Is Bible Reading MORE IMPORTANT Than Church?

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February 1, 2024

Often times the personal study of God's Word is treated as more important than our engagements with the Word in our local churches through the gathering of the saints. Sometimes people might even encourage others to doubt their own salvation or even the salvation of their fellow brothers and sisters if they are one that struggles to make time for personal study. It can also be said that those that dedicate more time to reading the word of God can often be viewed as superior simply because of the amount of time they spend studying their bible. Let us all remember that there is more than o

00:00: If you don't have a desire to read your Bible every single day, then you should question your salvation. I've heard people say that.
00:06: If you are not engaging in God's Word consistently, on your own, by yourself, then there's something wrong spiritually.
00:13: You have to understand is that there's nowhere in Scripture that puts the obligation on the individual that there has to be a certain amount of time that you spend with it individually.
00:22: I think it's beneficial. I think it could be helpful. But God has certain people in certain places in time where they have to depend on the communal aspect of the
00:32: Word because that's about all the time that they've got. Some people just don't do well reading, but when they sit in discussions or they sit under the
00:39: Word, they just blossom in knowledge and faith. And we can't downplay that or make them feel less than.
00:45: You're a weaker disciple because you haven't engaged in seven hours of reading this week.
00:51: Like those three things Scripture commands, right? You know it, you believe it, you obey it. Have we misplaced or misunderstood reading?
01:00: I mean, effectively, what is a better way to think about engaging with God's Word as a
01:06: Christian? I think you know the Word by engaging with it. There's a better way to say it.
01:12: That's exactly right. Reading is just one of the ways that a person might engage with the Word. That's right.
01:18: For, I would say, the first 1 ,600 years of the church's existence, the vast majority of Christians would not have had a copy of the
01:26: Scriptures for their own personal use. Not an entirety one, no. They maybe would have had proportions, but where did they engage most pointedly with God's Word written?
01:37: Well, it was in the corporate gatherings of the church. It was with other saints where they would gather to hear it preached.
01:43: They would gather to hear it taught. They would meet to discuss it. And those are ways that we can and should still engage with the
01:51: Word today. I think a lot of times that is often sort of jettisoned. And the way in which we now grow as Christians, it sounds almost exclusively, if you listen to some people, is through our own personal reading and study.
02:04: And that would be an error. That's right. I love this. Let the Word of God dwell in you richly through songs and hymns and spiritual songs.
02:11: Singing. Wow. Yeah. Let's even redefine how we talk about understanding
02:17: Scripture and engaging with it. It's not just that you can recite a verse from memory. That's great.
02:23: But it's like, do you know the truth about Jesus? Do you understand the law and the gospel?
02:29: Do you understand how the Bible hangs together? Are you aware of the ways in which the Lord would have us live?
02:36: Do you have any understanding of the relationship between your justification and your sanctification? And that's how we should talk about knowing the
02:43: Word. Can you imagine being in a country where there is no healthcare system?
02:49: Yeah. And the healthcare system that is there ends up killing more people than it helps. I could see how you self -medicate and you start learning how to take care of yourself on your own, right?
03:00: I think that's what's happened in the broader evangelical world and the Christian world here in the United States. I'm not even displaying evangelical, but just Christianity in general, in that there has been just a hatchet job done spiritually speaking.
03:12: And people find more benefit out of their own personal study. I would even say off the internet.
03:18: But a lot of people go to church and it's whack, dude. It is. And so just because someone does it wrong, does it mean that this is the better way?
03:26: Hear us encouraging you to engage with the Scripture in every conceivable way. And may we all humble ourselves and acknowledge our need of other believers, whether that's our pastors or whether that's our fellow church members and friends in the faith who can help us to better understand