WBS and My Wonderful Granddaddy

I received an email from the WBS* today. They've assigned me a Bible study helper, K. She'll be sending me my lessons and looking over them to see how well I seem to understand what I've read, and trying to encourage me and help me to be consistent with my studies.

Consistency is what I need to work on right now, probably more than anything else. I used to do really well about reading and/or studying the scriptures every day. But I got out of it somehow. So right now, my first priority is getting back to doing it consistently. So this should help.

They also gave some study tips, which I'm going to list here just as a reminder for myself.

Pray before starting each study session.
Be consistent - do at least a few minutes every day.
Complete each lesson.
Test the teachings.
Be honest - always search for the truth.

My Granddaddy taught me some of this at a very young age. He used to always tell me, "Don't trust anyone to tell you what the Bible says, or what God wants from you. Always study the scriptures and find out for yourself." And he included preachers, my parents, and himself in that. And of course, the corollary to that is that if someone tells me the Bible says something, look it up for myself and make sure, before I believe it.

I started doing that at a very young age. I would take a note book to church with me and take notes. Write down the point the preacher was making, the scripture reference he gave to support it, and then look it up at home to see if it did. As a result, I discovered that most of the scripture references he gave did not support the points he was trying to make. And in some cases had nothing to do with what he was saying. And, in some rare cases, actually contradicted what he was saying.

So by age 12, I knew that the preachers in the church where I grew up either didn't know the scriptures, didn't care whether they were teaching the truth or not, or cared so much about putting forth their own views, that they were willing to outright lie to do so. I didn't care at that point in time which of the possibilities it was. I just wanted to find a new place to worship, where people actually cared enough about God's word to make sure they were teaching the truth. But at age 12, I had no control over it. So I stayed put until my parents got fed up with the people there and were ready to leave.

None of us knew where we wanted to go, just that we didn't want to go there anymore. A neighborhood friend invited me to try the church she attended. I tried it, and at first it seemed better. Their preacher's scripture references matched up with what he was teaching more often, but still not most of the time. And he contradicted the Bible less, but still did so on ocassion. I finally got tired of the "mistakes" and contradictions there and quit going.

At that point, I gave up on organized religion altogether. I still believed in God and the scriptures. But I couldn't find a church that actually taught the scriptures, instead of their own view points. So I just quit going to church (I was 17 by that time). I'd stay home and study my Bible on my own.

At 19 I married a man who believed as strongly in the scriptures as I do. It took him several months to do it, but he finally convinced me to give the Church of Christ a chance. He said that if I ever heard a preacher teaching something that I didn't believe was true, or the scripture reference he gave for it didn't support it, I could just go to him and discuss it with him.

That actually happened once. It wasn't that I didn't believe that what he said was true. But the scripture reference he gave to support it didn't support it. I showed it to J., my husband, and he said to ask the preacher about it.

So we stayed after services and I showed him what he had said, and the reference he gave to support it. He looked at it and realized that I was right. So he went and looked at his notes and realized that what he had done was give the scripture reference from the next line down in his notes, instead of the one that actually went with the point he was making. That evening, before starting his evening lesson, he corrected his scripture reference for that point in his morning lesson. I had never seen a preacher do that, or even be willing to listen to someone question something they had said. I became very close that preacher, and miss him (he moved away). And he's the one I asked to baptize me later. Oh, and the correct scripture reference for that point did support what he was saying.

There's no way I would have done that at the church where I grew up. As it was, when I decided I wanted to be baptized at age 12, the preacher there actually tried to talk me out of it. Saying that God doesn't require baptizm in order to be saved. Well, I may have only been 12 years old, but I had already studied the scriptures enough on my own to know that God most definitely did want me to be baptized. I may not have understood all the why's and how's at the time, but I did know that He wanted it done. And I wasn't willing to let myself be talked out of it. And the preacher became quite agitated with me. But he did baptize me.

Years later, after I was married, I realized that he may not have done it right. I think he did say that he was baptizing me in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, although I'm not certain. But I don't remember him saying anything about Christ's blood washing away my sins. I don't remember him saying anything about being buried with Christ in baptizm and being raised to live a new life. And that bothered me. So I had someone baptize me again at age 20, with those things being stated clearly, and with my confession of faith being heard by a small group of family and friends. My first baptizm had no confession of faith.

So thanks to my wonderful Granddaddy, the greatest man who ever lived, besides Jesus Himself, IMHO**, some of the study tips the WBS suggests are things I've been doing since I was about 7 or 8 years old. But it never hurts to have a reminder once in a while.

*World Bible School
**In My Humble Opinion