BIBLE READING - PROFITABLE AND PLEASURABLE

What Do Your Reading Habits Reveal?

If you have trouble keeping to your Bible-reading schedule, it might be appropriate to ask yourself: 'What impact might my reading or TV-viewing habits have on my ability to read Jehovah's Word? Remember what Moses wrote-and Jesus repeated-that "man must live, not on bread alone, but on every utterance coming forth through Jehovah's mouth." (Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3) Just as we need to eat bread or its equivalent every day of our lives in order to sustain our physical body, we likewise need to absorb Jehovah's thoughts daily to maintain our spirituality. We can have access to God's thoughts each day by reading the Scriptures.

If we appreciate the Bible, "not as the word of men, but, just as it truthfully is, as the word of God," we will be drawn to it just as a baby craves milk. (1 Thessalonians 2:13) The apostle Peter made that comparison, writing: "As newborn infants, form a longing for the unadulterated milk belonging to the word, that through it you may grow to salvation, provided you have tasted that the Lord is kind." (1 Peter 2:2, 3) If we have truly tasted, by personal experience, that "the Lord is kind," we will develop a craving for the Bible reading.

It should be noted that Peter in this passage used the analogy with milk differently from the apostle Paul, for a newborn baby, milk meets its full nutritional needs. Peter's illustration shows that God's Word contains all we need to "grow to salvation." Paul, on the other hand, uses the need for milk to illustrate the poor feeding habits on the part of some who claim to be spiritual adults. In his letter to Hebrew Christians, Paul wrote: "Although you ought to be teachers in view of the time, you again need someone to teach you from the beginning the elementary things of the sacred prouncements of God; and you have become such as need milk is unacquainted with the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to mature people, to those who through use have their perceptive powers trained to distinguish both right and wrong." (Hebrews 5:12-14) Attentive Bible reading can do much to develop our perceptive powers and to stimulate our appetite for spiritual things.

Next time: How to Read the Bible

Watchtower, 2000