According to a recent survey by the American Bible Society, about 5 out of 10 evangelical Christians read the Bible at least once a week. 5 out of 10. If you ask me, this statistic does not reflect what I find.
If by Bible reading, you mean sitting down with a Bible and spending at least five to ten minutes reading it, then less than 5 out of ten are doing this. Many, if not most, evangelical Bible-believing Christians seldom read the Bible. My question to you is, how often do you read the Bible? And if you are not reading the Bible every day, why not?
Maybe a better question is, why read the Bible? Why should you read the Bible?
You really don’t have any excuse not to read the Bible. Unlike the days before the printing press, Bibles are inexpensive. In the ancient world, however, few people had their own copy of God’s word, and believers did not have easy access to the word of God.
One reason for this lack of access was the expense. Copies of the Scriptures belonged to the privileged: the priests, scribes, and other elites such as kings and their advisors. Another reason for a lack of access to the Scriptures was the low literacy rate. Many people in the ancient world had only a minimal ability to read and write.
Despite these challenges, God commanded his people to know his word. God commanded his people to engage his word and immerse themselves in his word. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 says,
These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
So, despite not owning their own copies of the Scripture, God’s people were commanded to know his word and teach his word to their children.
This commandment begs the question: how could they know God’s word and teach his word to their children if they did not have their own copies?
The answer? They went to those who did have copies of the Scriptures. They went to the priests, the Levites, to the scribes and teachers. God gave these religious leaders—prophets, priests, Levites, scribes, and teachers—the task of teaching his word to his people.
From these religious leaders, the people learned the word of God and memorized the word. Deuteronomy 6:6 “These words that I command you today shall be on your heart.”
Deuteronomy 11:18-20 “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul.”
Psalm 119:11 “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”
To store up God’s word in your heart is to hide it in your heart so that you have God’s word in a place where you can keep it safe. Once you memorize God’s word, it becomes part of your life.
Apparently, despite not having their own personal copy of the Scriptures, God’s people had the opportunity to hear the word of God, learn it, and memorize it.
In Joshua 1:8 we read:
“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.”
Once you have the Word firmly embedded in your memory, you are to meditate on it. To meditate on God’s word is to recall it from your memory and either contemplate its meaning quietly in your thoughts or to utter it softly. The key point to remember is to repeat and consider God’s word in your thoughts.
Do you practice meditation? Do you repeat God’s word in your thoughts and mutter it to yourself?
Unlike God’s people in ancient times, who did not have their own personal copies of the Scriptures, we all have God’s word, the Bible. So, we really have no excuse not to read it and meditate on it. You have no excuse not to read it.
Jesus says,
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock (Matthew 7:24-25).”
Jesus gives us two ways to engage the word of God. The first way is to listen to the word. The second way is to put the word into practice.
Let me encourage you to spend time with God reading his word every day. You don’t have to spend hours and hours. I suggest that you carve out at least five minutes of your day for Bible reading. Start by getting up five minutes earlier. Set your alarm to wake you up five minutes sooner than you normally would and use those five minutes to meet with God in his word.
King David said:
“Blessed is the man… [whose] delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers (Psalm 1:1-3).”
Do you want to be blessed by God? Do you want to be like a fruitful tree? Spend time in God’s Word.
Leave a Reply