Being a Baptist usually means that you take scripture very seriously. After all, we do tend to dominate the "bible belt" in terms of numbers. Our history speaks of our devotion to the Bible. You can find countless official statements by Baptist groups to illustrate our conviction to God's truth. We may not always do so well in applying scripture but there is little doubt of our tendency to thump the Bible as our basis of faith. You should understand that we Baptists do not gravitate toward the traditional creeds on doctrinal issues. Our pattern is to utilize confessions of faith to serve as our model. Try telling a Baptist what to believe and you may not live to tell about it. This is all good but we still tend to have weaknesses in our approach.

My guess is that ministers of every generation tend to go on and on about how the average layperson struggles with biblical knowledge. It's also my opinion that our concerns will continue to flourish in our Internet age. Anything a person wants to know is only a search and click away. Our grasp of google may outweigh our awareness of basic gospel truth. Our normal answer to such dilemmas lead us to fear anything that is not related to scripture. Motivation from anxiety seldom serves a noble purpose. Part of spiritual maturity is knowing how to use God's word while living with real life. But we still must possess the tools to anchor our faith to biblical truth no matter the conditions around us.

One of my ongoing interests is about helping the average churchgoer to be better aware of scripture. A minister carries a responsibility to teach how to understand the Bible beyond the usual sermon. My doctoral work began in this area of study. It is a project unfinished as far as academics go. Luckily I can continue the effort within my church walls. One of my core ideas is that what we do not know about the Bible can affect us as much as what we do know. The history of scripture is fascinating to me. I realize this makes me a bit odd but is still true. What you discover is how God's word stands all critical questions from the outside. Scripture may not always be simple to study but there is no doubt of its veracity.

We are going to use our Sunday night service as a vehicle to communicate guidelines for interpreting the Bible. My hope is to help anyone who wants to be more secure in reading scripture with a view to understand it better. Some of our discussion may seem more academic on occasion but it will be important. Some of it may seem technical but it will have a purpose. One ultimate goal is for us to move past the surface in our maturity. Jesus would run into trouble with religious people who could quote the scripture but did not know how to apply it. My usual statement is that the Bible could use a little less thumping and a lot more applying. This is true in my life for sure. Maybe it is true for yours.

Bro. Trey