“Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly…” (Colossians 3:16)
As we continue to reflect on the shape of a Christian prayer life using the Daily Office as our guide, we are working the angles of that shape, meditating on the different aspects and priorities of prayer. I have written to you in previous weeks about being present to God as we come to prayer, humbly confessing our sins, and lifting our hearts in praise. Today, I want to reflect with you on the next stage of the Daily Office, which is the Scripture lessons.
Every day, during Morning and Evening Prayer, we will spend significant time with the Word of God—one or more Psalms, an Old Testament and a New Testament lesson. If you are using the Daily Office lectionary, you can work through all of the Psalms in two months (there is a one-month option as well!), and you will work through the entire Bible in one year (or, you can choose the two-year option!). In the Daily Office, these readings are interspersed with canticles of praise, making it clear that reading God’s Word is not a practice distinct from prayer, but they must go together. We read and study and meditate on Scripture so that we can pray God’s words back to Him, and allow them to form us.
Whether you are using the Daily Office lectionary or not, let me strongly encourage you to have a reading plan for Scripture, and to stick with it every day. There is no shortage of Bible reading plans you can find, and you can make the choice to go as quickly or slowly through the Bible as you’d like—there is no one right way to read the Bible. But have a plan in place where you are working through the entirety of Holy Scripture, because it is primarily through His Word that God speaks to us.
Second Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” This is the inspired, unfailing, unerring Word of God, given to us to reveal His love, His will, and His salvation being worked out in us and in the world. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, all Scripture is pointing toward and fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and it is the Lord’s communication of His heart to you.
God’s Word contains all things necessary to salvation (Articles of Religion, 6; Jerusalem Declaration, 2), and it is authoritative for us. It is the ultimate guide for how we want our hearts and lives to be shaped. The puritan John Owen wrote,
“We should always read, and hear, and teach the word, and meditate upon it, with this end and design, that in our whole souls and lives, in all that we are and do, within and without, we may be conformable thereunto.”
Owen is saying here that this is the Word that we want to conform ourselves to in all things, to submit ourselves to as it forms and transforms us.
So, we do not approach this like any other book, but it is Holy Scripture. When we give our attention to it, and read it alongside the same Spirit that inspired the text, it is a holy moment. We read with the eyes of faith, seeking to understand God’s heart and who we are in the light of Scripture. We want to be conformed to it, to submit our lives and worldviews and theological priorities ever to the Word of God.
When you read the Word, ask the Holy Spirit to read with you, and speak to you through it. Ask Him to draw your attention and your heart to what He wants to speak to you. You probably won’t have a mind-blowing revelation every single time, but you are forming yourself in the habit of allowing the Word to form you. But you should feel free to not rush through reading, and take time to pause when the Spirit stirs you or shines a light on a word or phrase or idea, and talk to God about it. Speak God’s word back to Him, even as He is shaping you by it.
When you are daily in the Word of God, expect it to change you. Expect it to confront you. I saw an anonymous quote recently that said, “I have read the Bible and found many errors, all of which were in me.” I love that. Through Scripture, expect the Holy Spirit to convict you, to draw you deeper into the heart of the Father, and to conform you more and more to the character of Christ, in big ways and small ways. For the Spirit that inspired these texts is the same Spirit living now in you. And He loves you.
Let the Word of Christ dwell in you deeply. Feast on it daily, as your daily bread, because “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4). Yield yourself to God’s word, and let it form you, because it is the Word of God that does the work of God in us.
I’ll close with one of Thomas Cranmer’s most famous Anglican collects, which we pray on the 2nd Sunday in Advent, but is useful for any time you read the Bible:
Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Amen indeed.
For Your Reflection
- If you have not made daily Bible reading a habit in your life yet, what will it take for you to do so?
- How do prayer and Scripture reading typically interact for you? Do you find them going together in your heart and your practices, or do they stay separate?
- Reflect on the Holy Spirit inspiring these words of Scripture through their original authors, and inspiring the Church to assemble the canon of Scripture just how God wanted to pass it down to us. The same Spirit lives in you, and is speaking to you even now through these words.
- Ponder one or two moments in the past where the Scriptures have come alive for you, and God spoke to you very clearly through a verse, a story, or a psalm in a powerful way. Give thanks for this, and ask the Lord to give you ears to hear from Him more in His word.