How Studying the Bible Can Help You Stand Against False Teaching
In March, I started walking through the book of 2 Corinthians on my podcast. Each week, I go through a different chapter of whatever book of the Bible we are then studying, and break it down for listeners to better understand the rich lessons outlined and absorb what God is teaching us through His Word.
2 Corinthians is a valuable book where the Apostle Paul is pointing the church in Corinth to God’s truth, and warning the people to repent and turn away from false teaching. Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth is as equally timely today as it was when Paul wrote it. I often find Christians today who have more of a second-hand faith, receiving most of their teaching and understanding of God’s Word from their pastor, friends or family rather than a true personal relationship with God. Christians who are not as firmly rooted in God’s truth may have a hard time discerning false teaching even within their own denomination. There is no replacement for diving into Scripture yourself and engaging directly with the Word of God.
I myself went to a church for decades whose preaching I discovered was not biblical. My relationship with the Lord back then was focused solely on what I could do to earn God’s favor and I hoped God graded on the curve so that I might make it to heaven. It is by God’s grace that the Holy Spirit slowly worked on my heart and revealed God’s true Word to me. My eyes were opened to see that the traditional religious practices I had become accustomed to and my flawed beliefs about God were distracting me from a real personal relationship with God. Experiencing this in my own life, I now have a strong urgency and drive to echo Paul’s message of encouraging believers to seek truth for themselves and obey Christ.
The book of 2 Corinthians is meant to encourage believers to live as an example of Christ to others. As believers, God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us fight against the temptations and attacks of the enemy, while modeling God’s desires of generosity and humility. I still stumble and fall, but I know the Lord is right there to pick me up and help me get back on the right track. If you want to follow along and learn more about Paul’s teaching as I read and explain a new chapter each week, you can sign up through my website (www.larryodonnell.com) to receive the new episode that is released each Monday morning and delivered to you by email; or simply send a text to 56316, type Larry in the message box and hit send.
Another idea that I have heard others doing now, is to start your own Bible Study with your friends by reading the chapter that will be covered prior to getting together, then listening to the episode together in your small group (you can listen anytime, and all prior episodes are on my website), and then discuss together what you hear and learned from the lesson.
I hope you will join me each week as we study God’s Word together.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” - 2 Corinthians 5:17