Duty or Delight

- by T.M. Moore

I want to insist that you are reading the Scriptures wrong if you’re not reading them daily and comprehensively. You need a plan to help you develop the discipline of setting aside time each day to read, meditate in, and study the Word of God, and to do so in a way that takes you through the whole of Scripture, over and over again.

Perhaps this sounds a bit “legalistic” to you? I’ve been told as much by pastors and church leaders who believe that, if they “wed” themselves to such a “rigid discipline”, as they see it, they’ll just become like the Pharisees of old, doing their duty and checking off their list of good works to prove their righteousness.

Is daily, comprehensive reading of the life-giving, glory-revealing, power-wielding Word of God a mere duty? Are we being “legalistic” by insisting that we’re only reading Scripture right when we read it this way?

It depends… Certainly, Bible reading can become a work of legalism by which we try to prove our “righteousness” and flaunt our “piety.” But just because it can be this doesn’t mean that it must or that God intends it should. What if, rather than being a mere duty, daily and comprehensive reading of God’s Word could become a great delight? This, after all, was how the prophet Jeremiah saw his time in the Scriptures. He wrote, “Your words were found and I did eat them, and Your Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart!” (Jer. 15:16). Job, the greatest man of his day, said that he valued his time in the Word of God more than the meals he took three times a day (Job 23:12). Jesus acknowledged that depending on Scripture is more important than our bodily nutritional needs, as important as these truly are (Matt. 4:4); at any rate, He seems to have taken great delight in all the counsel of God in Scripture.

So it depends on how we approach reading, meditating in, and studying the Word of God. If we approach it as a duty, something we “have” to do, then that’s what it will be. And as a “duty” our discipline of reading will not yield the fruit of transforming grace God intends. Instead, it will only make us smug and self-righteous.

On the other hand, if we learn to delight in the Word and to cherish the time we have to read it, we’re likely to find, like Jeremiah and Job and Jesus, that these moments in the Word of God are the most important, most enjoyable moments of our day.

So how do we get to that mindset?

Seek the Lord!

God is the Lord of the heart; He is able to shape our attitudes and affections when it comes to daily reading in His Word. If we will seek the Lord daily as we come to the Scriptures, looking to Him to help us delight in His Word, we can expect that He will do so, for this is His will for every one of us.

for more by T.M. Moore, visit ColsonCenter.org