Five Things to Do with Scripture

A fellow who had been critical of George W. Truett, one of the great preachers of the first half of the 20th century, finally bit the bullet and went to hear him speak. As he exited the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, a colleague asked what he thought of Dr. Truett’s sermon that day.

“He didn't say a thing I couldn't have said…if I’d thought of it,” was his answer.

My guess is that that assessment is true for most of the sermons we preachers hear and the majority of the articles we read. It’s certainly true of what I’m about to say here.

The Bible is the manual for living the Christian life. It is essential to getting it right. The Scriptures keep us from having to emulate the previous generation's version of Christianity, forcing us to veer farther and farther away from the Truth.

In fact, there is a sense in which by reading and learning and obeying this Word, every person who puts faith in Jesus Christ can be a first century Christian. In that same sense, we are all second-generation believers, since we hold in our hands the testimony of the disciples and apostles who were there at the beginning.

That being the case, it may well be that the greatest error we can make is to take so lightly this written Word of God. With many of us in the Lord's work, we learn its history, know what a treasure it is, brag about it, place copies in the hands of outsiders and new believers, and call ourselves preachers of that Word. The only thing we don't do is to give it the strategic role in our daily lives it deserves.

Here are my top five suggestions on what we in the ministry should be doing with the Holy Word of God.

1) Read It
Christian workers should be looking at God's Word microscopically and telescopically. That is, we will want to study small portions in depth and, at the same time, take in large segments at one sitting. Reading through a book of the Bible at a single sitting, we see trends we would have missed otherwise, people who keep recurring, as well as words and phrases and themes that are not obvious to the casual, occasional drop-in visitor to the Scriptures.

By a regular reading of the Word, God invades our minds, keeps us on track, refreshes our devotion, renews our faith, and constantly pumps new thoughts our way. Nothing helps the believer to keep growing like sitting at the Lord's feet—or at the feet of the disciples as they speak of the Lord—and listening.

2) Read It Publicly…and Do It Well
When I’m in a congregation as a worshiper and the preacher approaches the pulpit to open God's Word, I expect him to show an intimate familiarity with what he’s about to share. If he falters over a word or stumbles over the wording of a phrase, I’m disappointed. It shows he has not done his preparation.

I once heard Jerry Falwell commenting on a basketball game in which Liberty University had beaten a visiting college team. What stunned him about the opponents, he said, was their sorry record “at the line.” When the referees awarded the team a free throw, the players had missed most of the shots. “There's no excuse for that,” Falwell said. “And what it shows more than anything else is a lack of practice. Anyone can hit free throws with practice.”

For the man of God in the pulpit, the “free throws” are the times he opens the Word and reads it to the congregation. And I’m not referring to reading a verse here and a verse there. If he’s preaching a chapter of the Bible, let him read the entire chapter. After all, the Word is far more critical to the lives of his members than anything the preacher is about to say about it.

These days, since congregations are using every version of the Scriptures imaginable and asking members to follow along while the minister reads can be confusing, I will often suggest that they sit back and listen as I read the text. That puts pressure on me to do it well and get it right.

How do you read it well? In your office that week, you should have read that text out loud at least a dozen times or more. Get your tongue used to uttering those syllables in that order. Then, think deeply about what you are reading and choose words that should be emphasized. Speak clearly and slow down—way down. Most of us breeze through the reading as though we can't wait to get finished. Slow down—there's much to be savored here.

As a seminary student a long, long time ago, I sat in chapel one morning and heard Dr. Wilbur Swartz, a professor of speech, read from the first chapter of John's Gospel. It came alive for me that day. I honestly never knew Scripture could unfold in my heart just because the one reading was doing it so well. That day, the standard for my own public Bible reading was reset to Olympic heights.

3) Memorize It
The preacher walks to the pulpit to begin Sunday’s service. Now, this is just a personal thing with me, but I want him to say something inspiring and uplifting. Set the tone for everything we’re about to do this morning.

What I do not want, what absolutely grates on my nerves and threatens to undo everything he says before he utters it, is for him to look out at the congregation and say something foolish or silly. I don't even want a “How’s everybody doing this morning?”

If it was left to me, I’d have every preacher stand at the pulpit and begin the service by reciting (not reading) a couple of verses of Scripture. This requires him to memorize them.

Let him look out at the congregation and forcefully say something like, “I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies….The Lord liveth; and blessed be my Rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted” (you will recognize this as a couple of verses from Psalm 18, which also make up a popular worship chorus).

The Bible is saturated with outstanding worship-service-beginners, everything from “This is the day the Lord hath made” (Psalm 118:24), to “God is Spirit and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).

How do you memorize? In two words: constant repetition. It’s how we learn the words of hymns or pop tunes. Anyone can do it. Only the lazy preacher will refuse.

4) Think about It
“In His law doth he meditate day and night,” said David in Psalm 1.

In his provocative Eat This Book, Eugene Peterson suggests that believers should do with the Word as his dog once did with a bone. The mutt came out of the woods dragging a large bone he had found, perhaps from a moose. For days, he chewed and gnawed on that object until he had ingested every bit of it.

Peterson uses the word “worrying,” which my mother would appreciate on the Alabama farm. You “worry” at something until it breaks open and gives up its contents.

As a young pastor and seminary student, I had a one hour drive back home after classes each afternoon. One day I decided I would read a verse of Scripture at a traffic light and then reflect on it for the rest of the trip. The Bible opened at Matthew 18:21-22, where Peter asks if he should forgive his brother seven times and Jesus said, “Until seventy times seven.”

I thought, “Well, there's not much there. It seems to say what it means.” Yet, because I had committed myself to think only about that text, I kept reflecting on it. Soon it hit me. If the Lord expects us to forgive an unlimited number of times—and scholars agree that was His point—surely He is willing to forgive me to the same extent.

I thought of all the times we come sheepishly to the Lord to confess the same sins we confessed the day before and the day before that. Soon we begin to think, “The Lord is disgusted with me. He’s not going to forgive the same sins over and over again.” As a result, we quit even mentioning those failures in our prayers. It’s one reason we quit praying altogether, I expect.

Reflecting on that text that day provided a needed correction for me. The forgiveness of the Lord is the gold standard of mercy. How blessed we are, and how generously we should pour out the same grace upon others. “Freely you have received,” Jesus said, “freely give” (Matthew 10:8).

5) Give It Away
If “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God,” and according to Romans 10:17, it does, then the best thing I can do for my inquiring friend is get him or her to read Scripture. If “we are born again not of corruptible seed...but of the living and abiding Word of God” as 1 Peter 1:23 declares, then we will want to give away Bibles and Scripture portions generously to the community at large. If we “are clean through the Word,” as Jesus said in John 15:3, then we should do all in our power to help our church members stay in the Word.

Pastors do well to get their churches to support the scripture distribution of the Gideons, a wonderful international ministry of dedicated laymen and their wives which is devoted to just this purpose.

I suggest encouraging our members to bring in all those unused Bibles around the house so they can be given to the community. Put a box in the foyer where they can be placed. Go through them and take out the Bibles missing covers and the ones published by cults. Then, slip into each Bible a leaflet on how to know Christ and an invitation from your church. Erect a sign in front of the church announcing “Free Bibles, Saturday, 2-4 p.m.” and watch what happens.

If this is indeed God's Word as we claim, the best thing we can ever do is to read it and obey what we find there; the second best thing is to get everyone we know to do the same.

Joe McKeever is a retired Southern Baptist pastor from New Orleans, Louisiana. He blogs regularly at www.joemckeever.com.