Receiving The WordSample

Study the Word. 

“Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near” (Revelation 1:3). 

“Blessed is he who reads,” John says. Does this mean we should read “a verse a day to keep the devil away”? Hardly. Anyone who picks up the Bible with this idea is using it as a good-luck charm, not as the authoritative Word. 

John is not just encouraging us to glance at some words on a page. He has much more in mind. In the Bible, reading has to do with understanding what God has to say to you. The idea is not that you would read and then not know anything about what you just read, or read and say, “There, I read my verse or my chapter for today.”

The idea of reading is to grasp God’s message to us, to give diligence to our study of the “word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). The Greek word translated as “Be diligent” in this verse means that when you open the Word, you give yourself fully to it. You devour it the same way you devour a love letter. You take the Bible seriously. 

There is a good example of this kind of desire for the Word in 2 Timothy 4:13. Paul was old, he was in prison waiting to die, and he was cold and lonely. Here was a man who had been to the third heaven, who had seen things no one else had seen (2 Corinthians 12:1-4). 

But what did Paul want more than anything in that damp prison cell? “When you come,” he wrote to Timothy, “bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments” (2 Timothy 4:13).

These parchments were Paul’s copies of the Old Testament. In other words, Paul was alone, cold, and friendless, but he wanted the Scriptures. He knew that God’s Word would supply everything else he needed. Paul wanted to study the Word even in prison.

Are you simply reading the word or are you studying the word for a deeper knowledge and understanding of Christ? 

To learn more about the power of the word, download an mp3 of a full length sermon from Dr. Tony Evans. Simply click here.