Peeling Back the Covers of God’s Word
“Bible engagement is peeling back the covers of God’s Word to discover the hopes and promises of the Bible and discovering what God has to say to you, no matter what your situation; that results in hearts changed, lives transformed and an unrelenting drive to be like Jesus to this broken world.”
Forum of Bible Agencies – North America
Connecting with God’s Word is foundational and imperative for God’s people. “Get them (the Scriptures) inside of you and then get them inside your children” Deuteronomy 6:7 (MSG).
So how do we get the Scriptures inside of us and inside of our children, ie., how do we engage with the Bible? While this question will be answered in multiple ways throughout the chapters that follow, this chapter will help us understand what we mean by the term “Bible engagement.”
Bible engagement is the process that connects us with the Bible so that we have meaningful encounters with Jesus Christ in order for our lives to be progressively transformed in Him.
To elaborate: Bible engagement happens through the course of our lives as we find our part in God’s Story. For Bible engagement to happen we must first come together with and develop a vital relationship with Christ. The relationship begins and proceeds by grace and through faith as Christ saves us from sin and sanctifies us by the Spirit. Bible engagement is evidenced through ongoing obedience to God’s Word that’s seen in life-changes that take place individually and in community.
According to James 1:17-25 there are four actions involved in Bible engagement:
- Receive God’s Word – “humbly accept” James 1:21.
- Reflect on God’s Word – “looks intently James 1:25.
- Remember God’s Word – “not forgetting” James 1:25.
- Respond to God’s Word – “doing it” James 1:22-23, 25.
To effectively receive, reflect, remember and respond to God’s Word there are several things we need to know:
- Bible engagement flows out of an intimate reciprocating relationship with Jesus. The motivation for reading, reflecting, remembering and responding to the Word is only as strong as our love for Christ. The more we love Jesus, the greater our drive to engage with His Word will be.
- Bible engagement is a process. There are no shortcuts. It involves what the scholar and author Eugene Peterson, calls “a long obedience in the same direction” – a course of action that’s repeated over and over again through the ups and downs of life.
- Bible engagement involves desire. When our desire to read, reflect, remember and respond to the Word is greater than staying where we are, we’ll be on the way toward regular and consistent engagement with the Word.
- Bible engagement requires discipline. Daily choices about how we prioritize our time must be made in order to grow stronger in our engagement with God’s Word. Praying or hoping for a better connection with the Bible is futile if we spend our time glued to the TV or consumed by social media.
- Bible engagement is fulled by the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit who inspired Bible authors to write, inspires Bible readers to understand and accept it, as God’s Word,” says David Jackman, president of the Proclamation Trust. Self-efforts to improve our engagement with the Bible will end in failure. We’ll only mature in reading, reflection, remembering and responding to the Word when we seek the daily filling of the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). Real Bible engagement is initiated and enabled when we recognize our impotence – then invite the Holy Spirit to equip us as we listen, learn and live out God’s Word.
- Bible engagement is a challenge. The enemy of God, Satan, does not want us to engage with the Bible. The spiritual forces of darkness work actively to distract, divert, daunt, deceive or defeat us when we seek to read, reflect, remember and respond to God’s Word.
- Bible engagement results in action. In the Parable of the Sower the climax of the story comes when people “hear the word, accept it, and produce a corp” Mark 4:20. When reading and hearing the Bible results in people becoming living epistles, i.e., being life words, then Bible engagement has occurred. Producing a crop is the ultimate goal. It’s not enough to hear the Word and accept it; the inward must become outward – the concealed must be revealed.
Content from Bible Engagement Basics, credit Lawson, SU Canada
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