In our Wednesday night bible study this week, we briefly
discussed how important it is to be constantly refreshing our minds with the
Scriptures in order to guard against adopting the thinking of the world. It prompted me to consider the
importance of several different avenues of Bible intake. Below are my thoughts, most of which
will not be news to you, but could perhaps prompt you to reincorporate a
discipline that may have fallen by the wayside.
A primary tool that God has granted for the purpose of transforming
us into the likeness of Christ is the intake of His Word. One of Jesus’ primary
concerns for the disciples on the night before His death was that the Father
would use His Word to make them holy. He prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth;
your word is truth” (John 17:17). Indeed, it is the God-breathed Scriptures
that are uniquely and sufficiently able to make us mature in Christ, equipped
for every good work (2 Tim 3:16-17). The Spirit uses His Word to expose our
hearts and to transform our minds (Heb 4:12; Rom 12:2).
This means that if a believer is going to grow in godliness, he
must make intake of the Word a major discipline of his life. R. Kent Hughes
offers this: “You can never have a Christian mind without reading the
Scriptures regularly because you cannot
be profoundly influenced by that which you do not know. If you are filled
with God’s Word, your life can then be informed and directed by God—your
domestic relationships, your child-rearing, your career, your ethical
decisions, your interior moral life. The way to a Christian mind is through
God’s Word!”[1]
The apostle Paul exhorted the Colossians to “let the word of Christ dwell” in
them richly (Col 3:16). The only way this can happen is if we are intentionally
taking in the Scriptures.
The simplest form of Bible intake is hearing the Word, which would include
listening to sermons, participating in Bible studies, and listening to audible
recordings of the Scriptures. At the very least, this discipline entails
becoming a part of a New Testament church where the Bible is taught on a
regular basis.[2]
One text that demonstrates the
importance of hearing the Word is 2 Timothy 4:1-2: “I charge you in the
presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead,
and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and
out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and
teaching.” While most would regard this as an imperative to the preacher, and
rightfully so, it also holds an implied imperative to the listener. If it is
crucial that the content of the pastor’s preaching be the Word of God, it also
must be crucial for the church to hear the Word of God. The necessity of
hearing the Word is founded upon the previous passage in which, Paul notes that
the Word of God is able to make the believer complete and equipped (2 Tim3:16-17). As God has commanded the preaching of the Word to the people of God,
certainly it is intended to be a vital part of the believer’s diet.
A second essential method of intake is
Bible reading. With the wide availability of electronic and print copies of the
Word, reading is perhaps the most convenient and most readily available method
of taking in the Scriptures. The Word itself seems to assume that believers
will read the Bible. For example, Jesus frequently questioned people’s
knowledge of the Word, beginning with the words, “have you not read…?”,
implying that it is to be expected that God’s people would read God’s Word.[3]
Given the repeated references in the Bible to the role of Scripture in our
sanctification, it is difficult to imagine a person growing in godliness
without spending regular time reading the Word.
George Mueller provides an excellent
example of the power of consistently reading the Bible:
“It is absolutely needful…we should read regularly through
the Scriptures… For the first four
years after my conversion I made no progress, because I neglected the Bible.
But when I regularly read on through the whole with reference to my own heart
and soul, I directly made progress. Then my peace and joy continued more and
more. Now I have been doing this for 47 years. I have read through the whole
Bible about 100 times and I always find it fresh when I begin again. Thus my
peace and joy have increased more and more.”[4]
Mueller would live to the age of ninety-two, never changing his
pursuit of satisfaction in God through the reading of the Scriptures.[5]
He noted in his later years, “I saw more clearly than ever, that the first
great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my
soul happy in the Lord…I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to
give myself to the reading of the word of God.”[6]
He view the reading of the Word as the primary means by which he grew in the
knowledge of God, which led to his being happy in God.[7]
Regular Bible reading is a crucial part of the spiritual diet of a Christian.
Another method of Bible intake championed by the Scriptures is
memorization. The Bible notes numerous benefits of memorizing God’s Word, just
a few of which will be noted here. First, it supplies spiritual power to deal
with temptation. The psalmist proclaimed, “I have stored up your word in my
heart, that I might not sin against you” (Ps 119:11, cf. Matt 4:1-11). Second,
it can strengthen one’s faith. Proverbs 22:17-19 exhorts the reader to
internalize God’s Word “that your trust may be in the Lord.” Donald Whitney
comments, “Memorizing Scripture strengthens your faith because it repeatedly
reinforces the truth, often just when you need to hear it again.”[8] Third, Scripture memorization can be a
means of God’s guidance. Psalm 119:24 reads, “Your testimonies are my delight;
they are my counselors.” When the Scriptures are internalized, these counselors
become constant companions able to give guidance at any time of day or night.
Fourth, memorization facilitates Scripture meditation. Indeed, memorization is
the only way to be like the psalmist, meditating on the Word “all the day” (Ps119:97). With verses of Scriptures tucked away in one’s memory, the believer
can meditate no matter the time or place. Memorization is a vital method of
Bible intake for the Christian.
Meditation, a fourth method of taking in the Word, consists of
“deep thinking on the truths and spiritual realities revealed in Scripture for
the purposes of understanding, application, and prayer.”[9]
The Bible has much to say about the significance of this discipline. It
promises success and spiritual fruitfulness to those who meditate on God’s Word
(Josh 1:8; Ps 1:1-3). It indicates that Scriptural understanding comes through
meditation (Ps 119:27, 99). It also teaches that love for the Word results from
meditation on it, which motivates further meditation (Ps 119:14-16, 48, 97).
It is possible that meditation is the most important of all the
methods because in it the believer takes what he has heard, read, and memorized
and thinks deeply about what it means and how it should be applied to his life.
Meditation makes the other methods truly useful, for it is conceivable that one
could take in the Word by other methods but without ever pondering them for the
purpose of application. For this reason, it is critical that a believer
discipline himself to regularly meditate on the Word of God. (For several
suggested methods of meditation, see this post.)
So what about you?
Have you made Bible intake a priority lately? Why not find another brother or sister and challenge one
another to get into the Word, hearing it, reading it, memorizing it, and
meditating on it? Let us strive to
be people of the Word, understanding that it is food for our souls (Matt 4:4,
cf. Deut 8:3).
[1] R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines
of a Godly Man, Rev. ed.; 10th anniversary ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway
Books, 2006), 77.
[4] George Muller, A Narrative
of Some of the Lord’s Dealings with George Muller. Written by Himself.
(Muskegon, MI: Dust and Ashes, 2003), 2:834.
[5] John Piper, When I Don’t
Desire God: How to Fight for Joy (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004), 119.
[6] Muller, A Narrative of
Some of the Lord’s Dealings with George Muller. Written by Himself.,
1:271–272.
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