Jesus did not once say:
1. Go to church.
2. Have a Bible study.
3. Go learn more about me.
4. Go to Sunday School.
5. He didnt give abstract lectures on morals or theology.
But the NT lists some forty references where Jesus says, Follow me. Jesus called people to himself from their sin. He met them in their everyday, run-of-the-mill, mundane lives. And simply said, Follow me.
(Matthew 11:28-30) “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
The Bible scholars probably would have been willing to have a Bible study with Jesus as they were intense in their study of the Scriptures. I dont believe it is a stretch to say that they loved to study the Bible. Look at what Albert Barnes says about the word search in John 5.39 in his Barnes Notes.
Search the scriptures – The word translated search here means to search diligently or search anxiously. It was applied to miners, who search for precious metals – who look anxiously for the bed of the ore with an intensity or anxiety proportionate to their sense of the value of the metal. It is applied by Homer to a lioness robbed of her whelps, and who searches the plain to trace out the footsteps of the man who has robbed her. It is also applied by him to dogs tracing their game by searching them out by the scent of the foot. It means a diligent, faithful, anxious investigation.
(John 5:39 NKJV) “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. (John 5:40 NKJV) “But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”
They intensely studied the Scriptures and intensely refused to come to the Savior.
Luke 9:23-25 ESV And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. (24) For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. (25) For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
Should we go to church, SS, study the Bible, etc.? Yes. But should those things be our goal? No. To many in the professing Church today, the profit is in the stuff of religion and not in devotion to Christ. We have exalted Bible study to an end and not the means to an end. We are to live by the words of God, not the after glow of our abstract exercises in spirituality.
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