I truly believe that Bible study is beneficial and helpful but…
Once while inviting students to Bible study on the UIC campus, a student expressed that he wanted to go to medical school. So I told him confidently, “Studying the Bible will help you get into medical school.” He was quite surprised and very interested and intrigued. He said, “Really?” I said, “Absolutely!” He was persuaded. He joined UBF, came faithfully to Sunday worship service, as we studied the Bible every week for a few years. Then he was accepted to medical school. That was the last time I saw him. Well, Bible study surely worked! I guess it just didn’t work the way I had expected.
Yes, Bible study helps us. But what can go wrong? What I’ve found most interesting is that during Jesus’ time those who knew the Bible were the very ones determined to discredit, dishonor and eliminate him. They also believed that they were the ones who were truly obeying what the Bible (Torah) taught. Can this happen today among Christians who know their Bible well and who believe that they are truly obeying the Bible? Can I be so deceived by my own knowledge and study of the Scriptures over the last 35 years since 1980 when I became a Christian?
This also happened during the time of Isaiah about 750 years before Christ. The “chosen people” obeyed what Moses taught. They faithfully made sacrifices and offerings. They gathered regularly to worship in the temple. They kept their religious festivals, as we Christians might celebrate Easter and Christmas every year without fail. Was God pleased with their worship and obedience? God says, “Stop bringing useless offerings…I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly” (Isa 1:13).
What a surprise! God was not pleased with their Bible study and obedience. God was basically saying, “Stop all your church activities and Bible study!” Imagine saying this in church today…
Similarly, God told Isaiah about the “Bible people” he was going to minister to when he was called by God (Isa 6:8). Even though they knew their Bibles, yet their ears, eyes and hearts would be deaf, blind and hardened (calloused) toward God’s word through Isaiah (Isa 6:9-10). They come to God with hymns of praise, appearing piously at the temple (Isa 29:1), yet God indicts them for their distant hearts (Isa 29:13a). They thought they were really studying the Bible well, but God says that their Bible study is merely human rules taught by their Bible teachers (Isa 29:13b).
In Jesus’ time and Isaiah’s time the prophets, priests and religious leaders knew their Bible and taught the Bible. But Jesus said that they neglected what was most important in Bible study–“justice, mercy and faithfulness” (Mt 23:23). Though the Bible teachers were diligent in trying to “raise disciples” Jesus said that their disciples were “twice as much a child of hell as (they) are” (Mt 23:15). Ouch! It’s no wonder that they crucified Jesus!!
So is Bible study not helpful? It can be when we let God be God and not try to play God over others. We love others by letting God work his magic and miracle in transforming their lives by His grace and by His Spirit. Thomas Merton says it best:
“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
Did I love others? I can blame my Bible student for quitting Bible study after he got what he wanted and entered medical school. But based on Merton’s definition, I wasn’t truly loving him by allowing him to be perfectly himself. I only wanted to raise him as a UBF shepherd. He knew it. I knew it. I did not deeply celebrate his admission into medical school, because I regarded that it was more important that he became a one to one Bible teacher for UBF world campus mission. I wanted him to be like me, as though I am the standard of how a Christian should be. It is sad.
So yes I do believe that Bible study can truly help us. But not in the way that I used to impose my will and preference on others through Bible study.
Has Bible study helped you? Others?
Thanks for sharing. Bible study is important, but it seems to me that there is an allergy like reaction…we can’t help but feel we are the only ones who are right. We stop thinking and loving and justify ourselves with our empty ritual.
People can tell if your desire to study with them is ultimately pragmatic. I’ve heard it called a built in B S detector.
Yes, inadvertently and unintentionally I made him use the Bible and use God to get what he wanted. I made Bible study utilitarian, and not primarily to love and worship God.
Hello Mr.C and welcome to You Be Friends!
I believe read your bible and pray and similar tends to be a canned answer that doesn’t typiclly answer any questions or help someone meaningfully. Sometimes that is exactly what needs to be done, but more often than not a person is trying to specifically get at a solution and reading the bible and pray is disappointing. Pascal specifically says that “God instituted prayer so that his creations might enjoy the benefits of causality.” but so do our actions! Frank Viola really hits it on the head:
“Like it or not, “read-your-Bible-and-pray” has become an empty promise that’s left many believers disillusioned or living in denial.The subjects of hearing the Lord, following the Holy Spirit, and living by the indwelling life of Christ are a universe until themselves.
And the truly helpful answers on how one hears the Lord, follows the Spirit, and lives by the Lord’s life are as big as the ocean. (So I take a dim view on the canned answers that Christians regularly give to them.)”
His article gives some real alternatives to such. http://frankviola.net/readpray/
One specificlly that really opened my eyes is that the life governed by the spirit is at peace. In other words “Where the spirit of the lord there is freedom.” Any time you start down a path that really bothers you spiritually you are not being governed by the spirit.
Thanks, Ben, good points.
You wrote you “were not truly loving him” but my main issue with your behavior towards him is rather that you were simply *deceiving* him. Nobody expected you to *love* him. But at least he could expect that he wasn’t deceived. I know you’re a different man now and even then you did it “with good intentions”. However, deception is deception and servants of God should never try to go such crooked ways, even if they believe to be clever and see the “good end”. But the end does not justify any means.
We should be totally honest with ourselves and those we try to lead to God. How can a person meet God and understand God’s holyness if God’s servant behaves in ungodly ways? How can you teach a person the value of truth if you’re not fully honest yourself? Samuel Lee taught through his deeds and words that dishonesty and trickery can be used in mission, just like any ugly means that could be considered useful for “world mission.” But that was a great lie.
“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” and “No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence.”
Our invitation to Bible study on the campus always started with lies about our group and our goals. We claimed to be a student church like any other, and we only wanted to offer free Bible study, while in reality we believed our group was the only true church on the campus and we had the goal to recruit people, and mold them into the group identity, and bind them to the group forever. I read in Steve Hassan’s book that all cults start with this kind of deception when they’re recruiting people, contrary to legitimate ministries which are open about themselves. This is one of the many reasons why I don’t shy away of calling UBF a cult.
I don’t know if I was deceptive. I have always been pretty clear and blunt as I am today. But in those days I communicated explicitly that he should “just obey,” “don’t date without permission,” “marry by faith with someone introduced to you,” “answer the Bible study questions,” “write testimonies,” “don’t you ever dare miss Sunday worship service,” “be a one to one Bible teacher for college students” and gosh darn it you better “pray for American to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation!”
Was I a rigid inflexible robot programmed to produce clones?
Ben, did you really tell him all these things from day 1? I doubt it. UBFers do that only after they have “hooked” someone. The “hook” are feelings of guilt, thankfulness, fear of authority and Godly punishment, slowly instilled into people during the love bombing phase. But until the person is hooked, you don’t tell them that they need to write testimonies, never skip a Sunday service, never may date without permission, and need to become a shepherd and serve world mission to be saved, right? You neither told him the goals, nor the rules. At least not in the beginning. And that is deceptive.
Also, you coupled his dream “entering medical school” with your program “make Bible study” which does not have anything to do with each other. You immediately gave him that typical UBF feelign of “if I do this or that than God will bless me” or even worse “if I do *not* this or that, God will *not* bless me”. People are superstitious, and UBF exploits that. You should have raised the wish in him to attend Bible study *independently* of everything else. Just for the love of God.
Your title, Ben, brings back horrible memories of when I also began to believe that “only Bible study can help you”. LOL that is absurd. Our invitation was something like this “Come to ubf bible study, the best in the world, and get rid of all your demons!”
Such thinking however, only leads to abuses of many kinds.
Hi Chris, I absolutely should have done this: “You should have raised the wish in him to attend Bible study *independently* of everything else (going to medical school).”
But of course, I justified what I did with the reasoning that God dangled a son in front of Abraham for 25 years, in order to help him live by faith.
God also gave Jacob all he wanted (Rachel, the love of his life + much wealth) in order to help him believe that God was with him to bless him.
Yes Ben, those are good points. I think the key danger of that justification is that it was GOD who did those things. Claiming that Bible study will help with worldly desires is basically promising that God will do something (I.e. playing God). Remember, God also took AWAY blessings from the faithful. We cannot make His decisions for Him. 🙂
I remember when I was subtly pressured to study the bible to the point that it was interfering with my academic performance and I was placed on scholarship probation. Eventually I had to MAN up and tell him “don’t contact me for bible study, I’ll contact you”. Needless to say he didn’t take it to well, and tried to talk me out of my decision but my mind was made.
Yes, Rocket, Hertoa, the “pushiness” of some UBFers to have Bible study “by any means!” As Chris mentioned, it may very well have come from good intentions.
I know this all too well, for I could easily qualify as UBF on steroids for about 25 years from 1980 till the mid 2000s.
So I was willing to say anything to get this UIC college student to study the Bible with me, truly believing that studying the Bible would be the best thing for him.
I still believe this today with some caveats, especially respecting boundaries and respecting each person’s decisions and choices.
Revelation 3:20 comes to mind. I used to pound the door and even break down the door in order to push Bible study on others. Today, I wish to simply knock and just wait until they open the door.
For sure. Even still, imagine if the Lord had decided to prevent your student from being accepted to school. Not only would that have made a liar of you, but it would have devastated someone whose faith was possibly built on sand! Yes, God does work for the good of His children, but sometimes we do not understand His reasons.
Anybody can go to church and call themselves a Christian. However not everyone that confesses Christ is actually of him much less sent from him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmpLUaj0wW0
Ugh. I abandoned this false ideology a while ago. Do you realize the ideology presented here is at the core of UBFism? It is presenting a gospel of tribalism and moral superiority.
Agree with Brian. A gospel of fear is not the gospel of Jesus Christ (see Rom 8:15). I didn’t watch to the end but it’s interesting that the video features a girl as the victim of demons, not an abusive pastor as the target of the demons which would have much better supported the claim of the video that there are Christians in hell.
Again, if you’re only studying the Bible because of a superstituous fear of horribly crafted computer animated demons, you’re not loving God. God wants people to come to Him because they love Him, not because they fear Him, and not because they seek some gain such as passing examns or material blessings, as discussed above. Also, a good way of coming to God is loving and caring for other people, particularly those really in need (Jam 1:27). And with “really” I mean materially, not primarily those who you think are in need spiritually because they are not so spiritual as you are. UBF never got that point.
@ Brian yes I realize their is some ubfism in this video, but my post was not to regurgitate false ubfism. For quiet a while the concept of a “hell bound Christian was a misnomer to me and upon reading Mr. Toh’s article the first thing that came to mind was Matthew 7:21-23.
@ Chris I just happen to stumble across videos that describe corrupt pastors dying and going to hell. BTW I’m not trying to put fear in people I don’t have that kind of authority, for me personally the concept of hell is just as important as the concept of heaven. BTW I agree ubf missed that point badly.
Hi Rocket, I think that the “problem” with that video is that it just seems to primarily addresses “non-Christian” sins, even if one believes they are a Christian. It conveys a moralistic, legalistic message, such as “if you’re listening to secular music artists you’re going to hell!”
I’ve even heard messages such as “if you watch the superbowl, you’re worldly and unspiritual.”
@ Mr. Toh your right, I didn’t pay attention to the details. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.
Hi and thanks, Brian, many of you will remember me from the old site as MattC. I took a break from UBFriends and after the change to the new site I had my plate full with other things. And it felt nice to not obsess over UBF too much too.
I chose MrC because I ask my students to call me “Mister C”. It also seemed neat because it kind of looks like “mercy,” which God has imprinted deeply on my heart and which, quite frankly, many of the UBF leaders who have worked with/on me have almost zero of.
I’m glad Ben has posted his other article, going to take a look at it now : )
Mr.C, “Lord have mercy” is my personal favorite utterance!
If a Christian leader has “almost zero mercy,” it is perhaps because of their inclination toward being retributive and punitive, instead of being long suffering and forgiving.
It is extremely sad whenever I hear or experience some Christian saying or implying “you need to be punished,” instead of “you need mercy.”
The scary thing was, in the iteration of UBF I experienced, there seemed like a visible effort, knowing that in a lot of cases, punishment or retribution should come and could come, but it didn’t come, because that’s something that people would complain about.
Resisting the urge to follow abusive practice isnt enough. It needs to get into our hearts.
We heard a lot about “participating in his sufferings” but how often did we hear about participating in his mercy? In his empathy?
These days, the Communion I’ve taken in a UMC congregation have been a blessing. It’s given me a sense that when I show love or mercy or do any good thing, it really isn’t me, it’s Christ. It’s all to easy to get into a punishment mood or superiority mood with my daughter when we discipline. But as Christ showed me great mercy, and found ways to help me see the truth, I want to show the same love to my daughter/son if I can. It’s helped me to be set free (at least a good start at it) from trying to make my kids like me, or better than me.