This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, Faithful in Bible Study.
If you are a believer in Christ Jesus—especially if you are a new Christian—you need to learn faithfulness. Increasing your faith, and faithfulness, will make you a good Christian at home, a good member of your church, and a solid citizen in this world.
The first, most important factor of growing in faith is Bible study.
Jesus prayed for us to the Father, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17; emphasis added).
In order to understand the Bible, you must receive its author.
Without Jesus Christ, you are blind to the spiritual world. (See 1 Corinthians 2:14; 2 Corinthians 4:3-4.) For an unsaved man to try to truly understand the Bible is like trying to teach a dog to understand opera.
Nicodemus was a master teacher in Israel, a brilliant man, but he could not understand. Jesus told him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3b).
Therefore, if you want to understand the Bible, the first thing to do is call upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the saving author of the Bible.
If you do not appreciate the Word of God, you will not have a desire to know it.
Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven….Concerning Your testimonies, I have known of old that You have founded them forever.
Thousands of years have passed since the Bible was written. Empires have risen and gone from the scene. There have been emperors who decreed the extermination of the Bible, atheists who laughed at it, liberals who have moved Heaven and earth to explain away its miracles, materialists who simply ignore it—but the Bible stands.
The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.
The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver.
Saints and heroes have pillowed their head upon the Word of God their heavenly Father and looked into the face of death with a smile. Martyrs who have died for the witness of Jesus Christ have held the Bible to their bosom as the creeping flames came around their feet.
You will never grow your faith, never have a victorious Christian life, if you do not love this book.
Once you know the author, you must believe the authority of the Word of God. The Bible is a literary miracle.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The Greek word used here for “inspiration” is used only this one time in the Bible. It is theopneustos, and literally means, “God-breathed.” This is why we believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Bible. There is no part of the Bible that is not inspired.
The Bible is the Word of God, and you need to take it that way.
“Didn’t humans write the Bible?” They wrote it by divine inspiration. God Himself inspired the penman. “Well if God wrote it, why doesn’t it all sound alike?” Because God used different people!
Your view of the Scripture must be the view that Jesus had: “The Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35b).
Vitality means “alive-ness.”
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
You don’t just read the cookbook; you eat the meal. No matter how much you appreciate it, if you do not assimilate it, what good is it going to do you?
So how do you assimilate the Word of God? What does good Bible study look like?
Never begin reading the Bible without praying.
Blessed are You, O LORD! Teach me Your statutes.
When you pray that, when you lay your intellectual pride in the dust, God begins to teach you.
Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.
God will help you to see things you have never seen. Truths jump up off the Bible into your heart.
Incline my heart to Your testimonies, and not to covetousness.
You must see, and then your heart must be moved. And then your mind will be enlightened.
Your hands have made me and fashioned me; give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.
It is unthinkable to sit down for a serious study of the Word of God without first asking the author of the Word of God to teach you.
I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways…. I rise before the dawning of the morning, and cry for help; I hope in Your word.
It takes time. If you have to rise an hour early, or stay up an hour late, do it.
Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.
You can remember far more than you think you can. We function by memory. Memory comes with concentration, with motivation, and with use. God gave you a mind to put things in. You cannot meditate on the Word of God unless it is your mind.
Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD! Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with the whole heart! They also do no iniquity; they walk in His ways. You have commanded us to keep Your precepts diligently.
It is not enough to recite the promises without obeying the commandments.
Here is a simple secret to learning more of the Word of God: obey the parts you already know. “For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him” (Matthew 13:12).
There may be mysteries you do not understand about the Beast in Revelation, but when Jesus says to the Church, “Love one another,” can you? (See John 13:34-35.)
With my lips I have declared all the judgments of Your mouth.
Let the Word of God be constantly in your mouth. Stow it in your heart, show it in your life, sow it in the world. The more of the Word of God you give away, the more of it will stick to you.
If you will study the Bible, then the same way Jesus overcame Satan in the wilderness, so will you: by the Word of God.
Bible reading will grow your faith. If you do not learn how to feed yourself the Word of God, you will have no spiritual growth.
It is a source of power. “My soul melts from heaviness; strengthen me according to Your word” (Psalm 119:28).
It is a source of guidance. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).
It is a source of joy. “Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever,
For they are the rejoicing of my heart” (Psalm 119:111).
2 Timothy 2:15, 3:16-17; John 3:3, 10:35, 13:34-35, 17:17; 1 Corinthians 2:14; 2 Corinthians 4:3-4; Psalm 119:1-18,18,36,72-73,89,111,147,152,160; Hebrews 4:12; Matthew 13:12
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed. But reject profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness.
Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
