What does First B Jackson teach about reading the bible?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on reading the Bible starts with the lens a person brings to the text. In the message "Checking Your Lenses," Pastor Jason worked through the idea that everyone approaches Scripture with a hermeneutic, a set of assumptions that shapes what they see, whether they are aware of it or not. He used the image of oxidized headlight lenses that have to be polished clear before the light can shine through, and reading glasses that correct vision so a person can see what is actually there. His point was that a hermeneutic of skepticism or doubt will cause a reader to miss what the text is actually saying, just as a man who arrives expecting rejection cannot receive what is genuinely being offered to him. The central question he kept putting to the congregation was simple: do you believe God is good and that He loves you? That belief, or the lack of it, determines everything about how a person reads.
Matt Litzelman, speaking on what it means to know God personally, placed Bible reading alongside prayer and fellowship as one of the concrete ways a person grows in that knowledge. His reason was practical: we need to know what God's voice sounds like, the way you recognize a friend's voice on the phone without needing an introduction. If what someone hears does not match what the word says, Matt suggested, it is probably not God speaking. The Bible is not a credential to accumulate but a means of becoming genuinely acquainted with the One who wrote it.
Pastor Carl, closing out a series on 1 John, pushed against the tendency to treat Scripture as a dull portrait on a wall rather than a window into something living. He pointed to a woman named Lauren whose family was carried through her father's death by specific Bible verses, as a picture of what the word actually does in a life. His point was that the word always produces fruit, even when a person does not know when or where it will land. Reading the Bible, in the teaching at First B Jackson, is not an academic exercise. It is the place where a relationship with God becomes real and where His voice becomes recognizable.
Taught from Psalm 119:160 · Philippians 3:10 · 1 John 5:13 · Matthew 6 · John 15:5
The passage taught · 1 Peter 5:7
7 casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- September 8, 2023 Checking Your Lenses Pastor Aaron explores how the lens we bring to Scripture shapes what we find there, and why trusting God's goodness changes everything we read.
- April 9, 2017 Do You Know Him On Palm Sunday, elder Matt Litzelman explores what it means to truly know God, drawing on Philippians 3:10 and four practical habits: prayer, reading Scripture, community, and solitude.
- September 7, 2015 Monday Nights @ First B (10) Pastor Carl closes out 1 John with a look at what it means to trust God, pray for one another, obey His commands, and keep Jesus at the center of your heart.