Have You Not Read?

Introduction

It’s kind of a cruel coincidence that gospel meeting season corresponds with allergy season. And so, if my count is right, this is the third time I have preached in my time at Decker Prairie, and two of those times I have brought up with me a container of my faithful throat coat tea to help me through the experience. So, yeah, if you’ll indulge me for a minute there, the voice should hold up. It just won’t sound particularly pretty. In that sense, I’m like the Apostle Paul. The personal, the personal appearance of the man, he said was not necessarily impressive, but the message, the message was better. And I hope that’s the case today. So if you’re listening to this on recording at some later time, it is not the fault of your sound system.

It’s all me.

Charles preaches just a little bit to the east of us in New Caney. Sherry and I met him roughly four years ago when we were first house hunting over in this area. we looked at some properties over on that side of I-45, and we worshiped with the congregation in New Caney one Sunday morning. so I met Charles for the first time there, but we have some connections. Charles’s first work as a preacher was at a congregation in Knoxville. It is not the congregation where Sherry and I were members when we were there, and I didn’t meet Charles in Knoxville. He moved there in 1998, two years after we left. but I know some folks who were at the congregation where he began his work as a preacher.

And he left there in 2002 to begin at New Caney on January 1st of 2003. Now, the congregation that he preached for while he was up there, Sherry and I over the years have visited with them several times. They’re located in North Knoxville, close to where the relatives are. It’s the most convenient place from where we usually are when we’re in Knoxville over the holidays. But since the time that Charles was there, some things have happened in that congregation so that they are not the place that they once were. They have gone in some directions that are not consistent with the New Testament. And that has happened slowly over time. But the last time that we were there is probably the last time that we will ever be there.

And their Wednesday night Bible study was dedicated to that book. And so during the class period that we were there, the class teacher cited no scriptures as far as I can recall during the period. The entire class was devoted to a series of what do you think kinds of questions. Well, a neat thing about what do you think kinds of questions is that there are no wrong answers to those, right? People think all manner of things. So there weren’t any wrong answers except there was one. There was one wrong answer. So at one point about halfway through the class, they were discussing some proposals that this author had made concerning the organization of the church, and it just it just wasn’t right. So visitor that I was, I waited a couple minutes and finally I said, but none of this is the same as the New Testament pattern for the church.

That, as it turns out, was the wrong answer. That was not a valid answer to the what do you think question that was that was on the screen at the time. So we had a conversation about whether that really mattered and about the idea of patternism, which they were not at all in favor of, that it was kind of stodgy and old-fashioned and held the church back from what it could be. And what they said, that the guy who was the preacher there came right out and said that there really wasn’t enough information in the New Testament to define the organization of the church and to establish a pattern for it, even if you wanted to. Those were his words. You couldn’t do it even if you wanted to.

And that last phrase is really telling, because he doesn’t really want to. Whether there’s a pattern in there or not, he doesn’t really want to. And so the church has gone in that direction. So Jerry and I and our family will find something else to do and a different place to go the next time we’re up there. That has happened over time, but that’s where they are now. So this morning, partly as a result of that experience, I want to spend some time looking at a phrase that Jesus used several times in answer to questions that came to him during his ministry. And the question, the question is very simple. He says, Have you not read? We’re going to take that phrase and talk for a little bit about Jesus’ expectations regarding how we view the written word and how we view the revelation of the will of God.

1. Have You Not Read? Examples in Matthew

As we look at that phrase, there are some things that we can understand about Jesus’ expectations. And let’s start just by looking at some examples. They are throughout the Gospels, with one exception.

And now all the references will be close together. So the first one we’re going to look at is in Matthew 12, verses 1 through 5. At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. And then he said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry? He and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests.

Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? Now I don’t want to talk about the circumstances of this particular event and the things relating to the priests in the temple or David and the showbread. That’s a subject for a different time. My point for today is simply that twice in this short answer, Jesus used the phrase, have you not read? Are you not familiar with these circumstances? Jesus said. That was the starting point for his answer was looking at things that they should already know about the will of God. There’s the second example in Matthew is in chapter 19, verses 3 through 5, and you’ll probably recognize Matthew 19 as the famous discussion that Jesus had about marriage.

So, Matthew 19, verse 3, the Pharisees came to him testing him and saying to him, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? And he answered and said to them, Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. We’ve got a question here about marriage, Jesus. And there’s a contemporary discussion about marriage and the nature of divorce and all that. How are you going to answer that, Jesus? And the first thing that he says is, Have you not read? That’s the beginning point of his answer.

Let’s go back and see what God’s design was from the beginning. A little bit over in chapter 21, there are two examples. Chapter 21, beginning in verse 15, the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that Jesus did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the son of David, they were indignant and said to him, Do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, Yes. Have you never read, out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise? A little bit later in the chapter, beginning in verse 40, Jesus has told a parable of some vine dressers, people who were supposed to take care of a vineyard while the owner was away. And the point of that parable was that they were poor stewards of the vineyard and mistreated the servants of the master when he sent them back, eventually killing his son.

And it culminates, Jesus finishes the parable with a question When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to these vine dressers? They say to him, He will destroy those wicked men miserably and lease his vineyard to other vine dressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons, which was the correct answer. And Jesus said to them, Did you never read in the scriptures?

This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes, because the parable ultimately was about Jesus’ mission as the son of the vineyard owner and their treatment of him. And when they figure out in the parable what’s going to happen to the vine dressers, Jesus says, Have you never read this business about the rejection of the cornerstone? One more example in Matthew 22, beginning in verse 29, people had come to Jesus with a question about the resurrection. And they couched the question about the resurrection as a question about a woman who had married seven husbands over the course of her lifetime. Matthew 22, beginning in verse 29, Jesus answered and said to them, You are mistaken, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God, for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.

2. The Answers Are in the Reading

But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at his teaching. So, five examples in the book of Matthew, where Jesus answers queries, answers questions with the phrase, Have you not read? or some minor variation on that kind of wording. So what kinds of things do we learn from the fact that Jesus used that phrase so often as a teaching tool? Well, the first obvious answer to that is that Jesus expected that the answers would be in the reading. Have you not read?

Jesus said, If you want the answer to this question, go back and read. You already have it. If you remember the story of Jehoshaphat in 1 Kings chapter 22, Ahab has proposed an alliance to Jehoshaphat. He says, Hey, the two of us, so Ahab was king of Israel, Jehoshaphat the king of Judah. Ahab says, hey, let’s the two of us get together, put our armies together, and go retake Ramath Gilead. It’s one of my cities, but the Syrians have it, and I don’t like it. Maybe we should go take that city back. And Jehoshaphat didn’t ask the obvious question, which is what’s in it for me, but he did ask some questions along the way. Ahab had a room full of prophets out here prophesying. It didn’t take him long to replace the 450 prophets of Baal that Elijah had killed a couple of chapters before.

But he had a room full of people saying, Ahab, go and do everything that’s in your heart. Everything is fine. And Jehoshaphat looked at that room full of supposed prophets, and he said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord beside that we may inquire of him? Jehoshaphat’s first instinct was exactly right. He said, Before we talk about going and doing this thing, we need to figure out what God said about it first. Now, okay, so they brought a prophet of the Lord, and Jehoshaphat didn’t answer, and the story didn’t go well from there. But his first instinct was the right one to say, rather than all these guys out here telling us to go do whatever we want to do, let’s see what God had to say about it.

Because the answers were there. If we want to talk about the answers being in the reading, there are several passages that we could talk about, a number of which are familiar to you. The most familiar probably is 2 Timothy, the third chapter, verses 16 and 17, where Paul tells Timothy that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. It’s profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect or complete, truly furnished under every good work. You want to know about instruction and righteousness? Do you want to be equipped for every good work? Go to the scripture, Paul says. All of the answers are there. Maybe a less familiar passage is in Isaiah the eighth chapter. Isaiah 8 and verse 19.

Tony’s read this passage a time or two, but it’s still less familiar than 2 Timothy 3. And when they say to you, seek those who are mediums and wizards who whisper and mutter, should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony. If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. In Tony’s sermon last Sunday morning, which was entitled First Impulse, his point was that when events happen to us in our lives, our first reaction, our first impulse, in responding to those events, should be to look to God, to consider how they fit into our walk with God. And that’s absolutely true.

But a part of that looking to God involves looking to his word as well. When an inquiry arises, when there is a question about what should we do? How should we behave? How does God want us to react in this situation? The place that we go is by asking what God has said. We begin by looking at the revelation that we have. So, got questions about the resurrection? They did in the New Testament. Jesus said the answer’s in the reading. Got questions about marriage or what’s acceptable? Praise. You got questions about church organization, since I started with some discussion of that. You got questions about any of these things? The answers are in the reading. But it’s not just questions that came up in the first century where we can find answers in the scriptures.

Any hot topics of the day where we have to decide what should our response be? How should we interact with the world with regard to this particular subject? The answers there are in the reading as well. So let’s talk about an example. What is the topic that has dominated the news cycle that has been the lead story when you get up in the morning and turn on the news or open up your browser and look at the news? For the last five, six months, what is the lead story almost every day? It has to do with what our country’s attitude should be toward poor people who are looking for the same economic opportunities that we have in this country. One way or another, most of the major news stories, the lead stories, have had to do with that topic.

And it’s been a hot topic of discussion among a lot of people. And people respond based on different affiliations that they have. America first, some people say, I’m going to answer as an American. Some people answer as members of a political party. Some people answer because they have a favorite newsy entertainment host that they’ve heard say a thing and it sounds cool and they’re going to repeat that.

My identity as a Christian should come first. And so if I look at the reading, does the New Testament say anything to me about my treatment of people who are poor and looking for opportunity? It does. I’m going to keep the streak alive, the streak of referring to the daily Bible readings from the sermons. So not this coming week, but the week after, you will be reading a section of Proverbs 11 that includes verses 24 through 26. There is one who scatters and yet increases more. There is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself, but the people will curse him who withholds grain. The point of the Proverb writer is that if you look at the things that you have, and your first instinct is to guard them and protect them and not share them with anybody.

He says, that’s the wrong instinct. It is counterintuitive, he says, but the right instinct is to share the things that you have. He who waters will be watered himself, but the people will curse him who withholds grain. Or you could look, you could read a little farther into Ezekiel 16. You can see God’s description of a city that was abundant with food and idleness, he said, but they withheld their hand from the poor and needy. And I don’t want to spoil the story for you, but God wasn’t happy with that city. They ended up a smoking ruin on the ground. Partly because of that. Not only that, but when God talks about their sin, that’s what he says. They had plenty of food, they were idle, they didn’t use what they had to help others.

Or you might say, have I not read, have I not read about what Abraham and Isaac and Naomi and Elimelech did when there was famine in the land of Israel, that they went elsewhere for opportunity as well. My point is this. When you read the Bible, even though this issue that has dominated our news cycle for months is, well, it’s not a new issue. But it’s its hotness as a topic is relatively recent. But when we read that and we respond as Christians first, we say, I have read something about this issue. And whatever the political solution is for that problem, my response as a Christian needs to be driven by what the Bible says about my own relative abundance and the relative poverty of others.

3. The Revelation of God Settles the Question

So the Bible does address questions that shed light on current events, and our first impulse should be to address them as Christians. It’s going to be messy sometimes. It’ll be inconvenient. But part of the point of last Sunday evening’s sermon about that other manger part too, is that doing the right thing sometimes makes a mess. Sometimes that’s necessary in order to do the things that God wants us to do. Well, what else do we learn from Jesus’ question? Have you not read? We also read that the revelation of God settles the question. Once the will of God had been cited, there was no arguing with it. There was no negotiating. There are some people who will read a passage and they’ll say, Well, I know it says that, but I’ve heard that a few times.

I know it says that, but was this part of Jesus’ discussion? It was not. Some people will read and say, Well, it seems to me that Jesus never began one of these answers with the words, it seems to me. He said, Have you not read? That’s not how people want to think about questions. We want to think about other things. We want to argue sometimes with God’s revelation if we don’t like it very much, but these are not the things that Jesus did. If you look at the questions that we read from Matthew 15, when Jesus cited the fact that God said, I’m the God of the living, that kind of settled the question of whether Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were still alive or not. Nobody argued about it.

Nobody said, Well, maybe God meant something else. Once the revelation was cited, that was the end of it. Did God say in Genesis that he joined man and woman in marriage? Well, if he did, Jesus said, it’s pretty obvious it’s not man’s place to separate the thing that God has put together. And what he felt like arguing with that. Well, maybe we no, none of that. It says, not it says that, but the revelation settled the question. There’s another phrase, it is written, that appears often in the New Testament. And this phrase sometimes addresses questions of prophecy. Sometimes when you find the phrase, it is written, you’ll find a writer or a speaker who’s referring to prophecy of something that came beforehand, and just the assumption that because that was written, it’s going to happen.

That’s just the conclusion is God wrote it, so it’s going to be. But the phrase it is written also addressed questions of right and wrong. You’ll recognize that phrase from Matthew the fourth chapter in the account of Jesus’ temptations. When we talk about that passage, we always talk about the fact that when the temptation came along, Jesus’ first response was always, It is written. And once Jesus cited what was written. There wasn’t any negotiation or arguing about the outcome. The answer was, we’re going to do it the way that God says. There’s the phrase, it is written, and variants on that phrase appear roughly 60 times throughout the New Testament. It’s a lot more frequently used even than have you not read. There’s a similar phrase, so we’ve we’ve read mostly from Matthew, but I want to cite one similar phrase from Luke chapter 10, verses 25 through 28.

Again, similar phrase, same general meeting, meaning. Beginning in verse 25, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said to him, What is written in the law? What is your reading of it? So he answered and said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, You have answered rightly.

When the question comes, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus didn’t ask, What would Moses do? Jesus asked, What did Moses say? Because what would Moses do requires some subjective thinking on our part, and we might decide that Moses was a pretty rational guy, so he would probably agree with me. So whatever it is that I think, Moses probably would do the same thing. That’s how these things go when we ask what would Moses do, or what would Jesus do, or anything. We usually come to the conclusion that Jesus would probably do the same thing that I would do. You know, that’s not always true. Instead, Jesus asked, What did Moses say? And he didn’t just ask what did he say. He said, What is reading, what is written in the law?

4. Assuming That We Know It Already

What is your reading of it? Jesus expected that this guy knew the law and understood the answer. And when the man showed his understanding and said, Love the Lord your God with everything you have and your neighbor is yourself, there wasn’t any discussion after that. You have answered rightly. This do, and you will live. That leads us to the next kind of obvious point is that when Jesus asks, What is written in the law, what is your reading of it, or when he asks, have you not read, he’s kind of assuming that we know it already.

Y’all go read and come back. There was none of that. When Jesus says, Have you not read, there was an expectation that his audience would be familiar with the scripture already. And you know, generally it were. To the credit of this guy in Luke 10, when Jesus says, What is your reading of it? He had an answer. He could cite, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and your neighbor is yourself. Good for him. Would we be ready for that question? If Jesus came to us and asked the question, what is written in the gospel? What is your reading of it? Would we be prepared to answer that? Boy, I hope so. If our view of, if our view of preaching and if our view of Bible classes is these are things that we come to and we just kind of sit and listen, well, it’s good to be there.

It’s good to sit and listen. But that’s that’s not enough to get you to the point where if somebody asks you, what does the Bible say about that? That you’ll have an answer in your mind. Our interest in the Bible needs to be sufficient that we spend time studying it for ourselves, that we incorporate it into our being, so that we know what the Bible says on these subjects. Not because we heard some guy say it one time, but because we have thought about these things for ourselves. If Jesus asked me, Aaron, have you not read? And I had to say, well, I’m not really familiar with that one. Jesus, that’d be kind of embarrassing. Good for the guy in Luke 10 that he had an answer.

5. Make It According to the Pattern

So what about this patternism question? I mentioned already that there are some people I know who are not fond of that word. They have disavowed that idea as something stodgy and old fashioned and it keeps the church from being what it ought to be. Well, they are not the first people that I’ve heard espouse that point of view. I heard, well, I was going to say I heard, but I don’t I don’t think I heard. I believe I read. Read an article from a guy who was talking about, he was talking about the restoration movement in the 19th century. And the in the restoration movement, there were a lot of people who said, you know, we’ve inherited a lot of denominational trappings from our forebears. We need to discard all of those and just go back to the Bible, and we’re just going to do what the Bible says.

That’s the basis of the restoration movement. He said, you know, that’s an interesting idea, but he says, when I read the New Testament, I don’t really see any, what he called it, a mandate for a restoration mindset. What he meant by that was when I read the New Testament, I don’t get the idea from that I need to go back and do everything the way people in the first century did. So I’m going to spend just a minute talking about the restoration mindset or about patternism or whatever you want to call it, the idea that we should get ideas about what we do from the way that they were done in the beginning. So I would begin by saying, Have you not read what God said to Moses about the tabernacle?

Okay, that’s Old Testament. Hold that thought. We’ll get out of the Old Testament in a minute. But when God was giving instructions to Moses about the tabernacle and the things that were to go in the tabernacle, he said, See to it, see to it that you make them according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain. That’s Exodus chapter 25 and verse 40. Now, we might sort of pass over that, but that phrase, make it according to the pattern, it’s not a throwaway phrase. And the reason I know it’s not a throwaway phrase is that it’s quoted twice more in the New Testament of all the things that you could quote, and there are a lot of quotations in the New Testament from the Old Testament.

But that phrase shows up twice more in different contexts. In Acts chapter 7 and verse 44, which you’ll recognize as Stephen’s speech. Stephen says, Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness as he appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen. And then Hebrews chapter 8, Jared was directing this to Hebrews just a few minutes ago. In Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 5, we’re picking up kind of in the middle of a thought, but the writer says, as Moses was divinely instructed, as he was about to make the tabernacle, for he said, See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain. That phrase is important enough in Exodus 25 that it’s brought over into the New Testament more than one time.

But that’s, well, and so we can say there is some precedent for thinking that God expects us to look at what he said and use that as a pattern for ourselves. But I want to look at a couple of more New Testament verses that suggest the same thing. The first one is Philippians, the fourth chapter and verse 9.

Now, when we get to Philippians 4, Paul has already told the Philippians in chapter 3 and verse 17 to join in following my example. But in Philippians chapter 4 and verse 9, Paul says to him that the things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. Paul does not tell the Philippians. We got off to a good start, but in light of current circumstances, I want you to reimagine what the church might be in your life. None of that. What Paul says is, you remember that stuff we talked about when I was there? Keep doing that. The things that you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do.

Paul actually uses the word pattern here. Well, he was writing in Greek, but okay, in English, it’s pattern. Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me in faith and love, which are in Christ Jesus. Paul says that the things that I said, you need to conform yourself to that. That’s what a pattern is, right? It’s something that you conform to. Sometimes you’ll see the word form in the New Testament used in that sense, like a form that you make for concrete, where you lay the boards out around the edge, and you’re going to pour the concrete, and the concrete’s going to take the shape of the form. That’s when the New Testament uses the word form, that’s the kind of word that it’s talking about.

But here the word is rendered as pattern. Hold fast the pattern of sound words. But of these three, the most meaningful one to me is in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 23. Now you’ll recognize 1 Corinthians 11 as, well, at least the second half of that chapter, as a discussion about the Lord’s Supper. Because the church at Corinth had reimagined the Lord’s Supper into something that suited them a little better, right? It was not as it had been in the beginning. It was something that they liked better. And Paul’s point in the second half of 1 Corinthians 11 is y’all need to stop doing that. And just to read verse 23, not to read the whole context, as Paul begins to instruct them what to do, he says, I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night on which he was betrayed, took bread.

And he goes on to describe the things that happened on that night when Jesus showed the disciples what they were supposed to do in remembrance of him. Now think about what Paul says for a minute there. He says, Church in Corinth, you have taken the Lord’s Supper and you’ve turned it into something different. What I want you to do, here’s your restoration mindset if you’re looking for it, what I want you to do is go back and do what they did at the beginning. I received from the Lord what I delivered unto you, that this is how he wants the Lord’s Supper to happen. So, am I a patternist? Absolutely I am. The only way I know whether something pleases God is that he’s told me something about it.

Conclusion

And so it is my job when any issue arises in the church or elsewhere, it is my job to ask what is written in the law. What did God say to me on this subject? There is one pattern that is important above all others, and that’s the pattern that describes how we are saved from our sin. What I want to say to you on that subject is if you want to be saved from sin and in a relationship with God that is what you want it to be, you need to do exactly the same thing that the people in the first century did. You can read the pattern for how that happens. And that pattern is that we believe the gospel, that we turn from sin, and that we submit in obedience to that gospel message, not just today, but for the rest of our lives.

If you’re not a Christian this morning, have you not read what God expects? If you have and you’d like to render obedience, then we invite you to do so as we stand and sing now.