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Bible Study - The Foundation of Worship

Throughout known history, humans have expressed veneration to gods. Many religions provide the story of their God or gods as oral tradition. The Bible – a written record – enables Christians to know the God we worship experientially. Like a map to a precious treasure, Bible study aids me in finding and getting to know God.

When Christianity had become a religion controlled by humans, the Holy Spirit made it possible for Martin Luther to get to know God through Bible study, and discover that anyone could become part of His family by grace alone. When seekers of God are confused by scandals in the church and boisterous public figures who proclaim their own beliefs in place of the truth, Bible study allows them to find the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. When a child has grown up with just a few stories about God, Bible study empowers her or him to get to know the One the child cannot see with her or his own eyes.

Bible study allows me to worship Him with the first-century church. As I hear John share what is yet to come in Revelation when he records the chorus of the Redeemed, “Great and marvelous are your works, O Lord God, the Almighty” (Rev. 15:3, NASB), I want to join in with him already now. And yet, the words I look at are the very words St. Augustine, John Wesley, and Billy Graham saw, and as I engage in Bible study, I am able to worship God with Christians through the ages.

A large number of women and men around the world are living their lives with the single aim of giving more Christians the opportunity to study the Word of God in their own language. Their lives are an offering that will result in a fragrance of worship from scoreless peoples who will delight in their Savior as they get to read and meditate on the Scriptures. As Christians worldwide intently discern the record of His powerful deeds, we will already catch a glimpse of what John records in Revelations 15:4, “For all the nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed” (NASB).

Submitted by Joe Gschwandtner