Paul writes to the Philippians saying, “work out your own salvation…for it is God who works in you” (2:12-13) and then tells the Thessalonians, “…the word of God which is at work in you believers” (1 Thess. 2:13). God works in our hearts through His Word to bring about change. Psalm 119:11 tells us, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” Some have likened this to putting money in your bank account so that you can withdraw it from the ATM when you need the cash. Jesus was able to resist Satan’s temptations in the desert because he knew the Word. He had ‘stored’ it up in his heart and could make the ‘withdrawal’ at the appropriate moment of resisting temptation. Just as we need physical food every day to sustain us, so we need the spiritual food of the Word to sustain our souls. There are many ways to approach God’s Word and we will look at two different ways over the next two days that are quite different in their emphasis but with the same goal in mind: a more intimate connection with God.
The following is taken from the introductory section of ‘The Bible Recap: A One-Year Guide to Reading and Understanding the Entire Bible’ by Tara-Leigh Cobble (2020, Bethany House). I have shortened and summarized the original section for our purposes.
Tara-Leigh Cobble describes how she struggled for years to understand Scripture and her lack of desire for God’s Word. “Eventually, I learned I was making three primary mistakes that held me back from understanding and loving Scripture.”
Mistake #1
Looking through the lens of self. The Bible was a “big to-do list, and if I checked all the right boxes, God would respond by fulfilling all my desires. Reading Scripture as a story about God--not me--felt unnatural at first, so I started asking myself a few questions to narrow my focus:
· What does God say or do in this passage?
· What does this reveal about what God loves?
· What does this reveal about what God hates?
· What does this reveal about what motivates God to do what He does?
· In all of that, what attributes of God are displayed?
The questions we ask of the Bible impact the wisdom we glean from it. Reading the Bible is not a means to self-help or an attempt to earn God’s favor. It’s an opportunity to behold the beauty of God and be drawn in by Him.”
Mistake #2
Stemming from the first mistake, Tara had her favourite portions of Scripture while ignoring huge chunks which she considered irrelevant to her life. “To correct this mistake, I decided to read through Scripture chronologically, not front to back. I wanted to see the overall story line or meta-narrative…the Bible has sixty-six individual books that together tell one story, but they’re from a wide variety of vantage points and styles-narrative history, poetry, prophecy-and much to my dismay the bulk of it is not promises or action points. Most of it serves to tell me a story about God and His unshakeable love for His people. Reading the story in order and paying attention to the context helped me make sense of verses that appear to contradict each other. I also learned to sift through the confusing passages to find God’s character.”
[Odyssey is busy reviewing ‘God’s Big Story’ put together by a group of churches in the UK. We are deciding how best to run this in our church. In the meantime, I can recommend ‘The Bible Project’ for great summaries of each of the Bible’s books done in an innovative sketch narration and under ten minutes for book].
Mistake #3
“My first two mistakes worked together to create my other major mistake: drawing conclusions about God before I’d read the whole Bible. Since I had primary read Scripture for selfish reasons, I was impatient and didn’t take time to read it at all.
The Bible is the story of God pursuing His people despite their sin. Bit by bit, we see Him giving them more information about who He is and who He is making them into. But it isn’t all revealed at once, because they can’t handle it all at once. He’s patient with them.” We can mistakenly think God in the Old Testament is angry and out to kill those disobeying Him, but “when we zoom out and read the whole story, we see a through line of grace and mercy and rescue…some of the questions I had in Leviticus weren’t answered until Hebrews. But all good relationships require patience, and they develop over time. It’s worth holding some things with an open hand and waiting until God reveals more of Himself. I spent years trying to build my life around a book I hadn’t read about a God I didn’t know.”