Week 12 bible reading
I’m reading the story of a man who was executed in Germany during World War II. In one of his letters he talked about bible-reading:
I believe the bible alone is the answer to all our questions and that I only need to ask it repeatedly and humbly for the answers. I’ll only get the ultimate answers
I’m looking for if that’s what I expect to find.
In the bible God speaks to me. I can’t simply figure things out about God using my own unassisted intellectual capacity. I have to ask him and it’s only in asking him that he’ll answer me.
I’ve found that I can’t simply read the bible the way I read other books. I have to be prepared to really ask questions from it. It’s only then that it will reveal answers to me.
Of course it is possible to read the Bible like any other book and there’s nothing to be said against that method. Except for the fact that then I’ll only see the surface of the book. I won’t discover the heart of the bible.
This letter was a good reminder to me. I’m reading to read-through. And I’m reading to discover answers.
Note: quoted by Eric Metaxas in Bonhoeffer: Pastor Martyr Prophet Spy (Nelson: Nashville, 2010) 136. The letter was written more than eighty years ago so I rearranged it and changed some of the language. But I’ve tried hard to keep the message accurate.