Do You Read Me?
Theme of the Week: Beyond Book Learning
Eugene Peterson
Wednesday, October 6, 2004
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Key Bible Verse: You search the Scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me. Yet you refuse to come to me (John 5:39–40). Bonus Reading:John 5: 41–47
Perhaps that is the clue to why so much contemporary Bible reading is disappointing. The schools in which we all learn to read teach us to read for information and for performance; we learn to read so that we can know things and do things. Our schools do this very well, and the results show it: we know a lot, we can do a lot.
But these reading habits are so deeply ingrained in us that it is difficult to shift gears and listen to the text personally, listening in a participatory and responsive way to words that convey God's gospel, evoking our faith and love in return.
Reading the Bible doesn't require any great technical skills, but it does require a radical shift from our habitual reading-for-information to personal reading-as-listening. This shift turns out to be far more difficult than just learning how to read in the first place or getting together enough money to buy a Bible.
That may very well be why our ancestors had an advantage over us—their Bible reading/listening took place entirely in a context of personal relationships in which they were immersed in common work. The Bible was not about, it was for: for you.
—Eugene Peterson in Reading the Bible for the Love of God
My Response: Do I "hear" God's Word as a personal letter or read it as a manual?
Thought to Apply: Some read the Bible to learn; some read the Bible to hear from heaven.
—Andrew Murray
Adapted from Reading the Bible for the Love of God (Brazos, 2003) by permission.
Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click
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Lord, help my time in Your Word move beyond a head exercise to a true heart encounter.
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