Early in my faith journey as a Christian (remember I am an adult convert), I used to pick and choose my favorite passages of scripture to read. If the words were too hard, the thoughts too violent, or the ideology to difficult to understand, I would pass it by. Thankfully, this stage didn't last very long. I had some really great teachers that taught me the importance of the entirety of the scriptures. While these words belong to someone I have never met, they contain the premise that was shared with me in many small groups and inductive Bible study sessions:
Today's prayer - God, be with us in our reading of your word. Itndifficult and challenging places in your texts, grant us wisdom, knowledge and discernment beyond our normal capacity that we may be drawn deeper into the story and closer to you. Grant that your Holy Spirit would be with us in each and every reading and that we may leave our times of reading and study with you changed by the texts we have encountered. Amen.
"The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian."
-Aiden Wilson Tozer
Today's prayer - God, be with us in our reading of your word. Itndifficult and challenging places in your texts, grant us wisdom, knowledge and discernment beyond our normal capacity that we may be drawn deeper into the story and closer to you. Grant that your Holy Spirit would be with us in each and every reading and that we may leave our times of reading and study with you changed by the texts we have encountered. Amen.
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