A life of daily reading

Daily bread

When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, he answered with the words of Deuteronomy:

But Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Matthew 4:4

Those words first belonged to the story of the manna (Deuteronomy 8:3). God rained bread from heaven, and "Each day the people are to go out and gather enough for that day" (Exodus 16:4). The word is like that: not knowledge stored up once, but bread received each day. The blessed man of Psalm 1 delights in the law of the LORD, and "on His law he meditates day and night" (Psalm 1:2); Joshua was told to keep the Book of the Law in his mouth and meditate on it day and night (Joshua 1:8).

Daily reading is not a score of how devout we are. If you miss a day, open it again the next. The Westminster Shorter Catechism of the Presbyterian churches teaches how the word is to be read and heard:

That the Word may become effectual to salvation, we must attend thereunto with diligence, preparation, and prayer; receive it with faith and love, lay it up in our hearts, and practice it in our lives.

Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 90

The question before it says that the Spirit of God makes the reading, but especially the preaching, of the word an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up Q. 89. The Bible read at home and the sermon heard on the Lord's Day belong together.

Three ways

There is reading through the whole Bible. In 1842 Robert Murray M'Cheyne, a minister in Dundee in Scotland, gave his congregation a calendar of daily readings: four chapters a day, so that in a year they read the Old Testament once and the New Testament and the Psalms twice Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Calendar for Daily Readings. Reading the whole lets you see the context of each verse and the one great story. If four chapters are too many, start with one a day. On the map under the Jesus tab, ‘Mark as read’ on a chapter adds it to the chapters read in each book.

There is reading one passage slowly. Around 1150 Guigo II, prior of a Carthusian monastery, pictured the reading of Scripture as a ladder of four rungs: reading (lectio), meditation (meditatio), prayer (oratio) and contemplation (contemplatio) Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks. You read a short passage slowly, ponder a phrase that has caught you, turn it into prayer, and rest quietly before God. Today this is called lectio divina, sacred reading, and Catholic monks and lay people walk this way, as do many other Christians. Martin Luther's prayer, meditation and trial came up in Reading with prayer and the Spirit's light, and the Westminster Larger Catechism, too, asks that Scripture be read ‘with meditation, application, self-denial, and prayer’ Q. 157.

There is reading together. God set his word in the home:

These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts. And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7

Paul writes, "Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom" (Colossians 3:16). The Larger Catechism says all are bound ‘to read it apart by themselves, and with their families’ Q. 156. The first churches heard Scripture read aloud, and Revelation blesses "the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy" and those who hear (Revelation 1:3). Read a chapter aloud with your family, or read the same passage in a small group at church and share what you saw.

On dry days, and back to the chariot

There are days when the word seems dry. The psalmist, too, prayed, "My soul cleaves to the dust; revive me according to Your word" (Psalm 119:25). On these verses Matthew Henry, the English minister, writes, "It is unspeakable comfort to a gracious soul, to think with what tenderness all its complaints are received by a gracious God" Matthew Henry, Psalm 119:25-32. Dryness is not proof that you have no faith, and the Lord's mercies "are new every morning" (Lamentations 3:23). On such a day, read a single psalm aloud and pray its words back to God. Tell someone you read with, or ask your pastor.

This course began with a question in a chariot. Philip asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" (Acts 8:30), and the official asked in turn whom the prophet was speaking about (Acts 8:34).

Then Philip began with this very Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

Acts 8:35

Observation, interpretation and application, reading each kind of book as it is, cross-references, commentaries and the original languages: all of it is for this one step, to begin from the text and come to Jesus. The Scriptures testify about him, and we come to him to have life (John 5:39-40). The official was baptised and "went on his way rejoicing" (Acts 8:39). A life of daily reading walks the same road.

Try it

Open Acts 8 on the map again. In the map under the Jesus tab, open Acts and tap chapter 8: the ‘One-line summary’ and ‘Notes’ you wrote in the first lesson are there. Read them first.

Read verses 26 to 40 as the course has taught you. Observe who reads what and who asks what; tap verse 32 and find the place in Isaiah in Cross-refs, and read around it. Then ponder one phrase of verse 35 and pray with it. Add to your Notes, for example: ‘v. 35: begins with the very Scripture and tells of Jesus’.

Write a new one-line summary, and choose where you will read tomorrow. Compare it with the one you first wrote. Then, whether M'Cheyne's calendar or one chapter a day, settle where and when you will read tomorrow, and invite someone to read with you if you can.

Practice