Should we seek book, chapter, and verse to determine what to believe and practice?
After being baptized, Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The record speaks of three temptations that came at the end of those forty days and forty nights. In each of those temptations, the devil tempted Jesus to perform some action that was contrary to truth. Jesus met each temptation with the truth – what is written in the Scriptures (Matt. 4:3-10). Those Scriptures were the answer to overcoming each of those temptations. The Scriptures for us are organized into book, chapter, and verse. We should follow Jesus’ example and go to book, chapter, and verse in order to overcome temptation and to walk according to truth. Book, chapter, and verse have everything to do with our daily living as a child of God.
When the apostles taught a Jewish audience on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, they brought forward evidence from Old Testament Scripture to help convince that audience that God had made Jesus whom they crucified both Lord and Christ. That’s the equivalent of us calling attention to book, chapter, and verse today in our preaching.
The writings of the apostles – which for us are organized not only by book, but also by chapter and verse – those writings they expected saints to stand fast in and cling to: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle” (2 Thess. 2:15). So again, we are directed to book, chapter, and verse for belief and practice.
Timothy was instructed to “preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2), which is the gospel, the apostles’ doctrine. Even though they were not written with numbered chapters and verses, both letters to Timothy contain much doctrine to be taught to the church In Ephesus. Some of that teaching was about how Christians should live, and other teaching was about how things ought to be in the church collectively, such as the care of widows indeed. If preachers and teachers today would be true to their charge, they will use book, chapter, and verse to teach what the apostle taught Timothy, which includes not only how we ought to live individually before God but how things should be ordered in the church.
“If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God” (1 Pet. 4:11a). The oracles are the utterances of God, the things which He has spoken, and those things which are for us are recorded in Holy Scriptures in book, chapter, and verse. Here’s a direct command to speak from book, chapter, and verse.
“And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Col. 3:17). Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, which means by His authority, which means according to His law (Matt. 7:21-23). Go to His law, then, which is organized in book, chapter, and verse for us.
So shall we seek book, chapter, and verse for what to believe and practice? The Bible answer is yes. When men ridicule the idea of book, chapter, and verse as legalistic, they ridicule what Jesus and the apostles taught us by both precept and by example to do – to go to book, chapter, and verse for what to believe and practice both individually and collectively in the church. I’m not ashamed of book, chapter, and verse!
-Larry Jones