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Prayerlessness About Bible Study Reveals Our False Beliefs

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Samuel Martins (2018), public domain

Christians pray for friends and loved ones who are ill. We ask for protection when we are traveling. We thank God for the food he provides, and we teach our children to pray before bed.

But many Christians take a more cavalier approach to prayer when it comes to the Bible. And our prayerlessness is telling.

Our actions reveal our hearts, and a resistance to (or forgetfulness about) praying before studying God’s word exposes at least three false beliefs about the Bible.

The Bible is Ordinary

In much of the global west, we have an abundance of access to the Bible—multiple translations, cheap physical copies, and free digital versions. As a result, many of us regard the Bible like any other paperback lying around the house.

Instead of a supernatural encounter with the God of the universe, we treat reading the Bible as ho-hum and ordinary. Bible reading becomes one of many daily tasks, like making our bed or drying the dishes.

If we consistently take up the Bible without prayer, we believe it is nothing special.

The Bible is Simple

The essential truths of the Scriptures are plain, but we often treat the Bible as a grade school grammar book. We give it ten minutes of our attention and try to harvest a lesson for the day.

If this book really is God’s word, and if we really have an invitation to the depths of God’s work and his desires for his people, then we cannot understand it on our own. Our minds are too finite, our hearts too fallen. We need God’s Spirit to teach us (John 14:26).

When we neglect prayer before we study the Bible, we believe God’s word—and maybe God himself—is easy, obvious, and elementary.

The Bible is Powerless

We who are Christians have already been changed through God’s word. To paraphrase Paul in Galatians, how could we think we would grow in some other way (Gal 3:1–3)?

We treat the Bible lightly—or don’t pick it up at all—and we wonder why we continue in the same selfish patterns year after year. We shrug at the long, Bible-lite plateau in our Christian growth and think, “Huh, that’s weird.”

God’s word is at work within believers (1 Thess 2:13). But casual, erratic encounters with the Bible—instead of regular, strengthening spiritual workouts—are like turning an exercise bike into a clothes hanger. We’re neglecting a powerful resource.

If we don’t pray when we open God’s word, we don’t believe God can use it to change us.

Repent and Believe

Because God is a loving father, he doesn’t withhold good things from us, even when we screw up. Occasionally forgetting to pray before reading the Bible is no reason for despair.

But if we consistently come to Scripture without talking to God, we are in dangerous territory. It may be pride or unbelief that is driving our silence.

God is generous and kind. He loves to forgive us and turn us around. We can—we must—bring even our prayerlessness to him.

Preaching the Work of the Holy Spirit

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The campus ministry I serve, DiscipleMakers, recently held its annual Fall Conference in Harrisburg, PA. Our topic this year was the Trinity, and our keynote sessions worked their way through Ephesians 1.

Of particular note was the talk on Eph 1:13-14 on the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is often either the most forgotten or the most misunderstood member of the Trinity. And my colleague Dave Royes did an exceptional job explaining the person and work of the Spirit from this text in Ephesians.

This talk is exceptional for a number of reasons. David’s presentation, of course, is compelling. And his handling of the text (his skill in Bible study) is both expert and imitable. You can, in fact, try this at home in your own Bible study:

  • He observes the grammar and structure of the passage, landing the weight of his interpretation where the author places weight.
  • He takes his observations and interrogates them with insightful interpretive questions to figure out the meaning.
  • He correlates the text with many other Scriptures, particularly following the organic connections signaled by allusion or echo.
  • He applies the text quite personally and specifically to head, heart, and hands.

Here is world-class Bible study, which I eagerly commend to you for both nourishment and imitation.

You can find more audio and video from the conference here. Check it out!

Why We Study the Bible

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Why should we study the Bible?  Couldn’t we just listen to God’s voice inside us?  Even if we ought to use the Bible, shouldn’t we just read it, expecting the meaning to become apparent?  Doesn’t all this “Bible study” stuff get in the way, slow us down, quench the Spirit?

Let me give some reasons why it’s important that we learn how to study the Bible:

1.  Knowing Jesus is eternal life

Jesus said it himself in John 17:3.  He wants what’s best for us, and what’s best for us is for us to know him.  He prayed accordingly the night before he was killed.

2.  The whole Bible is about Jesus

Jesus said it in Luke 24:44-47.  Phillip realized it early on (John 1:45).  Peter declared it much later (1 Peter 1:10-11).

3.  The Bible was written that we might know Jesus and have eternal life

Romans 15:4, John 20:30-31, 1 Peter 1:11-12, Rev 1:1.  It’s an old book, but it was written with you and me in mind!  It wasn’t written to us, but it was written for us.

4.  God thinks it’s noble when we examine the Bible to know Jesus better

Paul explained the main point of the Bible in Acts 17:3.  Some Thessalonians rejected this message (Acts 17:6-7), but the Bereans eagerly searched it out in the text of the Bible (Acts 17:10-11).

5.  It takes hard work to understand the Bible

Some parts are hard to understand, and those who are untaught or unstable will distort them (2 Peter 3:16).  We must be taught well and given a stable foundation if we are to understand the Bible and know Jesus.  Granted, many parts of the Bible are abundantly clear (John 14:6, Acts 4:11-12), yet they, too, are commonly twisted.

6.  We need God’s Spirit to understand the Bible

Our sin and rebellion against God infects everything about us, even our thinking.  No amount of hard work and no foolproof method will guarantee that we interpret the Bible rightly.  Countless universities have courses taught by learned professionals who miss the whole point (see #1-3 above).

But when we trust in the Jesus revealed in the Bible, we receive God’s Spirit, who helps us to know Jesus better (1 Cor 2:6-16).  Those who believe have access to the very mind of Christ because they have his Spirit.

On this blog, we want to help you know Jesus.  We do that by helping you learn to study the Bible.  Let’s keep working to master the methods, but above all, let’s keep our focus on Jesus as we do so.