Matthew 22:31; Luke 10:26
Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God?
How readest thou?
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): There is grave reason to believe that much of the Bible reading and study of the last few years has been of no spiritual profit to those engaged in it—that this has been so is evident by the fruits produced.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): I am afraid that most Christian congregations nowadays do their systematic and prayerful study of the New Testament by proxy, and expect their ministers to read the Bible for them and to tell them what is there.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): The causes of this deficiency of Scriptural knowledge are numerous and various. In many cases, the lack of a biblical education contributes to it…There is, with many, a more culpable cause; I mean a systematic neglect of the Scriptures. “What!” they exclaim, “will head knowledge do for us? we are for experience; experience is everything in religion.” What kind of experience that is, which is not founded on knowledge, I am at a loss to conceive! With such people, ignorance appears to be the mother of devotion.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): It is too seldom that people read the Bible. There certainly is not that reading of it that there used to be.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Reading the Bible is essential to the attainment of sound Christian knowledge.
BROWNLOW NORTH (1810-1875): Never neglect daily private Bible reading.
ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): I have found it good to appoint set times for reading the Scriptures; and none have been so profitable as part of the season appropriated to private devotions, as rising in the morning. The mind at this time is reinvigorated and unencumbered.
C. H. SPURGEON: Have you no time to read your Bible?
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Get up a quarter of an hour earlier and you will have time to read your Bible. It will be well worth the sacrifice, if it is a sacrifice.
THOMAS BRADBURY (1831-1905): You read your Bible every day, you say? Well! that is good so far as it goes.
J. C. RYLE: How do you read it?
A. W. PINK: No verse of Scripture yields its meaning to lazy people—it is only by carefully and earnestly searching the Scriptures, by a systematic and continuous pondering of them, that we can discover “all the counsel of God.”
J. C. RYLE: I fear there are many parts of the Word which some people never read at all. This is, to say the least, a very presumptuous habit. To this habit may be traced that want of broad, well-proportioned views of truth, which is so common in this day. Some people’s Bible reading is a system of perpetual dipping and picking. They do not seem to have an idea of regularly going through the whole book.
C. H. SPURGEON: Is there any part of what the Lord has written you have never read?
J. C. RYLE: Read all the Bible, and read it in an orderly way.
GEORGE MÜLLER (1805-1898): It is of immense importance for the understanding of the Word of God, to read it in course, so that we may read every day a portion of the Old Testament, and a portion of the New Testament, going on where we previously left off. This is important because: It throws light upon the connection; and a different course or reading, according to which one habitually selects particular chapters, will make it utterly impossible to ever understand much of the Scriptures.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): I know not a better rule of reading the Scripture, than to read it through from beginning to end; and, when we have finished it once, to begin it again. We shall meet with many passages which we can make little improvement of, but not so many in the second reading as in the first, and fewer in the third than in the second: provided we pray to Him who has the keys to open our understandings, and to anoint our eyes with His spiritual ointment. The course of reading today will prepare some lights for what we shall read tomorrow, and throw a farther light upon what we read yesterday. Experience only can prove the advantage of this method, if steadily persevered in.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): I am afraid we do not read the Bible like that any longer, do we? We want just a little word to help us. We want a nice little thought to start the day. We just want something before we offer up our brief and hurried prayer, before we rush off.
J. C. RYLE: I believe it is by far the best plan to begin the Old and New Testaments at the same time—to read each straight through to the end, and then begin again. This is a matter in which every one must be persuaded in his own mind. I can only say it has been my own plan for nearly forty years, and I have never seen cause to alter it.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: I am a great advocate of schemes of Bible reading, but we have to be careful that in our use of such schemes we are not content just to read the portion for the day and then to rush off without thought and meditation. That can be quite profitless.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Beware of reading the Bible as a dead form—as a piece of religious routine.
J. C. RYLE: The mere formal reading of so many chapters as a task and duty, without a humble desire to be taught of God, is little better than a waste of time. Let us read our Bibles in private more, with more pains and diligence.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: It takes time to read Scripture properly. You must stop, and look, and think.
JOHN NEWTON: Join frequent assiduous reading with close and awakened meditation.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): We should read with a view to self-application—inquiring how it bears upon our own character and condition.
C. H. SPURGEON: Have we, any of us, omitted to do this? Let us begin at once.
THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest, and strongest Christian.
GEORGE MÜLLER: It often astonishes me that I did not see the importance of meditation upon Scripture earlier in my Christian life. As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time unless he eats, so it is with the inner man. What is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God—not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe. No, we must consider what we read, ponder over it, and apply it to our own hearts…To read a part of Scriptures, previous to prayer, I have found to be very useful. As reading assists prayer, so prayer assists reading.
ANDREW FULLER: I have also felt the advantage of being able to pause, and think, as well as pray; and to inquire how far the subject is applicable to my case, and conduct in life.
THOMAS BROOKS: Remember, it is not hasty reading, but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that make them prove sweet and profitable to the soul.
