One of the things that I love about the religious tradition in which I was raised is the emphasis placed on the individual relationship with God and on individuals reading and studying the Bible themselves. I am always disturbed when someone says they don’t know what they believe about something, that they’ll need to ask a pastor, rabbi, or priest to find out. After all, how can anyone possibly believe something if they don’t know what it is? My pastor is fond of telling his congregation to read the Bible passage he’s discussing and make sure that he’s telling us the truth. This is one of several reasons I appreciate his teaching.

This emphasis on studying and knowing scripture is clearly biblical. In Acts 17, the Berean Jews are praised for examining scripture to see whether the teaching of Paul and Silas was true. Jesus often focuses on believing in his words. In one example during his final words to the disciples before his death, in the midst of talking about our need to abide in him, he says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7 ESV). The word “abide” here means to dwell in or inhabit.

Lately, I’ve been struck by a particular verse on the topic of knowing the word of God:

Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. I John 2:24 ESV

I John 2:24 ESV

If God’s word abides in us, then we will abide in him. What power and assurance!

But it raises the question: What does it mean for God’s word to abide in us? It cannot be a matter of simple book knowledge. Certainly, I know people who can spout scripture but have hearts that seem far from God, and I suspect you do, too. 

James provides some thoughts in his discussion of hearing and doing:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

James 1:22-25 ESV

The Bible does not talk much about just reading God’s word. Instead, we see a focus on meditating on it, delighting in it, hiding it in our hearts. The goal is not just to know what God says, but to interact with it. 

Last summer, I participated in some professional development training on designing a college course. I was going to be teaching a course for the first time in 18 years and thought the training would be helpful for keeping me on track in getting prepared. I also thought I might gain some useful insights. One of the first steps was to come up with a “transformational goal”: a statement describing how my students should be changed by completing my course.

Here’s a reality of all college teaching (of all teaching, really): even if I pick the best possible materials and give amazing lectures, my students will not change unless they do something with the course material. We tend to talk about student engagement as a key goal of good teaching: if students engage with the material, they will learn it, and it can change them.

The same is true of scripture. While God’s word has power that my textbooks and lectures never could, we must engage with it in order for it to transform us. We must consider (even question), wrestle with, accept, and act on what we read and hear. Then instead of washing over us, the truths of scripture will sink roots into our hearts, truly abiding in us, and enabling us to abide in God.

We are told to drink of the living water, not just shower in it.

Photo by Jacob Buchhave on Unsplash