Hey, guys! As many of you know, each year we encourage folks in our congregation, as well as anyone else who’s willing, to read through the entire Bible us. When we do this, it’s very easy for our time in God’s Word to become just another line item on our list to be checked off each day. When this happens, we’ve allowed something glorious to become common and undervalued. That’s a hard thing to admit, but it happens to everyone from time to time. This unfortunate truth is commonly stated by people who often choose subject specific reading plans over systematically reading through the Bible on a regular basis. Not to say that reading subject specific plans are bad!
Pros and Cons of Subject Specific Bible Reading:
We should be grateful that YouVersion exists. It’s a blessing to be able to go to a place where people have compiled Bible reading plans alongside devotionals that help us grow in specific areas of our lives! There’s great wisdom from Scripture that applies to specific areas of life. Not everyone has the time, skillset, or drive to dive into the Bible to find that wisdom. When we struggle with marriage, singleness, parenthood, particular sins or temptation to them, subject specific Bible reading and devotionals are tools we should quickly reach to for help!
However, one of the downfalls of making this your primary method of feasting on the Word of God is there are very important things that can be missed. When we neglect the whole council of God’s Word, we can quickly become lopsided in our growth as disciples. We can become obsessed with God’s love and His desire for friendship with us to such a point where we neglect His other attributes. God does love us in the most pure and deep way, but He is also perfectly just, righteous, wrathful, vengeful, omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent (ever-present). These other attributes of His also demand our attention and focus just as much as His love, mercy and grace.
In Matthew 4 we see that “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Mt 4:1 ESV). This is the transition into His public three year ministry of preaching, miracles, and calling His disciples who would later give us the accounts of it all. After going forty days and nights without any food. He was more hungry at that point than any of us have ever been.
Satan comes to Him and says, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread” (Mt 4:3 ESV). Can you imagine the temptation He must have felt in that moment? Hunger and unmet needs often cause the best of men to do horrific things. Satan was right in what he implied, too. Jesus… the One who commands demons and the weather… the One who can raise the dead to life with a simple word… this Jesus could have absolutely turned a stone into bread to eat, but He didn’t!
Instead of giving in to hunger, He says something that should startle us, and make us pay attention: “But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD THAT COMES FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD‘” (Mt 4:4 ESV – emphasis added). The Lord was quoting directly from Deuteronomy 8:3, which means this concept of people needing every single Word of God more than food didn’t come out of a vacuum. It’s something God intended for His people to know for thousands of years, and He still intends for us to know that today. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV) states that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
As people in a fallen world, we don’t know what living outside of sin is, anymore than a fish knows what it is to live outside of water. That’s just the reality of it. That means we need to be taught, reproofed, corrected, and trained in righteousness in more ways than we know. We are aware of many areas that need work, such as our marriages, our roles as parents, and specific areas of known sin in our lives. But there are countless other ways that God wants to work in us that we aren’t even aware of.
What this implies is that we need every single word of Scripture; not just the parts that we think we need. We need to know God! He’s given us His Word in its entirety in the Bible, and He calls out for us to know Him. To be more satisfied with His Word than anything else.
This truth should lead us to conclude that we need to be familiar with Word of God in its entirety, Old Testament and New Testament alike. And not just familiar, but consistently in them.
As the Lord has brought me to this truth, I’ve attempted to make it a point to read the Bible all the way through at least once a year. When I started, it was intimidating. There have been years, even recently, where I’ve allowed life to get in the way and not complete it. There are times when sin gets in the way. That’s a common struggle for us as we feebly attempt to grow closer to God in the midst of a world that constantly tries to push Him away.
Whether you’re attempting to read the Bible all the way through from Genesis to Revelation (front to back), or reading from multiple places each day, or any other version of a Bible in a year plan, it can be done with 10-20 minutes a day. It’s easy to be so overwhelmed by life that even coming up with that much time can be a stretch; but, when we add up the minutes we spend on things that are far less important (and even worthless in the grand scheme of things), we most likely find far more than 10-20 minutes. The trade off is simple, but not so easy.
Something to Help:
In 2019, Matt Smethurst, wrote a short book entitled, Before You Open Your Bible:Nine Heart Postures For Approaching God’s Word. You can buy the Kindle version or paperback for a very reasonable price! In it, he offers nine very practical ways to examine ourselves and approach our Bible reading that inspire the rightful awe and wonder we should have as we seek to live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
In the next several blog posts, I will be reporting and commenting on how I’ve engaged and applied each chapter of Matt’s book, and will offer some practical ways for you to do the same. I encourage any of you who can to get the book yourself, as it’s one that should be read more than once and in different seasons. If that’s not something you want to do, go ahead and refer back to these blog posts for help and encouragement!
How to Approach Your Bible: Introduction
Hey, guys! As many of you know, each year we encourage folks in our congregation, as well as anyone else who’s willing, to read through the entire Bible us. When we do this, it’s very easy for our time in God’s Word to become just another line item on our list to be checked off each day. When this happens, we’ve allowed something glorious to become common and undervalued. That’s a hard thing to admit, but it happens to everyone from time to time. This unfortunate truth is commonly stated by people who often choose subject specific reading plans over systematically reading through the Bible on a regular basis. Not to say that reading subject specific plans are bad!
Pros and Cons of Subject Specific Bible Reading:
We should be grateful that YouVersion exists. It’s a blessing to be able to go to a place where people have compiled Bible reading plans alongside devotionals that help us grow in specific areas of our lives! There’s great wisdom from Scripture that applies to specific areas of life. Not everyone has the time, skillset, or drive to dive into the Bible to find that wisdom. When we struggle with marriage, singleness, parenthood, particular sins or temptation to them, subject specific Bible reading and devotionals are tools we should quickly reach to for help!
However, one of the downfalls of making this your primary method of feasting on the Word of God is there are very important things that can be missed. When we neglect the whole council of God’s Word, we can quickly become lopsided in our growth as disciples. We can become obsessed with God’s love and His desire for friendship with us to such a point where we neglect His other attributes. God does love us in the most pure and deep way, but He is also perfectly just, righteous, wrathful, vengeful, omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent (ever-present). These other attributes of His also demand our attention and focus just as much as His love, mercy and grace.
In Matthew 4 we see that “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Mt 4:1 ESV). This is the transition into His public three year ministry of preaching, miracles, and calling His disciples who would later give us the accounts of it all. After going forty days and nights without any food. He was more hungry at that point than any of us have ever been.
Satan comes to Him and says, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread” (Mt 4:3 ESV). Can you imagine the temptation He must have felt in that moment? Hunger and unmet needs often cause the best of men to do horrific things. Satan was right in what he implied, too. Jesus… the One who commands demons and the weather… the One who can raise the dead to life with a simple word… this Jesus could have absolutely turned a stone into bread to eat, but He didn’t!
Instead of giving in to hunger, He says something that should startle us, and make us pay attention: “But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD THAT COMES FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD‘” (Mt 4:4 ESV – emphasis added). The Lord was quoting directly from Deuteronomy 8:3, which means this concept of people needing every single Word of God more than food didn’t come out of a vacuum. It’s something God intended for His people to know for thousands of years, and He still intends for us to know that today. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV) states that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
As people in a fallen world, we don’t know what living outside of sin is, anymore than a fish knows what it is to live outside of water. That’s just the reality of it. That means we need to be taught, reproofed, corrected, and trained in righteousness in more ways than we know. We are aware of many areas that need work, such as our marriages, our roles as parents, and specific areas of known sin in our lives. But there are countless other ways that God wants to work in us that we aren’t even aware of.
What this implies is that we need every single word of Scripture; not just the parts that we think we need. We need to know God! He’s given us His Word in its entirety in the Bible, and He calls out for us to know Him. To be more satisfied with His Word than anything else.
This truth should lead us to conclude that we need to be familiar with Word of God in its entirety, Old Testament and New Testament alike. And not just familiar, but consistently in them.
As the Lord has brought me to this truth, I’ve attempted to make it a point to read the Bible all the way through at least once a year. When I started, it was intimidating. There have been years, even recently, where I’ve allowed life to get in the way and not complete it. There are times when sin gets in the way. That’s a common struggle for us as we feebly attempt to grow closer to God in the midst of a world that constantly tries to push Him away.
Whether you’re attempting to read the Bible all the way through from Genesis to Revelation (front to back), or reading from multiple places each day, or any other version of a Bible in a year plan, it can be done with 10-20 minutes a day. It’s easy to be so overwhelmed by life that even coming up with that much time can be a stretch; but, when we add up the minutes we spend on things that are far less important (and even worthless in the grand scheme of things), we most likely find far more than 10-20 minutes. The trade off is simple, but not so easy.
Something to Help:
In 2019, Matt Smethurst, wrote a short book entitled, Before You Open Your Bible: Nine Heart Postures For Approaching God’s Word. You can buy the Kindle version or paperback for a very reasonable price! In it, he offers nine very practical ways to examine ourselves and approach our Bible reading that inspire the rightful awe and wonder we should have as we seek to live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
In the next several blog posts, I will be reporting and commenting on how I’ve engaged and applied each chapter of Matt’s book, and will offer some practical ways for you to do the same. I encourage any of you who can to get the book yourself, as it’s one that should be read more than once and in different seasons. If that’s not something you want to do, go ahead and refer back to these blog posts for help and encouragement!