I recently put a challenge out to read through the Bible in a year. One of my friends had already started and it is so inspiring to hear that. A while ago I was speaking to a minister who said that it wasn’t a good idea to read through the Bible in a year because then you don’t have the time for in-depth study. It made me think about all the times I have started something very enthusiastically and someone came along and threw cold water over it. A remark made by a person, no matter how well-meaning it was, has the capability of causing your plans to die a sudden death. It literally feels like you’ve been told that you are on the wrong track and that you should rather follow the road everyone else is taking. On the topic of reading the Bible and how to read the Bible, I have found the following:
2 Timothy 3:16-17, All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
It says ALL scripture is breathed out by God and profitable. It doesn’t say that Scripture is profitable when it is studied in small sections, or only when it it memorised.
Don’t allow people to put you off of anything that you want to do; that thing that’s in your heart that you believe God put there and that is your passion. I was speaking to a lady yesterday who said that her brother was so artistic and his dream was to study art. Their mother refused to allow him to do it because she said all artists struggle, and that he had to study for an academic degree. The result is that he studied, found a job, and years later he still does not practise art at all. My daughter told me yesterday that a woman who was due to retire at the end of next month had a heart attack and died. She was very stressed in her job. I couldn’t help thinking that she possibly had some kind of passion which had been suppressed and it made me so sad to think about all the lost potential. Maybe she should have been a ballet dancer or an astronaut. Who knows? And its too late for her now. We have to realize that what people think, their opinions, have to be weighed carefully. We cannot just accept every word spoken by people. Remember that just like us, they also sometimes say things that they haven’t thought about carefully. Also, things that work for me, may not work for you. We cannot generalize, especially when it comes to personal preferences. Each person is unique, no two are the same and we need to respect that. Just because a lawyer or a doctor earn a lot of money, doesn’t mean we should all try to become, or encourage our children to become doctors or lawyers. Each person has worth, and is worthy of their own destiny that was ordained by God before the beginning of time. Who are we to decide for others how they should do things.
Isaiah 51:12, I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass…
We are not allowed to be afraid of the opinions of people. We can take them into consideration, and in prayer ask God if He has a hand in what they are saying, but we are not to allow them to keep us from what God has for us.
Isaiah 40:8, The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
Colossians 3:16, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Getting back to the way we read the Bible, yes, we are to teach each other what the Word says, and definitely share scripture and what God is saying to us, but we cannot tell someone that they aren’t reading the Bible correctly when they are really making a concerted effort. Some people will not read through the whole Bible in a year just because it isn’t their way of doing it. Others will read vast amounts daily and eat the words like sweets. That’s just the way it is.
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