Can I Help?

[mattbraunlin]

Can I Help?​

Just today, I had a chat with a dear friend of mine from my church. He told me about an older friend of his who is a true Biblical wizard. He not only knows the Old Testament like the back of his hand, but is also fluent in Hebrew. He is known to sit down with Jehovah's Witnesses who come to his door, and obliterate their false projection of the Bible and make it look easy.

All I can say is… wow.

To anyone who may be reading this book, I want to make this extremely clear: I am not that guy. I am not a wizard, or a scholar, or a historian, or any other descriptive noun which implies that I am anything resembling an expert in Scripture.

I am a layman. I am an ordinary, small-town chump who has only been devoting real time to studying the Bible for about three years. I have never set foot in a Bible-college, and there are large portions of the Bible which I have never really studied at all. Were I to find myself in a discussion about the Book of Amos, I would have not one word to contribute (though I hope that this will change in time.)

To hear about my friend's friend - this true warrior, with his stratospheric grasp of God's message to humanity - was humbling indeed.

But let's look at the other side of the coin.

In his introduction to his lovely book, Reflections on the Psalms, Lewis in his bottomless modesty makes it clear that he is no expert on the Psalms. (In fact, precisely the parts of the Bible in which he was an expert is hard to pin down). But then, he adds this beautiful explanation for why he was writing the book:


It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can. When you took the problem to a master, as we all remember, he was very likely to explain what you understood already, to add a great deal of information which you didn’t want, and say nothing at all about the thing that was puzzling you. I have watched this from both sides of the net; for when, as a teacher myself, I have tried to answer questions brought me by pupils, I have sometimes, after a minute, seen that expression settle down on their faces which assured me that they were suffering exactly the same frustration which I had suffered from my own teachers. The fellow-pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recently met.


It is precisely in this context that I think I might be able to make an impact for God.

I am a student. I am learning. Even having finally gotten serious about Bible-study in my most recent years, I would have been utterly bewildered without the guidance and support of men and women much more experienced and knowledgeable than myself.

And it is on that level that I offer you my writing: as a student who, with help, is finally starting to understand the Bible, and would love to help you understand it as well.

Could I be one of steel-clad scholars who stand before an auditorium of people and answer questions off the tops of their heads? Not in my wildest dreams. I guarantee you that you have questions which I could not answer. But I do hope that I can show you that the experience of learning about Jesus Christ is an adventure beyond your wildest dreams. That the answers you seek (and those I seek) are out there, and that God wants you to find them.

I will not turn you into a scholar. But I hope with all my heart that you will join me as a fellow-pupil.