{"id":13225,"date":"2024-11-04T08:45:41","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T14:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/?p=13225"},"modified":"2024-11-04T08:55:59","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T14:55:59","slug":"13225","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2024\/11\/13225\/","title":{"rendered":"When reading Scripture, you must do this one thing."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Don Whitney<\/em><\/a>, 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, <\/em>Simplify Your Spiritual Life: Spiritual Disciplines for the Overwhelmed<\/a>. 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.<\/em><\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal of both our exposure to and absorption of Scripture should be our application of Scripture. God commanded Joshua to meditate \u201cday and night\u201d on the law of God left to him by Moses, so that Joshua would \u201cdo<\/em> according to all that is written in it\u201d (Joshua 1:8, emphasis added).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, in the New Testament we find: \u201cBut 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\u201d (James 1:25, NASB). The blessing of God in this passage is not promised to those who merely look at\u2014that is, read\u2014God\u2019s Word, but to the \u201cone who looks intently,\u201d 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. . . .<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s Word, say to yourself, \u201cI won\u2019t close my Bible until I can prayerfully think of at least one way to apply what I\u2019ve read.\u201d <\/strong>Such mental scouring of the Scripture for an application is meditation, or at least one form of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So as you reflect on the text, do you perceive something God would have you . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n