Getting Into God's Word

^‘Everything in the Scriptures is God’s Word. All of it is useful for teaching and helping people and for correcting them and showing them how to live.’ (2 Timothy 3:16 CEV)

Let’s be honest, we all know that as Christian’s reading the Bible is something we should do every single day, but the reality is that many of us don’t. Research conducted by the Bible Society revealed that 35% of Christians claim to read the Bible daily, and 25% several times a week, but that still leaves 40% of Christians unaccounted for!  For a small but significant number of Christians, the only time they get to read the Bible is when they attend a service in church.  It’s important to remember that the Bible is meant to be bread for daily use, not cake for special occasions!

Fortunately with modern technology, it has never been easier to have access to Scripture. You can now download for free numerous differentversions of the Bible onto your tablet or smart phone, many of which come with helpful reading plans. Then there are helpful apps such as ‘Pray As You Go’ (click here for the android app, and here for iOS app) which provide a daily reflection on a passage of scripture, and for children there is the excellent ‘Bible App For Kids’.  There are also numerous Bible reading notes available, which you can have posted directly to your home.

To enrich my own study of the Bible, I have recently purchased the complete NIV Audio Bible narrated by David Suchet (available from Amazon). This 80 hour recording comes on six MP3 CD’s, which you can transfer onto your computer, smartphone, MP3 player, or tablet, so you can listen to it when and wherever you like. 

We’re used to the Bible being divided into chapters and verses, but that wasn’t how the Bible was written. Chapters were only introduced in the thirteenth century and verses in the sixteenth century.  Rather than listening to the Bible in small bite size chunks (a few verses here and there), I’m using the audio CD’s to listen to longer sections of the Bible. This I find is giving me a new appreciation of scripture, and opening up the word of God in a new and wonderful way.  It’s not taken the place of reading the Bible by myself, but I find it complements my study of scripture, and it is something that I would commend to others, especially if you are someone who finds reading the Bible difficult.

However you read the Bible, the important thing is that you do it, and remember that the primary purpose of reading the Bible is not to know the Bible but to know God.

God bless

Simon