Jesus, facing his testing in the wilderness prior to his public ministry, was tempted by the devil to turn stones into bread. He’d been fasting for quite some time and I imagine this would have been quite the strong temptation. But Jesus replied to the tempter, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4 ESV). Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 8:3. Moses was reminding Israel that God, indeed, had provided manna for their sustenance, but even manna is not enough. Physical bread is necessary for survival, but the Word of God is what sustains us in the life and love of God.
It’s ironic that in Jesus’ exchange with the devil, the devil himself had been quoting scripture. It goes to show that knowledge about God’s Word is not enough. We need knowledge about God’s Word. The only way to gain this knowledge is by reading it. But it takes more than a mere knowledge of what God says.
For the devil, the Bible is merely a tool to be manipulated to get what he wants. For Jesus, the Bible is the life-giving Word that feeds our souls in the presence and purpose of God. This is a fundamental difference in posture toward the Scripture.
When you think about how you “use” the Bible in your spiritual growth, how are you approaching the Bible? For some the Bible is a foreign set of books that has little intersection with their daily life. They hear from people like me that they need to feed on the Word and so they start reading, checking off the box and moving on to the rest of their day. But this approach has limited appeal and benefit.
While the Bible is foreign to us, written by a group of people living in a very different time in a far away place in varied cultural settings that are quite distinct from our twenty-first century, Western context. So, there is that gap to bridge. But even more than that, the Bible is the Word become text, the self-revelation of a God who cares and loves us and chose to reveal himself universally through specific people groups in a specific location at a specific time. The Word is living and active (Hebrews 4:12). The Word is dynamic.
This is where posture counts. How do I come to the text? To manipulate it? To stand over it and use it for my purposes? Or do I come hungry, desiring to know God and submit to his loving leadership?
When you approach the Bible with a heart to know and love God, the Holy Spirit meets you there and the Word become text can be the Word become flesh in you to speak to and through you about and to a world searching for redemption, wholeness, and justice. We need physical sustenance. But, we need a nourishment that’s deeper, that’s life-giving, that speaks to our hearts as well as our minds, and opens up to us the way of life. Approach the Bible with an open-heart and a willingness to obey and watch what God does in and through you!