[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, August 2019]
Why do you read the Bible? For some, this is an irrelevant question, as it is not something they do. For others who read the Bible though, it is, I think, an important question.
For me, the reason changed at different points in my life. When I was in secondary school, it was because I needed to read it to pass my GCSE equivalent in Religious Knowledge. In University, I hardly ever picked the Bible up. Just after that, when I became a Christian, I read it to understand more about this faith I now professed. Not long after, I read it because it seemed to be my ‘duty’ to do so (as the song says – ‘read your Bible, pray every day’).
More recently, it has been more likely to happen when I need to prepare something for a sermon. Now and then however, I have picked the Bible up just to ‘hear’ what it says, to understand more about Christ and about people who lived in Old and New Testament times. I have learnt more each time I have read the Bible, but I think I have felt blessed the most when it was not for a deadline or an exam, but rather, those times when I just wanted to know more about God, more about Christ.
CH Spurgeon said:
“Knowledge (of Christ) opens the door, and then through that door we see our Saviour. Or, to use another analogy, knowledge paints the portrait of Jesus, and when we see that portrait then we love Him, we cannot love a Christ whom we do not know, at least, in some degree. If we know but little of the excellences of Jesus, what He has done for us, and what He is doing now, we cannot love Him much; but the more we know Him, the more we shall love Him. Knowledge also strengthens hope. How can we hope for a thing if we do not know of its existence? Hope may be the telescope, but till we receive instruction, our ignorance stands in the front of the glass, and we can see nothing whatever; knowledge removes the interposing object, and when we look through the bright optic glass we discern the glory to be revealed, and anticipate it with joyous confidence. How important, then, is it that we should grow not only in grace, but in the ‘knowledge’ of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
It is important to move from knowing about Christ, to knowing Christ. Reading the Bible with this as our aim is one of the main ways that this happens. He moves from our minds into our hearts, so that the knowledge of Christ abounds not just in our heads, but in our hearts.
Our words will then make an impact in the lives of others, for “what you say flows from what is in your heart” (Luke 6: 45, New Living Translation).
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Contributed by David Makanjuola; © the Author
