Why Devotional Bible Reading Is Good Bible Reading
Make Communing with God a Priority
Reading the Bible devotionally is just reading the Bible the way it is meant to be read. It doesn’t mean you are reading along in Scripture and trying to bracket out theology or doctrines or truth. We receive the doctrines, think about them, ponder them, and drink them down deeply, but doctrine is actually not itself life giving. God is. Doctrine just gives us the truths of the Bible and a clearer view of who God is.
So to read the Bible devotionally is simply that—to come to the Bible and say, “Who is God?” and “How do I commune with him?” That is what Scripture is leading us to do.
A hundred years ago, when the great German theologian Adolf Schlatter was invited to interview to go on faculty at a German university, he was asked the question, “Do you stand on the Bible?” His answer was, “No, I stand under the Bible.” That's reading the Bible devotionally—when you come to the Bible and say, “Okay, what is here that needs to change me and mess with me, to tweak me and to correct me, to lead me more clearly and more deeply into communing with God?”
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Apart from God, man gets himself into all sorts of spiritually dangerous and eternity-threatening situations.
Engaging with God through the Psalms
The Psalms are meant to invite readers into communication with God.
