Lesson 9: The Heart of Interpretation
The Ultimate Goal
John Piper made this sentence famous: “Missions exists because worship doesn't.”¹ Missionaries share the gospel with the unreached not merely to rescue them from earthly unhappiness, or even from eternity in Hell, but ultimately to create new worshippers of God in Christ. God seeks people to worship him (John 4:23), and he has put that same desire in our hearts, namely that more and more people would glorify our Father. Again: “Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”
Likewise, biblical interpretation exists because worship doesn’t.
In your own heart
We all know the coldness of our heart some mornings and the bleariness of our spiritual eyes some evenings. As we seek to understand the Bible rightly, our cry should be, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Ps 119:18). “Lord, move me to wonder, to joy, to worship. Transform me into the image of Christ, ‘from one degree of glory to another’ (2 Cor 3:18), who loved you above all and lived for the good of others (Rom 15:2-3).”
We interpret the Bible so that we will worship.
In the hearts of those you influence
Every Christian should be discipling others, whether it is a mother helping her five-year-old understand a verse he’s memorizing, a father answering his teenaged daughter’s question about a passage, a Sunday School teacher telling her fifth-grade students about Jesus, a volunteer preaching the gospel at a nursing home, or two friends having coffee and reading the Bible together. Our goal can be summarized like this: we aim to stir up worship. We want to help those whom we teach to love God and their neighbor more, to help them live a life of worship.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 12:1
We interpret the Bible so that others will worship.