“The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul… They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb…. In keeping them there is great reward.” (Psalm 19:7-11)
The Bible loves the Bible.
From one end to the other, God’s word tells us how wonderful is God’s word. Better than gold and sweeter than honey it is. Job said, “I have esteemed the words of Thy mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12).
We preachers believe this. And we say those words to our people. We like our people to bring their Bibles to church, open them as we read and preach, and use them when they return home.
There is nothing wrong with our aspirations in this regard.
When it comes to connecting our people with God’s word personally to the point that they will become ardent readers and diligent students of Scripture, we should give ourselves a C-minus, however. And sometimes, an F.
Without any study to back it up, I say categorically that the typical member of our churches–those who fill your pews each Sunday and are your best supporters, pastor–takes his Bible home and does not open it until the next time you rise to preach.
There is something bad wrong here. As a general rule, we pastors are doing a poor job of encouraging our flock to love the Word and live in the Word so that they might live “by” the Word. That is the point after all. Jesus said, “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (John 13:17). It is the doing of the Word which is our goal (James 1:22).
Question: In what ways are we dropping the ball? How are we failing to encourage our people to love God’s Word and to live in it?
We’ve pinpointed seven ways. You may think of more.
1) A pastor discourages his people from opening their Bible, reading it, and loving it when he overdoes the Greek and Hebrew bit.
You know the routine. The pastor reads a verse, then says something like, “Now, the Greek does not say that. This verb in the Greek is a past pluperfect intransitive and when coupled with an indirect object of the active preposition means ‘sometimes but not always.’ So, the translators got it wrong here.”
You want to run out the door screaming.