Teaching by Examples

Many believers are taught to take particular verses from the Bible to ‘prove’ their stand on particular spiritual issues.  They sometimes tend to pick the verses that uphold their view and ignore the ones that don’t!  However, that’s not the way God teaches.  He teaches by giving us examples.  The Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible…Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) contain God’s laws for humankind.  God’s law is given to show us what sin is, as all sin is disobedience of God’s Law.  This is consistent all through the Bible. All through the other books in the Tanak (Old Testament) we see example after example of people who either obeyed God or didn’t.  And we see the effect of obedience or disobedience.  We’re supposed to learn from the teaching these examples present.

Romans 15:4 says that everything that was written in the Scriptures (and that word as used in the ‘New Testament’ always meant what we today refer to as the ‘Old Testament’) was written for our instruction, that through endurance in obedience, and its encouragement we might have hope.   1 Corinthians 10:6 tells us that God gave us many examples in the Scriptures, that we might learn how to live, and not to do the things that led those others into sin.

So God teaches by giving us examples.  He’s given us His laws, and expects us to obey them.  We know that sometimes life is hard.  It’s harder when we also fight against God by disobeying His good ways.  We know we have hope, even when life is hard, when we are careful to walk in the good way of obedience to God.