Reading the Whole Bible
Reading through the Bible, from cover to cover, on a regular basis is a critically important discipline for a healthy Christian life. With that said, it is important to distinguish this from reading for study (which is also important). When we study a passage of Scripture we go slowly, we read and reread each sentence, we take time to analyze every phrase, we consider each word and ponder the varied implications of every verse. It may take twenty minutes to engage in an introductory study of one verse, which is enough time for most people to thoughtfully read three or four chapters of the Bible.
The advantage of covering large amounts of biblical territory in one sitting can hardly be overstated. When our minds and hearts ingest substantial sections of Scripture at one time we begin to assemble the “big picture” of who God is, how he thinks, what he values and how he acts. And since God does not change (Mal.3:6; Heb.13:8), when we read of his character, his values, his likes and dislikes during the monarchy of Israel, or in the period of the Judges, or when the fledgling Church was just getting off the ground, we can say we accurately understand the God of the twenty-first century. Not that God’s templates, programs and ceremonies haven’t changed – we know that they have – but the character of God is immutable.
When Christians continue to regularly read and reread the Bible from cover to cover they are less apt to be swayed by false teachers who paint portraits of God from a narrow band of proof texts. We can confidently know that the God of John 3:16 is also the God of Nahum 1:2; and the God of Acts 5:9 is also the God of Exodus 22:27. So keep reading (and studying too). We urgently need the broad and all-inclusive intake of God’s written revelation.
Four Things God Cannot Do
For years on playgrounds everywhere church kids have been stymied by the agitator’s questions, “Can God do anything? And if so, can he make a rock so big he can’t move it?” While children may struggle with the answer, I hope the rest of us do not…
Opportunities
Followers of Christ always need to be on the look out for opportunities to stand up for Christ and to speak up for his cause. And the more sinful the culture, the more critical it is that God’s people exploit…
Hard Truth
We all work to make our lives as comfortable and pain-free as possible. We buy all sorts of appliances and gadgets to make hard jobs easy, and seek out any available remedy to alleviate our bodily aches and pains. And this makes perfect sense. Only a masochist would…
God-Breathed
The Bible is a “God-breathed” book (2Tim.3:16)—which vividly depicts a set of written words that are so closely associated with the Author that they are to be pictured as though God himself were speaking them with the breath of his own mouth. As such, the written “word of God” is described…
Restoration
As we read through the Book of Jeremiah we are confronted with a very familiar refrain, “God would never do that!” This is what the Lord’s faithful spokesman encountered when he exposed the gaping distance between the standards God had commanded in his word, and the values…
Precarious Paths
In the model prayer that Jesus provided to guide us into the kinds of prayer concerns we ought to habitually bring before the Father, he included the request: “lead us not into temptation” (Mt.6:13). I would hope this recurring appeal for God to direct us around sinfully enticing…
Exclusivity
Many take offense at our call to trust Christ for the forgiveness of their sins because it is so exclusive. They stumble over the words of Jesus when he said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn.14:6). They despise the tone of our evangelism when it echoes…
Pleasing God First
The Bible often reminds us of the Christian calling to please those with whom we interact from day to day. Servants should please their masters (1Tim.6:1), children their parents (Col.3:20), citizens their governing authorities (Rom.13:1), parents should parent without exasperating their children (Eph.6:4), and the list goes…
Self-Serving
How are the decisions we make impacting those around us? Jesus said that we should seek to love others as we would love ourselves (Mt.22:39). Nothing could be more central to that command than for us to spend more time considering how our plans, actions, and words will either…
Well Wielded Words
At mealtime a parent may comfortably give their toddler a spoon, but never a knife. Eventually the child’s place setting will include one, but not until there is the maturity and self-control to safely employ its use. Perhaps this restrictive image is one we should recall when we consider God’s warning that “rash words are like…