Young Men, Study Your Bible

Titus 2:6-8  Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded … in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity.  

Young men, you need to read and study your Bible. There is much that can and does occupy your time and your mind, but it is vitally important for you to know doctrine and be sound in the faith. Young man, study your Bible because God has commanded it. Doctrine is not something only the preacher needs to know. It's telling that when a young man knows the Word of God and is grounded in doctrine, everyone tells him he ought to be a preacher. The problem with that view, is the assumption that you don't have to know doctrine if you are not a preacher. Whether or not you preach the word, you may have or will have a young wife, and young children who are going to look to you for spiritual guidance. They will look to you for wisdom, understanding, and advice. As a man, you need to be able to answer and help them truthfully. You will have people looking to you to lead them and how terrible to not know where you are going yourself.

Now is the time to start. Ecclesiastes 12:1, "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." As a young man, you have the time, the energy and the mental capacity to study and remember great amounts of information. You can memorize the names of ball players and statistics, know the genealogies and story arcs of all the Marvel superheroes, or know every lyric to every country song on the radio. But don't let this season of strength and ability pass without studying God's Word and learning true doctrine. Now is the time to remember your Creator.

Young man, study your Bible to have a pure doctrine. An impure theology will give you a wrong understanding of God, and indeed, perhaps a wrong gospel, which is no gospel at all.  To study doctrine should be for the goal of knowing God.  And, for God's people, doctrine should inform practice. The child of God should live out what they believe. Knowing about God, salvation, future things, the church should inform how the man lives his life. Psalms 119:9, "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word."

Young man, study your Bible with gravity and sincerity. This is God's Word, after all. The Bible isn't a text book, nor is it a literature book that you have to cram before the day of your test. So when you read your Bible, you should be sincere and serious about it. Adam Clarke wrote, this type of doctrine would, "[Mix] nothing with the truth; taking nothing from it; adding nothing to it; and exhibiting it in all its connection, energy, and fullness.