Reflections

Getting the Best out of the Bible

How can we use the Bible to obtain the maximum benefit from its pages? Approach it in an attitude of prayer. As you take it in your hand, recollect that it is an inspired book and just as it required Divine inspiration to write it, so  requires Divine inspiration to write it, so it requires Divine inspiration to understand it.

The you must read it unhurriedly.However restricted your time, your reading of the Bible, (if it is to yield spiritual profit) must be without haste. There is little value in scanning a portion of God's Word, then quickly diverting the mind to something else. Better one text taken in at leisure than a whole chapter hurriedly scanned.

Then read it with an inquisitive mind, Ask yourself two basic questions."What did this portion of Scripture mean at the time it was written?", and "What does it mean to me at this present moment?" Sometimes, of course, the two answers will coincide. Sometimes the answer to the first question might elude us, while the answer to the second will have deep personal impact. The practice of opening the Bible at random and receiving the first word one reads as a personal message from heaven is to be discouraged. God sometimes speaks in this way when our hearts are deeply troubled or overwrought, but it is more the exception than the rule. Gog guides most those who read His Word most.