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Welcome to Day 1519 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomBible Study \u2013 Prayer and Plausible Interpretation \u2013 Meditation MondayWisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge.\xa0Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend; I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy.\xa0Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1519 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday.\xa0Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy.\xa0For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection.\xa0You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, Meditation includes reading and reflecting on God\u2019s Word and in prayer.\xa0It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body.\xa0As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind.
\xa0We are continuing our series this week on Meditation Monday as we focus on Mastering Bible Study through a series of brief insights from Hebrew Scholar, Dr. Michael S. Heiser.\xa0Our current insights are focusing on accurately interpreting the Bible.\xa0Today let us meditate on:
Bible Study \u2013 Prayer and Plausible Interpretation\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Insight Thirty-Seven: Prayer Doesn\u2019t Guarantee Your Interpretation Is Accurate
God is not a vending machine. He is not the genie of all genies, in covenant with his people to grant their every wish. No mature Christian, of course, would ever think of God in such terms. We know that God does not always give us what we ask for in prayer. We trust that God has good reasons for such denials. Paul asked the Lord to rid him of the mysterious \u201cthorn in the flesh\u201d three times, but the answer was no (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Even Jesus was refused when he asked God to deliver him from death on the cross if it was God\u2019s will.
Upon reflection, this pill isn\u2019t so hard to swallow. Perhaps the thing we so desperately want wouldn\u2019t be good for us. Perhaps our motives aren\u2019t entirely upright. Even if they are, maybe God has something better planned. These reasons are hard to fathom, though, when we ask God to illuminate our mind to understand Scripture. Why wouldn\u2019t God want that?
Of course, God wants us to understand the Bible rightly. He desires our understanding as he expects us to kindly treat our spouse, tell someone the gospel, or meet someone\u2019s emotional or financial need when it\u2019s in our power to do so (Proverbs 3:27). But all of these spiritual endeavors depend in part upon our own will, discernment, and ability. Bible study is no exception.
This is transparently obvious when you think about it. We know from their writings that Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Wesley prayed that they would adequately understand Scripture and believed God had answered that prayer. Yet these famous theologians came to dramatically different conclusions on many topics and in many passages. For example, John Calvin is renowned for his insistence that the salvation of individual believers was predestinated, an idea Wesley rejected. Luther\u2019s judgment that James\u2019s book didn\u2019t belong in the New Testament would have drawn objections from the rest of these theologians. While it\u2019s certainly appropriate to ask God to guide our study, it\u2019s our responsibility to develop skill and experience in studying Scripture. Prayer is no cover for either meager effort or failure to address our own inadequacies as students. Most Bible students accept that until they\u2019re in the heat of a theological joust or feel the urge...