Biblical Experts Wanted

The story of Larry Burkett inspires me. I can't find the more detailed version of the story right now, but as I remember it, he was motivated to search the Bible for every reference to money (I don't remember what got him started). By the time he had studied hundreds of direct and indirect references to money in Scripture, he had become something of an expert in what God had to say on the subject. Of course he went on to become an author and radio personality, among other things, but it all started very simple--he studied what the Bible had to say.

I think there's room for lots of "experts" in our churches. In a sense, every time I prepare to preach on a topic rather than a single passage, and I look up all the verses about that topic, I am becoming an expert on the topic, and that's why I'm qualified to speak on the matter in a sermon. But the church is not supposed to be about one or two staff pastors and a handful of Sunday School teachers doing all the teaching in the church--we all are called to build up the body in some way, and I suspect if more of us would do more learning, then more of us could do more teaching.

Ok, so maybe you don't want to start off by jumping into the deep end like Burkett did. To become an expert on "love" in the Bible, you'd have to study over 500 verses with the word "love," about 60 with "loves," over 100 with "loved," and a few with "loving." But there are plenty of more bite-sized topics to chew on. Here are some examples; maybe you can try one of these to start with.

about 60 verses with the word "disease"
about 55 verses with the word "ear"
about 12 verses with the word "hell"
about 35 verses with the word "lament"
about 40 verses with the word "naked"
about 60 verses with the word "pride"
about 95 verses with the word "rich"
about 80 verses with the word "tongue"
about 20 verses with the word "value"
about 75 verses with the word "witness"

This was just a random selection of searches in the Holman Christian Standard Bible. How about it? Are you ready to become a Biblical Expert?

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