Bible Is Different Than Denominationalisms

[Davy]

Study your Bible, not denominationalism.

What I mean by that is, preachers that attend a particular college seminary are influenced by the particular denomination sponsoring that college. The seminaries don't teach all of the Bible. The preachers are left to do deeper Bible study on their own after college, with helps from their particular denomination they follow. This often comes to them from denominational tracts, quarterlies, books, etc. In essence, you are getting more 'denominationalism' than actual Bible coverage through all of God's Word.

This means, pick a denomination, and you'll get a certain denominational view of endtime Bible prophecy. Pick a different denomination, and you'll get another denominational view, and so on.

Does that mean stop listening to your preacher? No, of course not. Use common sense, and verify what your preacher is teaching by doing your own Bible study asking God's help. It is going to be up to you to let our Heavenly Father fill in the gaps of your Bible study. I say this because I can just about guarantee you won't find a Church that teaches all of God's Word line upon line, chapter by chapter. They don't do it in the seminary colleges, so why would they teach their students to do it when they become preachers?

Apostle Peter said for the last days, there will be false teachers among Christ's Church, just as there were false prophets among the people in early days (2 Peter 2:1). Our Lord Jesus warned us about this for the end, so did Apostle Paul, and Apostle John. That emphasizes even more why we need to study all of God's Word.

Our Heavenly Father has also given us some good Christian scholars of the past that created proven Bible study tools. Here is a minimum list I recommend:

1611 King James Bible:
Don't get sucked into all the hype about 'easier to read' study Bibles. The KJV and manuscripts it used is the basis for these early scholarly study tools.

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance:
Dr. James Strong took every word in the KJV Bible, in Old Testament Hebrew and Aramaic, and the Greek for the New Testament, numbered them, and gave us the definitions from the original languages. This means you can go deeper into the Bible languages for yourself. A pre 1991 edition is preferred, as some later editions have omitted some things from Dr. Strong's original work, to suit them, not him.

Brown, Driver & Briggs Hebrew Lexicon:
This will help with translation of OT names and places, which is important to get into the habit of doing during Bible study of the Old Testament Books.

The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge:
This tool is a type of 'topic' concordance. Take a certain verse topic, and it will give you a cross reference of other Bible Scripture where that same topic occurs. It's a great time saver, and helps make your study more thorough.

Englishman's Concordance:
This tool will allow you to look up all Scripture occurrences of a Bible manuscript word translated in The KJV Bible. It uses Strong's numbers. What this does is for topic study. You study a passage where a certain word or phrase doesn't seem clear, and using this you can look up all other Bible examples of how that word was translated to English. Putting all those examples together will give you a bigger picture on the usage of that manuscript word.

You can get these works as individual books, or some of them are online, or get them in a collection Bible study software, like BibleSoft PC Study Bible.

 

[Ricky M]

There's a story I heard many years ago that I oft plagiarize about denominations. Goes something like this:

One day Jesus is walking down the street and a group of people bring a blind man to Him seeking healing. Jesus spits on the ground, makes a little mud, puts some in the blind man’s eyes, and tells his friends to take him down to the river and wash it out. They and the crowd do just that, and when the man washes he is healed and can see. So off this group goes, preaching that one must ‘receive spit in the eye and wash at the river’.

Another day, Jesus comes across another blind man seeking healing. Jesus tells the man to go to the temple and pay his alms. The man and the crowd around him do so, and he is healed and can see. So off this group goes, preaching that one must ‘give their alms’.

On still another occasion, a blind man is brought to Jesus wanting to be healed. Jesus asks the man if he believes He can do it, the man says yes, and he is healed. So off this group goes, preaching one must have ‘faith and belief’.

So now we have these three 'denominations' going at each other, insisting you can only be healed by ‘spit and washing’, or only by ‘alms and giving’, or only by ‘faith and belief’ - each ‘denomination’ insisting that it is exclusive of the others. But in debating about the how, they totally lose sight that there are many ways Jesus restores us, and that they are not exclusive of each other. They all have one thing in common: They all sought out Jesus.

None of us has the whole picture... but we all have a piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Instead of trying to force-feed our piece of the puzzle upon others, we should pay attention to the picture formed by all of the puzzle pieces around us. Because even with as much as we think we know, today is not the day to stop learning from each other.

 

[Davy]

Per Isaiah 28, the leaders of Jerusalem hated study per God's Way also, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.

Isa 28:13-14
13 But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
KJV

2 Tim 2:15
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
KJV

Brethren, don't listen to the 'don't need to study' types. The hireling who does it for money wants to keep you ignorant and Biblically unlearned. It tends to cut their money pool off. And of course those types will throw out falsehoods like we are force-feeding our own thing, when it is our Heavenly Father Himself that revealed the proper method of Bible study right there in Isaiah 28, a method that those in Jerusalem wouldn't follow, and thus the result for them is like He said, that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken!