The Idea that We Should Read the Bible Every Day

I wonder how many of us are actually led by the Spirit to read the bible. Most of us think we are supposed to do it so we find a place to read & pray "God teach me what this scripture means." Since we prayed the prayer we assume that whatever we think when we are done reading must be what it means. We assume we have no bias in an unrenewed part of our mind that will block us from the truth. Jesus even said, "the traditions of men stop the word of God." So if you believe in those traditions or traditional doctrines how do you expect to learn from God? You've already stopped Him from teaching you with your presuppositions. Considering all these things why do we think we can randomly pick a place in scripture & God will show us the full truth of it?

Because I thought I was supposed to I read the bible every single day from February 1999 to November 2006 & I learned almost nothing. I read through the bible in a year based on one of those plans & all I remember was crowning Leviticus as the boringest book. We can be like a 2nd grader opening up a calculus book & pointing to a random page saying, "Teach me this." There is a lot to learn before you can get there. Yet with scripture we assume that any place is a good place to start & that we won't deceive ourselves in our ignorance while reading it. Churches pretty much tell us, "Forget about knowing the gospel or being rooted & grounded in God's loving grace for you, just start reading the bible somewhere & listening to sermons & everything will be ok." Life doesn't work like that!

I picture God answering our prayer like this, "How can I teach you that scripture? I didn't even tell you to read that. You need to learn 7 more things & unlearn 36 more things before you can be ready to learn what that says."

Legalistic bible reading (seeing it all as law or even reading it as an obligation because you think it is a law to do so) leads to self-condemnation more than anything else. Scripture hopping, chapter picking, or even reading along with a commentary often result in you believing falsehood even deeper than if you had never picked up the bible at all.

When God said, "My word will not return to me void" He wasn't talking about the reading of His scriptures, He was talking about the effectiveness of His promises. Maybe we should stop thinking "the scriptures will guide us into all truth" & believe what Jesus actually said, "The Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth."

It is great to trust God to teach you the scriptures. But when is it a good idea for the student to say "teach me this" when the wise teacher knows the student is not ready to learn that yet? Jesus said "the Holy Spirit would guide you into all truth" not "you will guide yourself & the Holy Spirit will still get you to all truth." Sure you'll get some truth that way but life will end up being insanely harder & much more wasteful. I know I've been there.

See also:  The Meaning of "My Word shall not return to Me void"

Get truth from The Truth

Jesus said the Holy Spirit would lead us to ALL truth. That means there is no truth that we are lead to that doesn't have His involvement. It also means anywhere we think we've gotten truth where we can't recognize the involvement of the Spirit is worth calling into question. Preachers, teachers, authors, and even scripture we've learned from are worth our time taking to God to be taught by Him.

There is an untold amount of false & ignorant teachings & interpretations out there. Just because you are reading the bible doesn't mean it isn't being distorted through the lens you unwittingly look through. Turn to the Spirit of God before turning to the scriptures because it is unwise to wholly trust your interpretation of scripture. The Spirit may point you to the scriptures to teach you the truth and He may not. God is living and living inside of you. Trust Him more than what you've heard and speak with Him.