Every morning when I awake, I set it aside, that before anything else, I spend time reading God's word and in prayer.
Why? Because I'm really disciplined? Well, sometimes. I can be disciplined about certain things, I suppose. Not everything.
There certainly was a time where I wasn't really reading the Bible very often.
What changed?
I no longer read the Bible out of a sense of duty. And furthermore, I don't believe there's an explicit command in the Bible that you need to read the Bible regularly, though it certainly is hard to 'delight' in and 'meditate on' God's word 'day and night' if you're not reading it (see Psalm 1).
No, I read every day because I need to. I'm poor to the very core, blind to see God's truths, starving in my soul for satisfaction and happiness, incapable of right or even logical thinking, dealing with feelings of guilt that crush my spirit, not dealing honestly enough with my guilt to feel bad about it, unfocused on what matters, having feelings that are completely inconsistent with reality
unloving, uncompassionate, faithless, selfish, wretched, foolish
captivated by sin and thinking that it's anything less than pure evil.
And I just want one... just one... glimpse of my Lord, my Savior.
Don't you?
He wrote a book, you know...
great heart check for me. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteDon't know if you've heard this sermon - John Piper, "How to Receive the Word of Man as the Word of God."
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget these strange words:
"'Hi.
I'm God.
I like to talk!
*I HAVE A WORD FOR YOU*!'"
Scott - I'm grateful to God for that.
ReplyDeleteJoe - that made me laugh out loud. I love it when Piper is funny. I'm pretty sure it's never really intentional, too...
I believe it was part of an "In these last days, God has spoken to us by his Son" series. Hebrews 1.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of funny but uncannily memorable.
d. really thankful.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for your thoughts. You're on a roll this week!
ReplyDeleteBy saying this, I am in no way discouraging anyone from reading their Bibles. I cannot think of any more edifying activity for the other 6 days of the week. But the importance of the layman reading his Bible by himself literally pales in comparison to the importance of careful, attentive listening on Sunday morning (and hopefully Sunday evening too!)
ReplyDeleteAs you say, there is no command to "take and read" in the Scriptures - but the command to listen is very frequent throughout the Scriptures, and for thousands of years has been the substance of the most basic Jewish confession: "Hear O Israel..." (Deut 6:4) Jews have been reciting the "shema" (Hebrew for "hear" or "listen") for thousands of years. In fact, in Mark 12:28-31, when Jesus is asked the most important commandment, the first word out of his mouth is "Hear" (listen), quoting Deut 6:4. The importance of the command to listen cannot be overstated.
You asked how we could meditate on the Word day and night if we don't read it. Perhaps we should do what they used to do once upon a time when there was only one copy of the Bible in the whole town: they memorized it. Little children would grow up memorizing the entire Torah, which is the first 5 books of the Bible. EVERY Jewish child was doing this as part of their standard education, at least post-exile anyway. And many scholars believe that Paul had the entire Old Testament memorized. They had very good memories in those days.
And actually, you can truly argue that the Bible does command the memorization of Scripture: "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee" (Ps 119:11). Furthermore, in Deut 4, Moses commands the people to teach their children the commands that they heard from the Lord on the mountain, and Moses is commanded to teach the people. If you think about it, this can only mean memorization. And furthermore, God commanded Moses to teach the song (Deut 31:19 - the song is Deut 32) to the people of Israel, which means memorization (but at least that was a song). Certainly the Israelites did a lot of memorizing. You can also wonder at how it can be that Jesus' spoken words were recorded in the Gospels accounts several decades after his ascension. The simple answer is that people memorized what he said, and not just a few memorable bits here and there, but large portions of his discourses were memorized by many, not the least of whom were the apostles themselves.
And let me just also add that the memorization of a catechism is exceedingly useful, insofar as such a catechism summarizes the truths of Scripture.
You're right Derek. Being ABLE to read the Bible is a great privilege that we too often take for granted. In fact, it wasn't until about the time of the Reformation that there was a push to even translate the Bible into languages that common people could understand. Luther's desire to translate the Bible into German was nothing short of heresy, the same being true of guys like Wycliffe in England.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, it's only in the last century or so that Bibles became cheap enough for everyone to own their own copy, not to mention pocket sized Bibles.
And yet, despite the incredible proliferation of the Bible, despite the awe-inspiring fact that most of us own more than one copy of it, a fact that now elicits little more than a shrug from us - despite all these things, biblical literacy has actually decreased.
Why? Because while everyone is falling in love with owning their own Bible, they don't listen to decent preaching anymore. They'd rather go to the mega-church and have their ears tickled, so that when they spend their hour a day in "quiet time" with their Bible, they read the words, but it falls on deaf ears, blind eyes.
Though they see, they do not see, though they hear, they do not understand.
As a future minister, I'd much prefer that the people in the pews would listen carefully and attentively to the sermon every week than to be half asleep during the sermon and yet spending an hour a day of "quiet time". Such time alone with the Bible does you very little good if you don't know how to interpret it.
It is the minister who is educated in interpreting the Bible. He can read it in Greek and Hebrew; he can analyze the grammar; he can enter into academic disputes that have been raging for centuries in the secondary literature; he can tell you not just what the words say, but what they mean. And this is crucial, because every translation is necessarily also an interpretation. No one has access to an uninterpreted text. Even those of us who can read it in Greek and Hebrew interpret it based on presuppositions and theological assumptions. Thus the education of the minister becomes even more valuable in light of these things. Hopefully his presuppositions and theological assumptions are informed by years of careful study and engagement with the church's historical interpretations and struggles with the text and with doctrinal formulation. Through this, the hope is that he has become an expert in biblical interpretation. Such expertise is not only a great luxurious blessing for the church, but it is essential. And it is essential that laymen make use of his expertise, because his expertise is required for proper interpretation of the text.
Hi Gospel.or.Death
ReplyDeleteI agree with many of your points, but we can't just assume that someone's being a minister reliably makes them trustworthy for interpreting the Scriptures. Of course ministers will on the whole be the most reliable of God's people, being called and equipped, but at the same time, maybe as part of your plea, you should make a plea to current and future ministers as well, and not just a general plea to non-ministers to get their act together and heed the minister's ministry more. That people don't listen to decent preaching anymore is a given. But the problem is not just with the people, but also with the preaching. As sinners, we will all tend to want our ears to be tickled. It is also up to the minister to resolve to say what needs to be said and honestly evaluate the effectiveness of his ministry style. Granted, it is up to the church member to find a suitable church with suitable orthodox preaching.
As far as interpretation and deaf ears go, we must not calculate the ministry of the Holy Spirit out of the equation. And as far as I know, personal Bibles have not caused in us a sharp increase in incidence of heresy, and I don't know where you go to church, but people in my church need to read the Bible more, and not less, and to that end, our pastor says, "I want to challenge you guys, that I can't be the one doing all the legwork here, for you. You also have to look this stuff up at home - discuss it within community, too."
In short, though, I think this needs to not become an either/or issue. I think you could have endorsed heeding to preaching better without discrediting Bible reading.