How Much Money to NOT read your Bible?
by Joe Leavell
Photo by Alexander Mils from Pexels
If I could offer to give you $5 right now for you NOT to spend time reading your Bible today, would you take it? How about $10,000?
What’s your price?
We know what we’re “supposed” to say in response to those questions but let me ask it a bit differently. What if we limited it to just certain books of the Bible? What if we give you $10,000 and you wouldn’t have to ever read them again? What if it the book was, say, Leviticus?
Tempting, I know.
How Much is Scripture Worth?
In Psalm 19:10, King David beautifully communicates to God the value and worth he placed on God’s Laws. He says,
“More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold…”
Did you know He was talking about God’s laws that are written in, ironically, the book of Leviticus? My guess is that David would not take any amount of money offered to not read Leviticus ever again because he calls the laws written in those Old Testament books more desirable than even “much fine gold.”
How much money would be required for you to be willing to lay aside your Bible depends directly on how high of a value you place on it. Conversely, how much value you place on Scripture depends directly on how much you love and value the God who wrote it and gave His words to you.
The prophet Jeremiah communicated his desire for God’s word when he said in Jeremiah 15:16,
“Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.”
The word “ate” has the idea of devouring or consuming something. Like when you find your favorite food at a buffet, Jeremiah couldn’t get enough of Scripture, so he binged on it until there was nothing left to read. Again, at that point in time, all Jeremiah had to read was the Law and most of the Old Testament. I can’t think of the last time I binged through Deuteronomy or Numbers.
The command to read the Bible every single morning isn't in Scripture...it's meant for so much more. Meditating day and night. Throughout Scripture, you find example after example that those who love God hang on His every Word.
Switch it Up
How about we switch the question a bit? How much would you pay in order to even have a Bible to read? How hard would you work to be able to have even one Bible accessible to you? How valuable is God’s Word to you really? For much of Christian history, reading a Bible could even cost you jail time or worse and translating the Bible into your language could get you killed.
Even today, in parts of the world, having your own Bible is either illegal or so very rare. For example, watch these Chinese believers’ reaction as they receive their first Bible:
In our culture, we are overly spoiled with various Bibles in different translations with countless commentaries, books, software and all kinds of resources at our fingertips. Yet there is no advantage to us having God’s Word if we never read it over those who do not have it at all. How much money would you accept for not reading the Bible would be a pretty low threshold if you rarely, if ever, spent much time in its pages.
Keeping the Bible in Biblical Counseling
There is a reason we are called “Biblical Counseling of Arizona.” Scripture holds the very words that tell us about Jesus, the Giver of eternal life. It is a mirror that the Holy Spirit uses to reveal our sin and demonstrates our need for the Gospel, not just in salvation but for changing us into the image of Christ. The Bible gives us everything we need to live in a way that honors Him in His wisdom. In this way, because it is a letter of love given to us by the God who gave Himself up for us, we cherish Scripture.
This doesn’t mean that we worship the Bible as our God, but as a gift of love that we cherish because it is breathed out from our loving Father. It is a revelation of Himself to us.
Our desire is to unashamedly counsel people from this book. We want to help people understand why they should delight in reading, understanding, loving, and obeying the God that clearly makes Himself known to us through the words of the Bible. You may be surprised how much those Gospel themes show up even in the book of Leviticus.
“‘Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.’”
For Further Reading:
https://www.navigators.org/resource/how-to-study-the-bible/
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/four-things-happen-when-study-leviticus-ten-years
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/daring-to-delight-in-leviticus
How to Eat Your Bible: A Simple Approach to Learning and Loving the Word of God - by Nate Pickowicz
