Applying the Bible

The easiest way to read Man of Depravity is through a Reader.

A common struggle for most Bible readers is applying what the Bible says to their personal life. Sadly the Bible was not written as a perfect manuscript for each of our lives. Instead we have to take what it says and apply it to our lives.

Today I’ll look at 5 common mistakes that everyone makes when trying to apply the Bible to their lives.

reading the bible

  1. Stopping at interpretation. We love to figure out what the text is actually saying, but too often we don’t take that and apply it to our lives. An example of this is looking at different Biblical characters and seeing their sin and struggles, yet we do not work on our sins and our struggles.
  2. Avoiding application. Most Christians are really good at applying the parts of the Bible that they are already living out. It makes us feel good. It is much easier to just not apply the parts we aren’t living out.
  3. Pinning the application to someone else. We see this on Sunday mornings during a message. Someone else comes to mind or we nudge our neighbor or spouse after the pastor reads a “stinging” verse.
  4. We are really good at rationalization. How often has the Bible hit hard and you immediately think of something else that the Bible says or that a pastor has said and it lets us “off the hook”? I can’t even explain how, but our brain can rationalize just about anything, including what the Bible really says.
  5. Stopping at conviction. How many times have I thought…”wow that Scripture was convicting for me”? TOO MANY! Being convicted about what the Bible says means nothing. Action means everything.

Can you think of any others?

Do any of these really stick out to you?

(HT: Dr. Wecks)