Earlier this year, my daughter came to me and told me she really felt lead to read the entire Bible through in one year. She was so eager to study God's Word and her discipline to read her Bible every single day has been inspiring. As we saw her love for God's Word grow, we also introduced her to the YouVersion Bible app, which is an amazing Bible Study resource that I only wish I had as a child! So, in addition to her Bible in a year plan, she also decided to start a devotion with her cousins, a mother daughter devotion with me, and then we do a family devotion together every night as well...all of which are amazing.
She came to me this weekend and explained that since she has started so many devotions with her family, it's harder to keep up with all of her Bible reading, so she was asking for my permission to quit the Bible in a year plan. I explained to her how proud I was of her for developing a daily routine of spending time reading and studying God’s Word, but that she would need to pray and make that decision based on what she felt the Lord was leading her to do.
In our conversation, I told her that the Lord is clear that we need to renew our minds in His Word every single day and feed our hearts and minds with His "Daily Bread", but that He doesn't tell us how much of His Word we should read everyday, so that was something she should pray about and ask Him for answers. I felt prompted to explain to her that all of the devotions she has been reading are excellent tools to study scripture, but she needed to keep in mind that those devotions are typically about 5 minutes worth of man's interpretations and only one isolated scripture of Bible reading. If she completes all 3-4 of her devotions, she is gaining some great insight into God's Word, but it is all open to human error since it's taught out of context and it is man's interpretation. I suggested to her that it may be better to read God's Word 5-10 minutes every single day and forego the topical devotions if it was too much to keep up with because when we read the Word of God in full context, the Holy Spirit will bring fresh understanding and revelation to our hearts and minds. Ultimately, I told her I would support whatever decision she felt lead to make because I love seeing her growing in God's Word!
As I have reflected on that conversation, it made me recall a comment that one of our Sunday school teachers made a while back. In addition to being a psychologist and theologian, he is also a college professor. After teaching Bible courses to students from all over the world, he discovered that the majority of self-proclaimed Christians are Bible illiterates…I would totally include myself in this category! After much research, he discovered that for the majority of Christians, their entire faith revolves around the 3 point sermons taught on Sundays that focus on one isolated scripture, often taught out of context.
Do the math. There are 52 Sundays in a year. Let’s just say that if a person didn’t miss a Sunday sermon, by the time they are 20 years old, they will have only heard 1,040 sermons by the time they leave the nest. Assuming they stay in church for the remainder of their lives, they would only hear approximately 5,200 scriptural teachings if they live to be 100 years old...and we all know many of those sermons are repeat teachings on the same scriptures! Let’s just say they also did daily topical devotions that focused in on a different scripture each day. 365 devotions every year over the course of 20 years would still only be 7,300 scriptures read. Over a 100 year lifetime, doing daily devotions would expose you to about 36,500 scriptures, but again, we know that many of those are repeat teachings so our exposure is actually less than that. That sounds like a lot of scriptures, but there are a total of 31,102 verses in the Bible!!! I can see how studying one scripture at a time is giving us (those of us who have grown up in church all of our lives) a false sense of knowing God’s Word, when in reality we are missing so much truth.
God’s Word says my people perish because of a lack of knowledge. I don’t know about you, but I want to teach my children habits that will set them up for success! If I know a lack of knowledge will cause them to perish, I want to use the 20 years that I have influence on them to teach them as much of the Word as I can. Just imagine the power of reading 31,000 scriptures every year for the next 10 years...that's 310,000 scriptures that are alive and active being planted into your heart and mind!
So, how will I study the Bible moving forward and how will I teach my children to study God's Word? Are we gaining all of our knowledge of God's Word through other people's interpretations and by studying isolated scriptures? Don't get me wrong...I have gained great insight and have learned SO much through great Bible teachers, books, devotions, and Bible studies. However, I wonder how much more we would know Jesus and how much more victory we would have in our lives if we prayerfully opened up the Bible and read the living and active Word of God for ourselves. Just something I have been convicted of over this weekend. I don't think we need to toss out all of our devotions, but I pray you are challenged to seek the Lord and ask Him to give you personal understanding and revelations as you open your Bible and read the living and active Word of God for yourself. The Holy Spirit is and will always be our best teacher.
