Don Whitney, author of several NavPress books, is the John H. Powell Endowed Chair of Pastoral Ministry at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Here are several short, practical posts from his always-timely book, Simplify Your Spiritual Life: Spiritual Disciplines for the Overwhelmed. In these selected excerpts, Whitney will help us consider ways to simplify our journaling, our prayer, our Christian life in general, our priorities, and our time in Scripture. In this post on reading Scripture, Whitney challenges us to do this one thing before finishing our daily reading.
The goal of both our exposure to and absorption of Scripture should be our application of Scripture. God commanded Joshua to meditate “day and night” on the law of God left to him by Moses, so that Joshua would “do according to all that is written in it” (Joshua 1:8, emphasis added).
Similarly, in the New Testament we find: “But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does” (James 1:25, NASB). The blessing of God in this passage is not promised to those who merely look at—that is, read—God’s Word, but to the “one who looks intently,” who meditates on what he reads. The blessing does not come, however, until this meditation matures into application. . . . For it is only in the doing (applying) of Scripture that we become more like Christ and bring the most glory to God. . . .
One simple way of combining our responsibility both to meditate on and apply the Bible is this: When you encounter Scripture, search for at least one application of it. For example, when reading God’s Word, say to yourself, “I won’t close my Bible until I can prayerfully think of at least one way to apply what I’ve read.” Such mental scouring of the Scripture for an application is meditation, or at least one form of it.
So as you reflect on the text, do you perceive something God would have you . . .
- Stop?
- Start?
- Believe?
- Confess?
- Pray about?
- Thank Him for?
- Communicate to someone?
We cannot expect the Bible to advance our transformation without meditation and application.
DONALD S. WHITNEY
DONALD S. WHITNEY (under photo, link to https://biblicalspirituality.org/)
Don Whitney holds the John H. Powell Endowed Chair of Pastoral Ministry at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he is professor of biblical spirituality and the director of the Center for Biblical Spirituality. He is the author of several books.