WHY THE FAMINE?

 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the Lord" So declared Amos the prophet. 

There are those who are highly influential in the evangelical world--they write books that pastors read as if they were reading the tablets handed down to Israel from Mt. Sinai. These luminaries hold conferences which pastors attend to get the latest methods of how to put warm bodies in the pews and they pay money to sit and listen and get the literature. When these Christian celebrities pontificate, it's taken as having come down ex cathedra and hence, there's no Scriptural examination. 

A case in point is a statement that has recently had wide circulation by the pontification, "Guys that preach verse-by-verse through books of the Bible– that is just cheating. It’s cheating because that would be easy, first of all. That isn’t how you grow people. No one in the Scripture modeled that. There’s not one example of that." He also said that verse-by-verse teaching was the "lazy way." (Pastor Andy Stanley)

That statement is interesting coming from someone who has never done it.

One author in response, wrote, tongue firmly planted in cheek, "It’s cheating. Do you hear that, you exegetes? You . . . pastors, sweating away in your study all week and to finish up before Sunday…you expositors checking the Greek and Hebrew and grasping the etymology of key words and phrases, putting it within Scriptural context, cross-referencing all the important verses, studying the commentaries of all the great scholars to unwrap the oracles of God verse by verse at a time?"

Let's play Bereans and examine the statement. Let's start in the Old Testament book of Proverbs in which we read, "Every word of God is pure." The actual word is "refined." The result is that, even down to every single word, the Bible is pure. The author didn't say that only part of the Bible is pure; all of it. 

Let's move to Isaiah 28:10: "“To whom would He teach knowledge,
And to whom would He interpret the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just taken from the breast?
¹⁰ For He says^]Order on order, order on order,
Line on line, line on line,
A little here, a little there.’

The context of those words is instructive--the Jewish leaders are mocking Isaiah's method of teaching them, line upon line. They're insulting him. (Sounds familiar.)

Go with me to Nehemiah 8:1-8: "And all the people gathered as one person at the public square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel. ² Then Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. ³ And he read from it before the public square which was in front of the Water Gate, from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand; and all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. ⁴ Ezra the scribe stood at a wooden podium which they had made for the purpose. . . .  

⁵ Then Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. ⁶ Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, “Amen, Amen!” with the raising of their hands; then they knelt down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. ⁷ Also [certain people] explained the Law to the people while the people remained in their place. ⁸ They read from the book, from the Law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading."

 We move to the New Testament in Matthew 4:4: "But He (Jesus) answered and said, 'It is written: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.’” 

If that's not enough, how about Matthew 5:18?--"For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished!" 

We move to Paul's statement in Acts 20:26-27: " Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am ^]innocent of the blood of all people. ²⁷ For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God."

When one of Paul's, James', Peter's, or John's epistles arrived to a church, would we not think that it was read to the assembled line after line, not reading a part of it, then rolling 4 feet of the scroll to read a later part? Doing that, would mean of loss of the context for the footage read a moment ago.  

In fact, we have the official record of what Paul commanded the early house churches to do with an epistle's arrival: "When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea." (Col. 4:16) Here's another command: "I put you under oath by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters." How would the reader have read it? Line upon line, start to finish. We see the same thing in Revelation 1:3 with John's instructions to the ones who would read Revelation to the seven churches: "Blessed is the one who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it; for the time is near."

I would submit to you that there is a famine of the Word today because, although we have a surfeit of preachers, we have a dearth of teachers who instruct line upon line.