Women, Study the Scripture

The Westminster Confession of Faith states plainly about the Word of God, that the people of God:

...have right unto, and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded, in the fear of God, to read and search them...that the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship Him in an acceptable manner; and, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, may have hope (Art. 1.8).

This understanding of the necessity of reading and searching the Scripture is for all the people of God, not just for pastors, seminarians, or bible teachers. The Word of God to the believer is to be more desired than gold and sweeter than honey (Psalm 19:10). In fact, we live not by bread alone but by these infallible words which have proceeded from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4). Women are included in the church of God and ought to take seriously our call to search His Word deeply. In this post, I will explore three reasons why we should study the Scripture.

Know God

First, we study the Scripture because we want to know God (2 Peter 1:2-4; John 5:39). 

“If we are to truly know God, if we are to grow in the knowledge of God, if we are to deepen in the knowledge of God, then we must have an accurate and clear understanding of who God is.  We cannot grow to know God if we have misrepresentations of who God is in our mind. The more accurate our understanding of what the bible says regarding who God is, it will be only to that extent can we truly grow in experiential knowledge of God within our hearts. Our thinking must be correct in our heads, in order for our hearts to enjoy and to worship the one true Living God.” -Stephen Lawson

2 Peter 1:2-4, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.  For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”

So, it is through the true knowledge of God that His power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness.  And our true knowledge of Him will enable our hearts to know and enjoy God for who He truly and accurately is.

Look also at John 5:39 where Jesus tells the Pharisees, “You search the Scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of Me.” The Scriptures testify of God.  We do not study the Scriptures to just gain more knowledge and debate spiritual matters with better arguments or simply for life improvement strategies.  All of our purposes in bible study ought to lead back to this one: to know Him. We must know Him intimately for ourselves and not solely based on what we hear from others or from the pulpit. The knowing of God and His Word is essential to our growth in godliness. We cannot develop our spiritual sense or increase in godliness without a steady intake of the Scripture with the aim of knowing the author of the Scripture, God Himself.

Know the Truth

Our next reason for studying the Scripture is so that we will know the truth and we will not be deceived. 2 Timothy 3:6-7 “For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Paul describes these women who had been taken captive or deceived using 3 descriptions: 1) they were weak: meaning foolish, immature; 2) they were burdened, heaped up with, weighed down with sins; and 3) they were led on by their own various or diverse longings, lusts, appetites. Look at the result of their being deceived: they are always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

The word of God is the remedy for each of these dangers that described these women but can also describe us. First, these women were weak, foolish, immature. Hebrews 5:14 “But solid food (here meaning the word of God) is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” The Word of God is this solid food and it matures those who partake of it.  So, the remedy for a weak and foolish woman is taking in the solid food of the word of God.

Next, these women were weighed down with sins. Psalm 119:11 “Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.” The remedy to hearts that are weighed down with sin is the word of God treasured in the heart.  The word of God hidden in the mind and savored in the heart keeps us from sin. Psalm 119:129 says, “Your testimonies are wonderful therefore my soul keeps them.” Do you see the connection between finding His testimonies to be wonderful and the keeping of them?

Finally, these women were led on by their own lusts and appetites. How often are we led by our own desires for what we want? How often do we follow how we feel? Paul tells Titus in Titus 2:1, 11-12, “But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine.” And what does that include? “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age.” Again, the sound doctrine of the word of God addresses the point of need. It instructs us to deny ungodliness and our own worldly lusts.

The result of their deception is that they were always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. In order to have true wisdom and knowledge we must come to the source of that wisdom and knowledge, God Himself. (Rom. 11:33-36) We need His wisdom in order to turn from our foolish and immature ways.  We need the cleansing power of His Word to help us to see our sin and to be able to wage war against it.  We need His work in our life to change our fleshly lusts and desires and transform our hearts to desire His will. 

What a Privilege!

The third reason we should study God’s word is that we have the privilege to do so. Think about this in the context of Paul’s day. 1 Timothy 2:11, “Let a woman quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.”  In Paul’s day, and prior to it, women were not allowed or encouraged to sit with the men and learn the Scriptures.  So, when Paul tells Timothy to let the women sit and learn the Scriptures, this was radical. And what a privilege we have that we are allowed and encouraged to sit under the preaching of God’s Word, partake of bible studies, and learn what “thus says the Lord.” Additionally, in Paul’s day, they did not have the full canon of Scripture or have their own copy of the Scriptures.  We not only have the full canon of Scripture, and numerous personal copies of our own Bibles, but we have study tools than are in abundance to help us understand the Scripture.  Bible dictionaries, encyclopedias, commentaries, books, sermon audio to listen to, and the list goes on.  We live in a very privileged time, where our lack of knowledge of the Scriptures is not because of lack of opportunity. We are not only privileged in comparison to Paul’s day, but we are privileged in that we live where we live.  There are places even now that do not have the Scriptures, places where the language has not been developed enough to have the written Word, places where the Bible is forbidden, but we have none of those restrictions.  We have unfettered access to the Word of God.  Praise God. Let’s not waste this privilege.

There are more reason to study the Scripture, which I will look at in another post, but these three give us motivation to take the privilege we have to study the Scripture so that we can know God as He has revealed Himself and learn His truth to give us the right knowledge in order to keep us from being deceived.