Day Seven - Increase our Faith in your Word

Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

                  There are times when the important things get set aside in our day because there are so many pressing, urgent matters that need attention.  We have a desire to read the Bible every day,  but because tasks must be done in a timely manner,  we put aside the time that we need to read a portion of God’s word and resign ourselves to reading a snippet,  a verse,  or a paragraph,  just enough to say we did it. 

The Bible needs to be read in different ways.  First,  it needs to be read devotionally,  as part of a prayer language where we pray through the scriptures asking God to speak to us in the passage before us.  Obviously,  a snippet hinders God’s ability to speak in a way that would guide us around obstacles in our lives. 

Secondly, we need to read the Bible as with a microscope.  This kind of reading requires time,  reference books and a way to take notes.  We look up topics throughout the Bible,  and we look at each word in a dictionary to understand the meaning of a passage.  In the first two types of Bible reading,  we don’t go through large passages.

There is a third way to read the Bible.  It is like using a telescope.  It is stepping back and getting the big picture.  This may involve learning the background of a book,  the author,  the theme,  the time it was written and who it was written to.  A telescope looks at details of a much larger picture than a microsope.  This kind of reading places a large amount of Bible before us and a one time reading through an entire book or passage.  This kind of reading helps us to know how each book and each verse fits into the whole.  We read,

1 Timothy 4:13 Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.

In the time of Nehemiah,  the people all stood while Ezra the priest read out of the book of the law.

Nehemiah 8:2  And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month.

3  And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.

You will notice that this reading lasted a long time.  There was a great revival among those people because the Bible became big in their lives. 

An Exercise to increase our Faith:  Choose a book of the Bible and read it through at one sitting.  Make sure you set aside enough time to finish the book.  The purpose of this exercise is to see the book in its entirety to understand more of the author’s purpose and passion for writing it.