Some may be discouraged from reading the Bible because they do not understand everything or remember what they read. We should not be disappointed that we cannot remember what we have eaten of the word. Whether or not we remember, the word gets into us.
We may think that we receive only knowledge when we come to the Bible. Actually, when we read the Bible, we should not try to understand everything with our mind. Striving to understand everything will frustrate our receiving of the nourishment from the holy Word. Instead, we need to exercise our spirit. We should not care for how much we understand or remember but for how much we are nourished.
When we come to the Bible, we should not only read but also pray. Instead of composing a prayer, we can simply use the verses we read as the words of our prayer. For instance, if we are reading John 1:1, we can pray, “Lord, in the beginning was the Word. O Lord, was the Word. Amen. Oh, the Word, Amen.” This is pray-reading.
Pray-reading in this way is spiritual eating. Repeating the words of the Bible can be likened to chewing one’s food to receive nourishment. We should practice this every morning. When our morning time is finished, we will go into our day with the nourishment we have received from God’s breathing. This nourishment will remain in us the whole day, sustaining, enlightening, and watering us. Sometimes this nourishment will comfort us. According to my experience, this nourishment will sometimes speak to me throughout the day. My morning nourishment brings me into God’s presence for the whole day. We have a desperate need to practice this constantly. We need to regard our contact with the Lord in the morning through the word as more important than our breakfast. Our spiritual breakfast is more important than our physical breakfast. Reading the Bible and having a morning time with the Lord are life necessities, just as eating, drinking, breathing, and sleeping are life necessities for our physical life. Early in the morning before doing anything else, we need to come to contact the dear Lord through the word. We should consider that this is a life necessity.
The burden in this chapter concerns the healthy word. In the two Epistles to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus the word healthy is used six times to describe God’s divine word (1 Tim. 1:10; 6:3; 2 Tim. 1:13; 4:3; Titus 1:9; 2:1). These Epistles were written at a time when the church was in degradation, and at such a time some teachings and doctrines are not healthy. Because the church is in degradation today, many teachings in Christianity are not healthy.
The word healthy implies two elements. Negatively, there is an element that kills germs. Every day our body is fighting against germs. The physical life is a struggle between the human life and germs. Similarly, there are spiritual germs from which we must be constantly protected. Therefore, healthy teaching is full of antibiotics—the germ-killing element. Positively, there is the nourishing element. By these two elements we are made healthy. The healthy word is not a doctrinal shell but rather is the truth. The healthy word and the healthy teaching are the truth, containing the killing element and the nourishing element.
First Corinthians 1:18 mentions the word of the cross. The word of the cross is the killing word. Every chapter of 1 Corinthians contains the word of the cross, because the believers in Corinth had been deceived and brought into contact with spiritual germs. Each chapter of 1 Corinthians concerns a different problem in the church life. Every problem was a disease. Because the Corinthians were full of germs, they needed the spiritual antibiotics in the word of the cross, the killing word.
Philippians 2:16 mentions the word of life. Philippians is full of the word of life, the nourishing word. For example, in 1:20 and 21 Paul says, “Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death. For to me, to live is Christ.” Another example is 4:13, which says, “I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me.” Thus, in the Bible there are two kinds of words: the word of the cross and the word of life. The word of the cross is the killing word, and the word of life is the nourishing word. On the one hand, the healthy word kills the germs in us; on the other hand, the healthy word nourishes us.
The word of God is actually composed of three elements—Christ, His death, and His resurrection. The basic ingredients of the Bible are not stories or doctrines but Christ, His death, and His resurrection. When we read the Bible, if we pick up only stories or doctrines rather than Christ, His death, and His resurrection, our Bible reading is in vain. Regardless of what chapter or verse we read, we should always take in and enjoy the three basic ingredients—Christ, His all-inclusive death, and His resurrection.
The first few verses of the Gospel of John do not mention the death or resurrection of Christ, but if we eat the healthy word by pray-reading these verses, the result will be that the germs within us will be killed, and the weaknesses within us will be swallowed up. This is a killing produced by the killing element of Christ’s death in the word. As we continue pray-reading, we will be supplied with life by the same word, which also contains the nourishing element of Christ’s resurrection. This is the Christian life—a life of receiving killing and nourishing from our God through the Word.
The proper reading of the Bible always transmits a killing element into us. If we do not receive any killing when we read the Bible, our reading is in vain. Our physical eating similarly enables our body to kill the germs in us. If we do not eat properly every day, we will quickly become sick from many germs. As long as we eat well and regularly, we do not need to take antibiotics. Through our eating we will naturally have the killing element. In the same principle, every time we read the Word, we receive a killing element. Actually, it is not we ourselves but the negative things within us, such as our natural life and our flesh, that are killed.