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  Speaker 2: if we make the second mistake, then we're probably going
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  Speaker 2: to become inauthentic second handers. I don't like to be
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  Speaker 2: a second hander. I don't want to be. I don't
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  Speaker 2: want you to be a second hander. That is, people
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  Speaker 2: who can never say anything with confidence from the Bible
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  Speaker 2: because they have actually seen it for themselves directly, but
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  Speaker 2: rather they're always echoing what other people have said about
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  Speaker 2: the Bible. Second Handers are like ambassadors of a king
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  Speaker 2: who are never sure what he says. They're never able
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  Speaker 2: to say, thus seth the sovereign King. Instead they're always saying, well,
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  Speaker 2: my commentary says that the king says, that's a second hander.
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  Speaker 2: So we want to avoid falling off the horse of
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  Speaker 2: independent thinking on either side. Now, in the world I
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  Speaker 2: live in where I function at Bethlehem College in seminary
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  Speaker 2: and Baptist Church and desire God and the circles I
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  Speaker 2: go in. In that world, there are many people who
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  Speaker 2: are falling off the horse on the first side, who
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  Speaker 2: say I never read commentaries, I never read books about
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  Speaker 2: the Bible. I just read my Bible. I pray, and
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  Speaker 2: that's all I need. I don't know, oh, anybody like
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  Speaker 2: that in my sphere. That's not the world I live in.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure they exist. I just don't have anything to
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  Speaker 2: do with them. In my sphere. The error is almost
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  Speaker 2: always on the other side, the other direction, and therefore
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  Speaker 2: I have devoted most of my life to encouraging people
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  Speaker 2: not to be dependent on commentaries and books about the Bible,
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  Speaker 2: but give assiduous attention to the Biblical text directly for themselves.
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  Speaker 2: When it comes to church leadership, I see more danger
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  Speaker 2: in becoming an inauthentic secondhander than in spending too much
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  Speaker 2: time assiduously thinking for yourself about what the Bible text
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  Speaker 2: is teaching. In real life, most of us have a
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  Speaker 2: limited amount of time that we can devote to study,
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  Speaker 2: and I've generally said, if you have eight hours to
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  Speaker 2: get a lesson or a sermon ready, and you're going
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  Speaker 2: to spend four hours studying and four hours writing, then
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  Speaker 2: use most of those four study hours, almost all of
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  Speaker 2: it thinking about praying, over looking at the text, not
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  Speaker 2: reading commentaries. That's gonna be my advice. Now I say
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  Speaker 2: that trembling because I know some people are gonna think, Oh,
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  Speaker 2: Piper doesn't value commentaries. These guys head in the sand.
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  Speaker 2: He thinks people can do it on their own. That's
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  Speaker 2: not true. I love commentaries. I'm thankful for commentaries. I
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  Speaker 2: use them every week. All right, let's get rid of
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  Speaker 2: that misunderstanding. But here's what's behind my emphasis. The Bible
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  Speaker 2: teaches us that doing our own thinking, with our own
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  Speaker 2: mind is essential for Christian living. Tawo Timothy two seven.
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  Speaker 2: Think over what I say, Timothy, for the Lord will
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  Speaker 2: give you understanding in everything. Think over it's think. Think
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  Speaker 2: is your mind Timothy? Or one Corinthians fourteen twenty. Brothers,
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  Speaker 2: do not be children in your thinking, be infants in evil,
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  Speaker 2: but in your thinking be mature. Now there's don't make
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  Speaker 2: stupid mistakes in your thinking. Be rigorous in your thinking.
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  Speaker 2: Be coherent in your thinking. Or Luke twelve fifty seven.
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  Speaker 2: Jesus says, why do you not judge for yourselves what
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  Speaker 2: is right? Or one Crinstians ten fifteen. I speak as
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  Speaker 2: to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. Or
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  Speaker 2: First Cristians eleven thirteen. Judge for yourselves. What is proper?
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  Speaker 2: So Paul Jesus saying, use your mind. Think over what
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  Speaker 2: I'm saying, look at the situation, make proper judgments with
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  Speaker 2: your mind. That's why I gave you a brain. Or
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  Speaker 2: Romans twelve to two, be transformed by the renewal of
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  Speaker 2: your mind. And we could go on and on with
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  Speaker 2: text that point in this direction. The fact that God
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  Speaker 2: has given us a Bible, a book, doesn't remove the
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  Speaker 2: need for thinking. It creates the need for thinking. Six
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  Speaker 2: times Jesus said to the most well read Bible readers
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  Speaker 2: of his day, phariseasan scribes, He said, have you not read?
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  Speaker 1: Like this?
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  Speaker 2: Must have absolutely called these guys, Yeah, what do you mean?
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  Speaker 2: Have we not read? That's all we do is read.
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  Speaker 2: In other words, they had read, but they hadn't read.
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  Speaker 2: They hadn't thought rightly about what they read. That the
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  Speaker 2: requirement to read a Bible is the requirement to think
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  Speaker 2: rightly about what you read. They got it wrong. They
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  Speaker 2: use their minds in a way that just stwarted the texts.
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  Speaker 2: So the fact that we have a book, an inspired Bible,
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  Speaker 2: creates the need for carefully, insightfully reading, good thinking, not
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  Speaker 2: bad thinking, and here's the catch with regard to thinking.
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  Speaker 2: John Dewey was mainly right when he said nobody thinks
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  Speaker 2: until he has a problem. Thinking is hard mental work,
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  Speaker 2: and constitutionally we're all disposed to be lazy to avoid
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  Speaker 2: hard work, which means we naturally default to letting somebody
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  Speaker 2: else think for us, and then we get the answer
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  Speaker 2: when they're done thinking. And that sounds efficient. He did
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  Speaker 2: the thinking. I'll just take his answer and save myself
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  Speaker 2: a lot of time. What that does is turn the
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  Speaker 2: mind into passive mush mush and turns us into secondhanders,
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  Speaker 2: in authentic people. The best teacher I ever had told us,
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  Speaker 2: don't read commentaries for their conclusions, read them for their arguments.
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  Speaker 2: Now that transformed the way I read everything. In other words,
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  Speaker 2: if you're going to seek help in getting an answer
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  Speaker 2: from a commentary, make sure you are letting the commentary
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  Speaker 2: help you think about how to find the answer, not
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  Speaker 2: replace your thinking with their thinking and their answer. That's
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  Speaker 2: what I mean when I say we should look at
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  Speaker 2: their arguments and not just their conclusions. Who cares about
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  Speaker 2: conclusions unless you're a second hander. Second Handers love conclusions.
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  Speaker 2: They did the arguing. I'll just take the conclusions and
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  Speaker 2: tell my people, so and so has a conclusion. Here's
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  Speaker 2: their conclusion, and that'll be my sermon on my lesson.
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  Speaker 2: Nobody wants to be a second hander like that. It's inauthentic.
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  Speaker 2: People can see it's an authentic and they will not
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  Speaker 2: try you in the long run. What you want to
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  Speaker 2: see in a commentary is arguments and arguments from the
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  Speaker 2: text of scripture that you can see for yourself in
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  Speaker 2: the text, so that the commentary helps you become a
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  Speaker 2: first hander rather than making you a second hander. Now
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  Speaker 2: back to John Dewey for a minute. Nobody thinks until
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  Speaker 2: he has a problem. The way this applies to reading
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  Speaker 2: the Bible is that we need to form the habit
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  Speaker 2: of asking good questions, because questions are simply a way
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  Speaker 2: of stating problems. Questions are the interrogative form of problems
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  Speaker 2: which get us to think. Thinking our way through Biblical
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  Speaker 2: texts means asking question after question after question, and the
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  Speaker 2: better the questions, the deeper the insight. And of course
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  Speaker 2: this implies we need to use our God given minds
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  Speaker 2: in reliance on the Holy Spirit at every moment to
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  Speaker 2: think our way into good Bible answers. You don't just
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  Speaker 2: ask questions. We try to answer the questions by looking
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  Speaker 2: at the text. Asking questions is the key to understanding.
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  Speaker 2: The most illuminating questions are not what and where and
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  Speaker 2: when questions, They are who and how and especially why questions.
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  Speaker 2: Then we apply our minds. We apply our minds to
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  Speaker 2: think and think and look at the book and look
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  Speaker 2: at the book and doodle with our piece of paper
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  Speaker 2: with possible ideas scratched in every corner, watching God bring
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  Speaker 2: glorious things to light. And if we run out of
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  Speaker 2: time and get stuck, then we reach for our good friend,
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  Speaker 2: the commentary and we look at his arguments.
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  Speaker 1: It's remarkable. The more commentaries read, the more diverging conclusions
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  Speaker 1: I tend to have to navigate. It complicates more than
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  Speaker 1: to clarify. So that's been my experience. So good. Thank
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  Speaker 1: you for these apparnings, Pastor John. This discipline of asking
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  Speaker 1: questions is so fundamental, so fundamental to everything that you do,
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  Speaker 1: Pastor John, And why I think APJ has been such
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  Speaker 1: a hit now for twelve years. So John Piper was
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  Speaker 1: born to answer questions. And if you want that story,
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  Speaker 1: see the Ask Pastor John book and the introduction where
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  Speaker 1: I tell that story as best as I can well.
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  Speaker 1: A single man in a local church says a single
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  Speaker 1: woman in the church is destined to be his wife,
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  Speaker 1: and she completely disagrees. How do we handle people who
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  Speaker 1: think they know God's will for us, but for whom
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  Speaker 1: we disagree. That's up next time. I'm Tony Ranky Pastor John,
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  Speaker 1: and I will see you on Monday.