Heart-reading the Bible

Go to now (most dear reader) and sit thee down at the Lord's feet and read his words, (See Deut. 6) and, as Moses teacheth the Jews, take them into thine heart, and let thy talking and communication be of them when thou sittest in thine house, or goest by the way, when thou lyest down, and when thou riseth up. And above all things fashion thy life and conversation according to the doctrine of the holy ghost therein, that thou mayest be partaker of the good promises of God in the Bible, and be heir of his blessing in Christ. In whom if thou put thy trust, and be an unfeigned reader or hearer of his word with thy heart, thou shalt find sweetness therein, and spy wonderous things, to thy understanding, to the avoiding of all sedicious sects, to the abhorring of thy old sinful life, and to the stablishing of thy godly conversation. Coverdale preface

Heart-reading requires our entire being, soul, affections, mind, will, practice.

Joshua 22:5 ESV

Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

When Jesus quotes the greatest commandment which in Matthew 22 he adds and with all your minds. Perhaps because the Jews of the Old Testament understood the affections to be connected to the intellects. The mind is just the gateway to the heart. To love God we must first understand and comprehend with the mind what the heart loves. The mind alone cannot profit from the Word of God, just as chewing food alone does not profit the body alone. The food must be swallowed and further broken down and digested. So to the body does not profit merely by passing the eyes over letters and words and phrases, but by understanding by the hearts internalization of the Word. The heart processes it so that it can draw spiritual nourishment for the soul.

“We read the Bible with our minds to see the glory of God, and with our hearts to savor the glory of God.” John Bloom

God is not merely an idea that we contemplate but a personal God to be loved and cherished.

I told you I loved you on our wedding day, if anything changes you will be the first to know.

One of the tall tale signs that our bible reading an Christianity is more head than heart, is in our prayers. How many times do we go into prayers and we focus on the relay of information to God, we jump straight into our prayers requests for our needs and for the needs of others, and that is a good thing, but we never leave we feel uncomfortable for some reason doing the real reflections of the heart, and to really think about God and his character. Perhaps its because we have not meditated on God’s word enough to really know Him.

The effect was to promote a method of daily inductive Bible study aimed more at interpreting the text than at meditation and experience of God. After this kind of Bible study came prayer, but this more cognitive study did not lead very naturally to adoration. Prayer, then, was dominated by petitions for needs and confession of sins. Tim Keller

My grandmother was a saint in many ways, my grandfather had a stroke sometime in the 90’s which left him paralyzed on one side. My grandmother stayed with him and took care of him for probably 20 years. After she passed a few years ago and we were going through some of her old boxes of photos and stuff, and it was very heart warming to read all of the letters that my grandfather had written to my grandmother years ago.

I am sure that their marriage like any marriage went through some hard times, perhaps times when they were arguing or like ships passing in the night, just communicating enough information to get by. Not relationship can endure much of that.

I heard of a wife who was complaining to her husband of many years that he never said that he loved her. The husband responded to his wife, “I told you on our wedding day that I loved you… if anything changes you will be the first to know”.

But how many of us treat God and his word like this? If our bible reading if it exists at all become nothing more than the exchange of information, then we become like the AI robots that have all the knowledge known to mankind and can process and communicate it eloquently and efficiently but are incapable of emotion, who are unmoved and stirred by God.

John 5:39–40 ESV

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

Psalm 119:47–48 ESV

for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love. I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes.

Psalm 1:1–2 ESV

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

Certainly, the benefit of reading must come to the soul by the way of the understanding. . . . The mind must have illumination before the affections can properly rise towards their divine object. . . . There must be knowledge of God before there can be love to God: there must be a knowledge of divine things, as they are revealed, before there can be an enjoyment of them. Charles Spurgeon

Transition: We are reliant upon the Grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit to apply His word to our hearts, but...

Heart-reading requires us to slow down.

We have to slow down so we can listen. Like traipsing into the woods on opening day crunching on every leaf so you can hear the deer that you just spooked off. You have to discipline yourself to slow down and listen.

Joshua 1:8 ESV

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Psalm 143:5 ESV

I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands.

Psalm 19:14 ESV

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

When we think of the word meditate in the scriptures it comes from the idea to murmur or to udder a low growl, like the mooing of a cow or the low growl of a lion over his food. In fact we do the same thing ourselves, when ever we are thinking or perplexed or pondering something we often times go “hmm” a low grumble. Let me hear everyone say “hmm” just to make sure you are all awake. Good now I know that you all are paying attention and pondering what I am saying.

Did you know that a cow has not one stomach, not 2 or 3 but 4 stomachs. These all work in unison to allow the cattle to break down organic matter so that it can be digested and absorbed as nutrients into the cows body. The largest and main stomach is called the rumin this is where the food that is briefly chewed and partially broken down remains while bacteria and enzymes break it down. Once full the grasses and food that are too large to pass into the reticulum will be regurgitated and chewed further by the cow. We all know that this is referred to as “chewing the cud”. The cow will then once again swallow its food and the process begins to break the food down until small enough to pass in the reticulum. It will then be further broken down and pass to the omasum an organ with book like pages

We live in a world of soundbites, 15, 20, 30 second clips and you are off to the next thing. But the Bible certainly cannot be reduced to a post on facebook, or a 300 word tweet on X, or a 60 clip on instagram. The fire -hydrant of information that we come across on a daily basis is not meant for reflection, not meant to be digested

We must learn to bring God’s glory into focus. Like adjusting the lense of a microscope of binoculars so that the picture is clear and sharp. But it takes a few seconds to get the focus just right.

When I read I have a speechify app, that basically reads any book or any type of text to me through AI. It is pretty amazing how far the technology has come. But there are some books that I just want to get through. And so you can speed it up and read like a 1.25, or even 1.5 or more. But not all books can be read that way. I am reading a book right now that I read about 2 pages and I have to stop and really think about what I read. We cannot treat God’s word the same, it must be

Everything is better when you slow down, food tastes better when you slow cook it, or smoke it low and slow,

Conclusion:

The heart which is the seat of the will, the seat of the affections is that which must teach us through the word of God to drive away all other loyalties, all other affections, and it can only happen through the power of the Holy Spirit as we immerse our entire being in the Word of God.