Why Study The Bible

A lesson from the apostle Peter and my son Ryan:

From Peter:
It is a cold night in Gethsemane. The Jewish leadership, taking Jesus to be an opponent they would not want to take on physically, show up with a contingent of Jewish and Roman soldiers to arrest Jesus. They were frightened of the power of this man. In comes Peter, leading with his swinging sword, Malchus barely avoids getting his head lopped off as he ducks to avoid the sword, but his ear gets clipped. What was Peter thinking? I think he still had the words of Jesus’ prediction that he would deny him – Peter loved Jesus, he loved Jesus more than the world. Peter loved him more than his own life as this was suicide to attack a group of men protected by Roman soldiers. Roman soldiers could do one thing well - kill. Peter probably felt his critical moment of testing had arrived, and with great bravery, courage and boldness he was showing, with his sword, there was going to be no denying his Rabbi. He did not anticipate that his real test would not be from soldiers, but from a lowly servant girl.
Jesus, in complete control of the situation, miraculously stops the violence, saves his disciples’ lives by his healing touch; in what would take a surgeon, eight hours – the creator of all life reattaches the ear of Malchus. Jesus is in control of this situation – Peter did not realize this. Peter did not realize the sovereignty of Jesus and has his thinking corrected as Jesus informs him he could call 72,000 angles.
Peter’s heart was in the right place – he will do anything for his Lord, but his understanding was deficient. Peter needed to come to a head knowledge that Jesus was in control.
When the heart and mind are separated there will be problems.

From Ryan:
Like Peter, my son Ryan has a great heart; Ryan, also like Peter, lacks knowledge. After church not too long ago, before he turned three, I looked over and Ryan was in the middle of a freshly planted flower bed picking flowers. I excused myself mid-conversation and removed my son from the flower bed. He had three flowers in his hand and multiples of three are left crushed in the bed. As I pulled him from the flowers and questioned him with not the nicest of tone (although I am at church with people watching so I am on my best behavior), Ryan answered with words and with eyes that gave away his heart – “they are for mommy”. His heart was perfect, but his understanding was deficient. God wants our hearts, and like Peter we must give our hearts to him, but our understanding, our knowledge of Jesus must be there also or we can do some very foolish things. Knowledge increases our faith. “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Romans 10:17