Why Study Gods Word?

Why study God's Word....

First, it's incumbent on the followers of Jesus to "study to show ourselves approved, rightly dividing the truth."

2Ti 2:15 WEB Give diligence to present yourself approved by God, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed, properly handling the Word of Truth.

Then, in Matthew 13:52, Jesus said to the disciples,

Mat 13:52 WEB He said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been made a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a householder, who brings out of his treasure new and old things.”

We then read in Hosea 4:6



Hos 4:6 WEB My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.

This is perhaps the most important part of why we should read God's Word on a daily basis.

On the other OP regarding wearing the full armor of God, this is the reason.

We're walking through a life we've never experienced before. We need the power and truth of God to guide, and direct us, as though we are walking through a mine field.

This is also why we need to learn to trust God with all our hearts and not to lean on our own understanding.

Pro 3:6-8 WEB 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. 7 Don’t be wise in your own eyes. Fear Yahweh, and depart from evil. 8 It will be health to your body, and nourishment to your bones.


It's important to learn God's Word so we can walk through this life in as godly a manner as possible.

Where is real truth?

The writer Franz Kafka gave a great illustration about education. He pictured a bombed-out city where all that was left was rubble. Everywhere there were people bleeding and dying; there was smoke and smoldering fire—just total rubble. But in the middle of the city was an ivory tower piercing the sky, pristine white, untouched by any bombs. Then, there was this solitary figure winding his way through the rubble. When he got to the tall white building, he walked in and went up to the top story. He came to a dark hall, and at the end of it was a little light. He walked in the darkness until he came to the light, he turned, and walked into a bathroom. inside sat a man with a fishing pole, fishing in the bathtub. The solitary stranger said to him, “Hey, what are you doing?”

The man said, “I’m fishing.”

The stranger looked in the bathtub and said, “There’s no fish in the bathtub and there’s no water.”

The man said, “I know,” and kept on fishing.

Kafka said, “That is higher education.”

You see, man has lost the truth.

It’s fantastic to realize, and sometimes I think we forget it, that every time we pick up the Bible, we pick up the truth. What a tremendous legacy we have. But we can’t take it for granted, and we certainly can’t let it just sit around. So the first reason that I believe we need to study the Word of God is because it is the source of truth. Jesus said, “If ye continue in my word … ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31b).

From How to Study the Bible by JOHN MACARTHUR

Does that mean anything in scripture that isn't a quote of God's or Jesus' own words is not God's word?

I would reply to that with not everything in scripture has a universal application and some things are specific, and for a specific time and place. 

Why should we study the Bible? God commands us to study His Word:

2 Tim. 2:15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Let’s look at some of the word pictures that describe the Bible in the Bible. The Bible is compared to gold and honey. “The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” Ps. 19:9–10

Ps. 119:103 How sweet are thy words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Jer. 23:29 The Lord said to the prophet Jeremiah, “Is not My word like fire … and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?”

Ps. 119:105 The Bible is like a lamp: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path”

Ps. 119: 130 The unfolding of thy words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.

2 Pet. 1:19 And we have the prophetic word made more sure. You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

The Bible is like food for the inner person. It is milk.

1 Cor. 3:1–3 But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving like ordinary men?

Heb. 5:11–13 About this we have much to say which is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again the first principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food; 13 for every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child.

1 Pet. 2:2 Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation

Solid Food

Heb. 5:11–14 About this we have much to say which is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again the first principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food; 13 for every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil

Matt. 4:4 But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”


Deut. 8:3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.

Honey

Ps. 19:9–10 the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the ordinances of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.



God’s Word is also a mirror

James 1:23–25 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing.

In His parable of the sower, Jesus compared the Word to seed

Matt. 13:1–9 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat there; and the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, 6 but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears, let him hear.”

Matt. 13:18–33 Hear then the parable of the sower. 19 When any one hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart; this is what was sown along the path. 20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. 22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the delight in riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. 23 As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it; he indeed bears fruit, and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”


24 Another parable he put before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the servants of the householder came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then has it weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”


31 Another parable he put before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

33 He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

Paul wrote about the cleansing power of the “water by the word”

Eph. 5:25–26 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

A metaphor Jesus also used in the upper room

John 13:10 Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not every one of you.”

John 15:3  You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you.

Keep in mind that water for washing represents the Word of God, while water for drinking represents the Spirit of God

John 7:37–38 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. 38 He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’

The Word of God is also a sword

Eph. 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Heb. 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

In fact, when the people heard Peter preach at Pentecost, they were “cut to the heart” by the Word of God

Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?”