Reading the Word

Introduction

The past few Sunday evenings, I have been laying down a systematic theology for you on how God works a work of grace in our lives through his word. I don’t know about you but I want to see God working in my life more and more every day. There is more growth I need, more change, more comfort and strength to be experienced, more of God to delight in every single day. And if God has chosen to administer that grace through His word then I want more of His word.

I remember when I broke my leg at the Wilds of the Rockies as a teenager. Daniel Maclemore and I were being stupid and we decided we were going to try and jump from one platform to another in their adventure park in the woods. I don’t know how far these platforms were but back in Jr High I did long jump on a track team for a little bit of time and I remember at least on my first track meet I jumped 14-15 feet. So this was probably around that distance; anyways, I jumped and got one of my legs stuck under the second platform. I remember hearing a loud pop; I took two steps and fell to the ground in pain. I had broken both my tibia and my fibia in my leg. Later camp staff came and took a look at me. They all decided I need to go to the hospital and they were going to lift me up and throw me in the back of a Subaru (at least that what I felt like). There was no way I wanted them to pick me up, but if I was goin to get my leg fixed I need to let them.

There is something we absolutely need and I may not like reading. I may struggle to comprehend everything I read; or maybe I feel too busy to spend time in the word; but I absolutely need God’s grace in my life. If I am going to get God’s grace, part of that path is going to involve His word. So today, we are going to begin looking at how to avail ourselves of God’s grace through his word.

The first step is reading.

The Command to Read the Word?

I am going to begin with a controversial statement, but hang on until the end so you follow what I am saying: The bible never commands us to personally read it.

If you are like me you probably grew up singing songs like, “Read your bible, pray everyday and you’ll grow, grow, grow.” And you probably thought reading our bible is something we had to do. Part of the reason I framed this who discussion through the lens of grace is to make it abundantly clear that this isn’t about law. I grew up keeping a sheet with check boxes in my bible that I would mark everyday as I read through my bible in a year. Now as you will see as I go through this, I am not saying that was wrong; but my heart was wrong in the way I approached God’s word. There is a difference between have to and need to.

God does command us to do somethings in relation to the word like obey it, meditate on it, listen to it, ect; but you won’t find a passage that commands personal bible reading. Let’s look at some of the verses that taken out of context might seem to command personal bible reading:

1 Timothy 4:13 “Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.”

To understand this passage, we must ask who this book was written to and who the command was given to. The answer to both of those questions is the same: Timothy. Paul had tasked Timothy with organizing the churches that he had left behind, ordaining elders in every church and discipling men to lead. This command was specifically given to Timothy as he led the churches. So what is Paul telling Timothy to do: Paul is telling Timothy to make sure that public reading of the word of God, preaching, teaching and discipleship are going on in the church.

Let’s think back to the culture of the time that Paul wrote these words. It is estimated that only 5-10 % of the population was literate although these numbers are probably lower than actuality because Jews put more emphasis on literacy, but they do highlight that there was a significant problem with illiteracy especially among the Gentile churches. This is why Paul more clearly commanded in 1 Thessalonians 5:27 “I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.” Church services included times of just reading the word of God.

There was also a poverty issue back then. While we can purchases and have our own libraries, people back then could barely afford one book. Remember that all bibles were hand written at this time. Rudolph Richards in his book Paul and First Century letter writting estimates that the cost of producing one single book of the bible like Romans would cost 20.68 denarii which comes out to about $2,275 for the initial printing and atleast $868 for extra copies. One denarrii comes out to normally be the pay of 5 days for the average Jew, for a Roman soldier it was a daily wage; so the rates change depending on status, but the cost of purchasing a book of this price was Hefty for the average man.

This is also what is hinted at in

Revelation 1:3 “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.”

But notice here there is a blessing associated with reading publically and hearing the words if one keeps those things which are written therein. I don’t know about you but I want that blessing.

The Practice of Personal Bible Reading

Just because it wasn’t possible for everyone to read a copy of the scriptures for themselves every day, doesn’t mean that those who had access to it didn’t spend time personally reading. The clearest example of this was the Ethiopian Eunuch. Remember in

Acts 8:28 “Was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet.”

Here was a man who was not saved, but God was drawing him and he was seeking. He turned to the one place he knew he could find God: in His word.

Desire for God should make you crave the Word.

If you have been following along so far, you might be thinking I am excusing not reading your bible everyday, but that is not what I am doing. Those who desire God will seek Him in His word. I constantly remember 1 Peter 2:2–3 “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” If we have truly experienced God’s goodness in our lives, we will crave more of him. It will drive us to the word of God where we can experience God’s grace more and more.

Have you ever had a piece of food that tastes so good that your taste buds start to tingle and salivate. You crave more bites of the food because it tastes just so good. So when we have tasted God’s graciousness in our lives, we will crave more of Him in His word.

The riches of what we have should cause us to crave the Word.

It is an amazing blessing that we can carry with us today a personal copy of the word of God. How many bibles do you personally own? I was thinking about it today and I have atleast 11 personal bibles. This includes some old English translations of the bible. Oh and I forgot my foreign translations of the bible in my office. Not to mention the easy access we have to the word of God on our phones. It used to be in the day, you had to carry a pocket NT with you if you wanted to have the bible with you at all times. Now I not only have the entire bible in my pocket, but I also have a huge library of commentaries and study materials as well as my bible study software. With the riches we have available to us, it is a shame that we do not avail ourselves of it every single day.

Luke 12:48 “But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”

God hold those with greater privilege responsible for how they use that privilege. If God has given you a lot of money, he expects you to use it for his glory. If God has given you a lot of talent, it should be used for the glory of God. If God has given you a position, he will expect you to use that position for Him. If God has given you free access to the word of God, he expects us to take advantage of it.

But we often get used to what we have free access to. We take it for-granted. How often do we really treasure our wives because we see them everyday? We take it for-granted if they cook dinner for us, but when we were courting, we would have made over the effort they put into it. This is often how we treat the bible. With such a treasure of riches, we ought to take advantage of it.

How to do personal bible reading

The bible does directly tell us how to read the word of God though we get some glimpses from the examples of men in the word of God. There is no one way to do this and in fact varying it up sometimes will be beneficial to you. Reading the word of God is more an art than a science.

I am going to give a couple principles and then some practical guidance for how to start.

Read all the scripture for breadth.

2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:”

All scripture is beneficial for something in our spiritual lives. Even those books of the law and the lists of names. They aren’t always going to carry the same weight. Some things are more beneficial to our lives than others, but none is unimportant.

When it comes to those books of the law, ask yourself why they were written. What does Paul say the purpose of the law is? The law is our school master and this school master does two things:

shows us our sin- while we are not under the law and some of the laws are given only to the Jews; there are still principles we can draw about how God looks at life from those passages.

Points us to Christ- the law along with all other scriptures points us to Jesus Christ because we cannot keep the law. Galatians 3:24 “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” As you read the word, ask yourself, “How do I see Christ in this passages?”

We need to read all of the word of God. I think it is helpful for us to periodically read through the bible in a year. That is why we provide the reading plans each year. When you read like that you are reading for breadth. A broader knowledge of the whole of scripture. It is important to have a broad picture of what the whole bible teaches or we may take one passage out of context.

Study the scriptures for depth.

Merely reading the word of God from cover to cover can result in a shallow Christian if that is all you ever do. When we read, we must also study the word of God. Back in the days of Nehemiah, the people had just come back into the land. Many would have gotten rusty in their understanding of Hebrew and they didn’t have access to the word of God so readily. As the temple is being rebuilt, they find the book of the law and have a public reading of the scriptures. I think it is important to see the example of Ezra in Nehemiah 8.

(Read whole passage up to vs 8)

Nehemiah 8:8 “So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.”

It is important when reading the word of God to understand what it means. It is not wrong to study during your devotions as long as your study is in pursuit of God and not mere knowledge. Many wrong applications of the word are made when we do not study what the verse actually means. God wants us to understand what he was actually trying to say; not what we think he was trying to say. I know we often quote:

2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

And it is often argued that study doesn’t mean study in this verse and you would be right. Study here means to give all diligence to show yourself approved by God. But how do we become approved by God as workmen without shame? rightly dividing the word of truth. This passage means to cut truth from error. To rightly interpret the scriptures.

I remember when I was on deputation, I had a pastor ball me out for studying during my devotions. But what he didn’t realize is that some of the greatest times that I have drawn closer to Christ have come as I studied His word and discovered fresh truth about God in His word. These have been the moments when God drew me closer to Him.

So while it is good to read for breadth, it is also good to slow down and read smaller portions and soak in the meaning of what you are reading. I personally recommend starting with what we call a pericope of scripture a day if you have never done this before. A pericope is s section of verses that go together as a unit. (show them how to see)

You could go even smaller and read a paragraph a day. A paragraph is one complete though. So while each paragraph is connected to other paragraphs, soaking in each individual thoughts can yield great benefit. (show them the paragraph sign)

Conclusion

In these last few moments, I want to give you a simple model to get you started in reading the bible each day. I recommend taking smaller portions first if you have never read the bible before because developing a habit is extremely important. If you bite off more than you can chew almost literally, then you are more likely to give up. When you approach scripture, I would like to suggest a process that many Christians have found helpful. It is called the SOAP method. Each letter of the word stands for a step to take.

Scripture- select the passage you are going to read. I recommend choosing a book of the bible at a time.

Observation- Look for the details. Ask yourself who, what when where, why and how.

Application- Scripture means nothing to you if you do not seek to apply it to your life in some way. Application should be personal, practical and provable.

Prayer- Talk to God about what you have read.

Example

Scripture: Philippians 1:20–26 “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith; That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again.”

Observation:

What is Paul’s expectation? not be ashamed, and Christ be magnified in his body vs 20

In what two states will Christ be glorified in Paul’s body? life or death vs 20

How is death gain? to be with Christ vs23

How does Paul live for Christ? labor vs 22

Why is being with Christ far better than living for Christ? to experience the presence of Christ, be transformed into the image of Christ. (meditation on other passages)

Why is it needful to remain in the flesh? for you vs 24

What are the results of Paul remaining in the flesh? their furtherance and joy vs 25

What did Paul desire to do? come to the Philippians vs 26

Application:

As how does this apply to my life today?

While dying and being with Christ would be so amazing, God still has a purpose for me to live here and bring joy to others. How can I strive to bring joy to other believers in Christ this week?

Prayer:

“Lord, how I would love to be with you. It would be amazing to see you in all your glory, but also to be transformed to be like you. I long for the day when I will never again disappoint you with my sin. Help me to find someone this week that I can be a blessing to. Help me to be focused on bringing joy to others. I love you Lord.”