Hello all! Here is part 2 of Spiritual Disciplines, I'm covering chapter 2 today. I will probably do a portion of the Voice of the Martyr's book in my next post. :-) Be sure to read the previous posts on Spiritual Disciplines, before reading this one!
Title: Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life
Author: Donald S. Whitney
Published: 1991 by NavPress
Background Information: Donald Whitney is the associate professor of spiritual formation at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminar in Kansas City Missouri. He is the best-selling author of Simplify Your Spiritual Life, Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health, and How Can I be Sure I'm a Christian? (all that was taken from the back the book)
Since 2005, Don Whitney has been Associate Professor of Biblical Spirituality at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he also serves as Senior Associate Dean. Before that, he held a similar position (the first such position in the six Southern Baptist seminaries) at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, for ten years. He is the founder and president of The Center for Biblical Spirituality. (all of that was taken from the website mentioned below) You can learn more about Donald Whitney and his resources at: http://biblicalspirituality.org/
Spiritual Disciplines, Chapter 2, entitled "Bible Intake (Part1)...For the Purpose of Godliness" (all bold emphasis is my own)
In chapter two, the author starts out by telling us about a mission trip he took to East Africa in 1989. He tells us how he's been overseas enough to know that: "many customs I have come to identify with Christianity will clash at some points with the culture of our hosts." (p. 27) However, he writes about this particular experience how he was unprepared for how the professing Christians acted there. He writes: "Theological understanding was a scarce as water, the disease of doctrinal error as common as malaria." (p. 27) The reason for this, we learn, is that no one had a Bible! He writes: "not the pastor, not a deacon, no one. The pastor had only half-a-dozen sermons, all half-baked over the coals of a few Bible-story recollections. Every sixth week came the sermon." (p. 27) Occasionally a missionary came and presented some Scripture. The author and the others who were on the mission trip all pitched in to purchase Bibles and they led Bible studies.
He then writes: "Most of us shake our heads in pity at such sad conditions. It's hard to imagine that many of us have more Bibles in our homes than entire churches have in some Third-World situations. But it's one thing to be unfamiliar with Scripture when you don't own a Bible; it's another thing when you have a bookshelf full." (p. 28)
He goes on to tell us that "No Spiritual Discipline is more important than the intake of God's Word" (p. 28). He writes some more about the importance of Bible intake and then says: "My pastoral experience bears witness to the validity of surveys that frequently reveal that great numbers of professing Christians know little more about the Bible than Third-World Christians who possess not even a shred of Scripture." (p. 28)
He again writes how Bible intake is the most important discipline, and he says that it is also the most "broad." He then writes: "Let's examine the "colleges," or subdisciplines, of Bible intake, proceeding from the least to the most difficult (p. 29).
The easiest discipline he writes, is hearing God's Word. He quotes Luke 11: 38 and Romans 10:17 to emphasize this. He says that: "There are other ways we may discipline ourselves to hear God's Word in addition to the most important way, which is hearing it preached as part of a local church ministry. (I say this realizing that some do not have the opportunity to hear God's Word through the ministry of a local church.)" (p. 30)
He suggests other ways to hear God's word is through radio and tapes. (or using the Internet, downloading ipod sermons, mp3, etc. This book was written in the early 1990s, so there are many other ways to be able to "hear God's Word" today than there were then)
He continues on writing about how it is important to for us to hear God's Word, and says: "If someone says, " I don't need to go to church to worship God; I can worship Him on the golf course or at the lake just as well, if not better than in church," we may agree that God can be worshipped there. But the ongoing worship of God cannot be separated from the Word of God. We are to discipline ourselves to go and hear the Word of God." (p. 30-31) He then writes briefly about how we should "prepare" ourselves to hear the Word of God. He gives a good example of this, he writes:
"For a while a congregation of Korean Christians used our church building for their midweek service. I was impressed by the way they entered the worship center. Whether they were first to arrive or came in after the service had already started, they immediately bowed in prayer for several moments before arranging their belongings, unbuttoning their coat, or acknowledging the presence of anyone else. This served as an effective reminder to their own hearts and to everyone else of their main purpose for that time." (p. 31)
He concludes this section by saying: "So hearing the Word of God is not merely passive listening, it is a Discipline to be cultivated." (p. 31)
His second section of Bible Intake deals with Bible Reading. He starts out by emphasizing the importance of reading the Bible. He writes: "How often should we read it? British preacher John Blanchard, in his book How to Enjoy Your Bible, writes,
Surely we only have to be realistic and honest with ourselves to know how regularly we need to turn to the Bible. How often do we face problems, temptation, and pressure? Every day! Then how often do we need instruction, guidance and greater encouragement? Every day! To catch all these felt needs up into an even greater issue, how often to we need to see God's face, hear his voice, feel his touch, know his power? The answer to all these questions is the same: every day! As the American evangelist D.L. Moody put it, "A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough for the next six months, or take sufficient air into his lungs at one time to sustain life for a week. We must draw upon God's boundless store of grace from day to day as we need it." " (p. 33)
Don Whitney then gives us three practical suggestions for Bible reading.
1. Find the time (he then gives us several examples of how the Bible can be read in a year and ways to do that. If you are interested in the details of what he said, email me, and I'll post them) He suggests to do your Bible reading the same time every day, and not just before you go to bed. That way, you will be able to retain more and he says "you probably do very little evil in your sleep." (p. 34) :-)
2. Find a Bible-reading plan. He gives suggestions of finding a plan at a Christian bookstore, ask your local church for a plan, and he says that "reading three chapters every day and five on Sundays will take you through the Bible in a year's time." (p. 34) He also gives some more suggestions, and again, if you want the details, email me. :-)
3. "Find at least one word, phrase, or verse to meditate on each time you read." (p. 34) He will get more into meditation in another chapter, but he does say that "you may close your Bible and not be able to remember a single thing you've read. And if that happens your Bible reading is not likely to change you." (p. 34)
He also gives another great example from a book called The Wonder of the Word of God, by an evangelist, Robert L. Sumner.
In this book, a man's face was badly damaged by an explosion, he lost his eyesight and the use of his hands. This man had just become a Christian and was disappointed that he could no longer read the Bible. "Then he heard about a lady in England who read braille with her lips. Hoping to do the same, he sent for some books of the Bible in braille. But he discovered that the nerve endings in his lips had been too badly damaged to distinguish the characters. One day, as he brought one of the braille pages to his lips, his tongue happened to touch a few of the raised characters and he could feel them." (p. 35) This man was able to read the Bible with his tongue! When the book "The Wonder of the Word of God" was written, this man had read the Bible through four times!
Don Whitney concludes: "If he can do that, can you discipline yourself to read the Bible?" (p. 35)
His third part in Bible intake deals with, studying God's Word. He uses Ezra, Paul, and the Bereans as examples of who studied the Word of God. He tells us if "Paul needed it, surely you and and I need it and should discipline ourselves to do it." (p. 36) He then says:
"Then why don't we? Why do so many Christians neglect the study of God's Word? R. C. Sproul said it painfully well: "Here then, is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God's Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy."" (p. 36)
Whitney then tells us that the main difference between Bible reading and Bible study "is simply a pencil and a piece of paper." (p. 37) He gives some suggestions to write down observations, record questions that come to your mind, look up cross-references, find key words and look them up in a concordance, outline chapters and books. He concludes:
"Don't let a feeling of inadequacy keep you from the delight of learning the Bible on your own." (p. 37)
He ends the chapter with a few more applications, he asks two questions:
"If your growth in Godliness were measured by the quality of your Bible intake, what would be the result?" (p. 37)
and is final application question is:
"What is one thing you can do to improve your intake of God's Word?" (p. 38)
He concludes with a quote from a booklet called "Reading the Bible, by a Welsh pastor, named Geoffrey Thomas.
"Do not expect to master the Bible in a day, or a month, or a year. Rather expect often to be puzzled by it's contents. It is not all equally clear. Great men of God often feel like absolute novices when they read the Word. The apostle Peter said that there were some things hard to understand in the epistles of Paul (2 Peter 3:16). I am glad he wrote those words because I have felt that often. So do not expect always to get an emotional charge or a feeling of quiet peace when you read the Bible. By the grace of God you may expect that to be a frequent experience, but often you will get no emotional response at all. Let the Word break over you heart and mind again and again as the years go by, and imperceptibly there will come great changes in your attitude and outlook and conduct. You will probably be the last to recognize these. Often you will feel very, very, small, because increasingly the God of the Bible will become to you wonderfully great. So go on reading it until you can read no longer, and then you will not need the Bible any more, because when your eyes close for the last time in death, and never again read the Word of God in Scripture you will open them to the Word of God in the flesh, that same Jesus of the Bible whom you have known for so long, standing before you to take you for ever to His eternal home." (p. 39)
Hope you enjoyed this second portion! Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts, or how you apply some of the things he wrote about. Have a great day!
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