The 8-year-old politely turned down the gift. “I’ve already read it,” he said waving off the small Gideon-style Bible presented to him by the church volunteer.
Most of the other children participating in the summer camp accepted a copy of the Bible, some even visibly enthusiastic about receiving one.
But the kid who had “already read it” caught my attention. What did he mean exactly?
I’m fairly certain he wasn’t being literal, but I do wonder what parts and how much of the Bible he had read or at least engaged with in some way.
Did his quick brush off indicate he wasn’t interested because he didn’t get much out of it?
Different perspective
Or was it merely a sincere notion that he decided he knows the basic premise and thus doesn’t need to know any more?
After all, he didn’t say he had a copy of the Bible and that’s why he was turning it down. He indicated he didn’t need a copy.
A few weeks later, I heard from a college student who shared how she had experimented with trading out her normal Scripture-reading time for reading through news and information from a Christian media outlet.
The information was helpful and seemed like a fair trade off at first, she said.
Time with Jesus
However, she soon realized she should have added the news and information reading to her day rather than swapping it out with her time in the Word.
“It is crazy how much of a difference personal time with Jesus makes in your life and that was made extremely apparent these past few weeks,” she shared.
Two students with more than a decade in age difference between them shared simply and sincerely what reading the Bible means to them.
The younger didn’t seem to see how he could discover anything more than what he already knew from God’s Word.
The older was desperate to continually soak up all the new insights and desired to read it over and over.
Seasons of life
As I thought about the two perspectives, I recalled how I’ve matched both throughout various seasons of life — as well as fallen somewhere in between.
How often have I skimmed a Scripture passage because of its familiarity? I already know what it says and have the general gist of what it means, so why slow down to ruminate on it this time?
Some days it seems hard to fit in focused time with the Lord, and sometimes we convince ourselves we really have learned all that God wants to teach us, especially if we have spent years in church life.
But the reality is that each time we read and meditate on the Word, we are allowing it to grow deeper into our hearts and minds. We are edging closer to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and understanding more about Him.
Fresh encounters
No matter how many times we read through and meditate on the Word, the Holy Spirit remains ready to enlighten us to what we need to grasp in that new moment — which may be entirely different from what popped out the last time we were in the same passage.
Still, it takes discipline and an appetite for seeking the Lord at a level where we truly anticipate Him speaking directly to us and showing us something specific we need for that day.
Consistent time in the Word also means putting it ahead of other ways we spend our time.
Similar to how we might follow a routine of adding an extra glass of water to our day for every soda, tea or coffee we drink, we could also plan to spend the same amount of time reading or listening to the Bible as we do watching YouTube videos or binge-watching a TV show.
Takes courage
It also takes courage because what He highlights for us might not match our personal plans or preferences and then we must wrestle with how to proceed.
In a world where scalability is the goal and automation is the routine, engaging God’s Word with full knowledge that it’s going to shake up our next steps might easily sway us to agree with that 8-year-old I met recently.
After all, we’ve read the Bible — or at least some of it — so what’s the point of continually re-reading it? Shouldn’t we understand it by now?
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Jennifer Davis Rash, president and editor-in-chief of TAB Media Group. This editorial will appear in the May 8 edition of The Baptist Paper. Click here to subscribe.
