“But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

2 Timothy 3:14-15

READ, STUDY, LISTEN, MEDITATE

By Jay H. Graham

From the Chapel Glen Church of Christ Bulletin

To state an obvious fact - The Holy Scriptures are central to our relationship with the Lord in so many aspects. The teach us a great many lessons that we must be aware of and follow. Literally, our very souls depend upon them and our applying them to our daily lives. We walk with God by use of the Scriptures. We worship God in our assemblies and our daily lives of sacrifice by use of the Scriptures. We know of Jesus and His gospel aimed at our hearts and minds. We know of and can be part of Jesus’ church by use of the Scriptures. The importance of these Scriptures can never be overstated.

To state another obvious fact - Realizing how important the Scriptures are to us, it behooves us to learn as much as we possibly can from these Scriptures. This is one reason they are so central to our public assemblies whether in reading, teaching from and being taught from. This also should impress upon our hearts and minds the importance of our using the Scriptures in our private lives, when we are away from the assemblies, when we are in our homes and everywhere we find ourselves.

It has been my observation over the years that the more we use different ways of learning God’s Word in our daily lives, the more easily we can learn and apply these same Scriptures. And there are a number of differing ways to learn the Lord’s Word and will. As a matter fact, I might argue an all-of-the-above approach toward the Lord’s Word is a great benefit to our private lives.

As you may have noted, the title of this article is “Read, Study, Listen and Meditate.” These are all different ways that we can apply ourselves to learning more of God’s Word. Each one of these add a different way to learn and apply the Scriptures to our lives. It is my conviction they all add something different to this goal. And I believe they all, when used in their various applications, can help give us a good overall appreciation of them.

For instance, when I read them, I will very often see something unique about a given passage that I may not have noted or appreciated when listening to that same passage. When I listen to a passage, I can note something different that I may not have noticed when I read or even studied that same passage. And of course, when I actually take time to meditate on what I have read, studied or listened to, that also gives me another level to appreciate a passage. In other words, the principle of “all-of-the-above” has serious potential to help my total understanding of the Word in so many ways.

With all of this said, modern technology has made each of these aspects very easy to attain. Of course we have the most commonly used books (Bibles, the Greek form of the word book) that we physically hold in our hands as we read them. We can also download various translations of the Scriptures onto our smartphones, tablets and computers that allows us to read at our leisure.

Modern technologies also allow us to download audible programs of the Bible. This allows us to listen at our leisure whether at home or in our vehicles, etc. We have numerous resources at our disposal such as concordances, Bible dictionaries, topical Bibles, etc. to help us study God’s Word at our leisure. What marvelous tools we have at our “fingertips” to help us learn of God’s Word that previous generations did not have! What blessings!

I urge you to consider using all of these ways to learn more of God’s Word in your private lives. And I am quite certain you can come up with other additional methods to help you learn and apply this most important and impressive of Books, the Lord’s inspired Word that He has entrusted us with. Let us use everything at our disposal to come to a better understanding and appreciation of God’s Word and accordingly, His will.