What Is a 'Quiet Time' For?

I grew up in an evangelical church. The folk there believed the Bible. They had worship, Sunday school and a youth group as regular events along with the occasional special something. I suppose that it had a good reputation as an evangelical church. But no one ever told me that it would be a good idea if I regularly read my Bible. That didn’t happen until I went off to college. I was involved in a Christian campus ministry. That’s where someone finally told me that reading my Bible was a good habit. So, that’s what I did. Each morning I had what our group called a ‘quiet time’. And doing that was really good. But I had this persistent question which, I suppose, reflected an aspect of my personality which is still with me. ‘Why am I doing this? What’s the goal? What am I trying to accomplish?’ I read little booklets on the topic of the ‘quiet time’. I read articles about it. I looked for an answer to my question. But I never found an answer. And that bothered me. I wanted to have an answer for that so that I could work at this ‘quiet time’ thing in the right way and, as a result, achieve the goal, whatever it might be. But I found myself quite frustrated. I wasn’t finding an answer. 

For any of you who might find yourself in a similar situation, I’d like to offer what I hope will be a helpful answer. To do that we’ll need to ask a different question. What’s the goal of the Gospel? There are many good answers to this question, depending on the particulars that you are looking at. Here’s one of them: to have our communion with God restored. Sin destroys communion with God. This is shown quite graphically with the first sin. Adam and Eve enjoyed God’s special presence in the Garden. But that was lost because they sinned. Communion with God was destroyed. Jesus has come to restore that communion. And His work of restoration will be completed after our resurrection when we see God face to face. His work will be completed then, but He is working at it now. 

And that gets us to this ‘quiet time’ or whatever you want to call it. (I call it ‘morning prayer’.) It’s our time to enjoy a taste of communion with God. It won’t be as good as it will be later. But it can get to be very good. That means that this time isn’t about reading your Bible so you can learn stuff from some passage of Scripture, aka ‘education’. And it isn’t about working through the next few names and items on your prayer list. It’s about enjoying a bit of communion with God. To be sure, reading and thinking about Scripture just might be a part of this, as long as it is about communion and not mere knowledge. And obviously, there will be prayer. But it will be a kind of prayer that is about being and feeling close to God. 

Now, it’s true that with an ‘educational’ quiet time you can tell yourself that you learned something new from your Bible reading. And you can check off some items on your prayer list. As a result, you can tell yourself that you made some progress and feel good about the time you spent. But progress toward what? Remember, a key goal of the Gospel is for you to enjoy God. That will take something more than Bible education and a prayer list with lots of check marks. It will take spending time communing with God.

Care of Your Soul and Bible Reading?

I think that it is quite eye-opening when you notice that something isn’t in the Bible when you really expected it to be there. So, consider caring for your soul. And then, ask yourself whether you are supposed to read your Bible to do a good job of that. What’s the right answer that we’ve all heard – and some of have passed on to others? Read your Bible – every day! However – and this can be quite surprising – I have yet to find a verse or theme or pattern in the Bible that calls for the saints to give themselves to Bible reading, daily or otherwise. If such a practice is a key to a healthy soul you'd expect to see it called for in Scripture – and that fairly clearly. But it's not there. 

Consider Psalm 119. This is a psalm that extols the glories of the Scriptures as God’s instruction for living. You'll find exhortations about keeping it, treasuring it, meditating on it and learning it. But you'll never find the call to 'read it' or anything like that. The Bible does not command the saints to read their Bibles.

If this is true, then how are we to care for our souls?

Consider the other end of the spectrum. What you do find lots of times and in lots of places? The call to prayer. There's the verse that teaches us to 'pray without ceasing'. Then, there’s Jesus' statement, 'when you pray…'. There are also examples of people who prayed. Besides the obvious example of Jesus, James refers to Elijah as a praying man and calls the saints to imitate him. And then, there are lots of examples of prayers. Most of the Psalms are prayers. And don’t forget the Lord's Prayer which is presented as a model for us to follow. It's pretty clear that the saints are to pray. 

This is why I said in an earlier post that one key discipline for a healthy soul is prayer.  

Now, an important question. Does this mean that we need not care about getting as much Bible into us as possible? Are we to forget about Bible intake? 

I hope that the answer is obvious. 'No!' It’s true that the Bible doesn't command believers to read it. But that’s not to say that Bible intake is unimportant. The issue here is not about the importance of getting as much Bible into your soul as possible. The issue is about how to go about doing that. 

There’s a theme from Scripture that deals with how the saints are to get more Bible. Here are some expressions of it.

Then [Moses] took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” Exodus 24:7

And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them. Joshua 8.34,35

So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. Nehemiah 8.2,3.

The Bible prescribes a way to get lots of Bible, and it is a way that has not been stressed nearly as much as personal Bible reading: weekly worship with the saints.

God knows that we need the Bible, lots of it. But instead of commanding that we read it on our own He calls the saints to assemble to hear the Word read and explained. The prescribed way of getting lots of Bible is not solo reading but weekly worship with the saints.

This explains why I wrote that the care of a soul includes these two Spiritual disciplines: daily prayer alone and weekly worship with the saints. I suspect that the notion that personal Bible reading is what really counts for a healthy soul comes from the cultural influence of American individualism. That's why we expect to find that practice commanded in the Bible. This is another indication that God views us as a group as well as individuals – and maybe more as a group than as individuals.

All of this says something about the role of a pastor as Bible teacher of his church and the structure of a worship service. It seems to me that a pastor should imitate Ezra, the scribe. 

For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. Ezra 7.10

Study it, do it (put it into practice) and then teach it. Imitating Ezra in these things is indispensable if one is going to be a faithful pastor. And that makes sense when you realize that the primary way that the saints are to get lots of Bible is as they assemble on Sundays to have it read and explained to them by their pastor.

Then, consider what Paul wrote to Timothy as he pastored a church. 

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. 1 Timothy 4.13

This says something about what happens during Sunday worship services. It seems that there should be a good bit of 'the public reading of Scripture'. My sense is that there is less and less of this these days. If that’s true, it would be a shame.

Until there was no remedy

I read this during this morning's Bible reading:

But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy. (2 Chronicles 36:16)

I was struck by the last phrase, 'until there was no remedy.' There comes a point when not even God will forgive. His only option is wrath - even when it comes to His people. How sobering.

Psalm 39.4

O Jehovah, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
Let me know how fleeting I am!

Something To Ponder

Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
  you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
  and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
  but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalms 73:23-26

Growing in Piety: The Bible

2 Timothy 3.10-17

Last week I talked to you about piety. And I did that in the context of talking about goals for our church. I said that we would not succeed unless we were a pious people. I also told you that in the following weeks we would be considering the tools that the Spirit uses so that we might grow in piety, the Spiritual disciplines. Today, we look at the first of those tools, the Bible and we do that asking a simple question. How is the Bible to be used to grow piety?

Let's start with a popular model of how to use the Bible. This is not really stated in black and white, but more assumed, especially among Reformed types. It goes something like this. You need to get to know your Bible because it has information that you really need - for the test. And so, the Bible becomes something like a textbook for that class that you're taking. As a result, you are tostudy it with some diligence. Maybe you underline important parts that you want to remember, or you take notes in the margins or maybe even fill a special notebook with thoughts and questions about what you're studying. And then there are the Cliff notes written by the experts. There is information in that Bible that you had better get. After all, the big exam is coming. And if you want to pass the test you had better know this stuff. So, get cracking. This is what we might call the education model for using the Bible.

That's a pretty popular model, especially in our circles. And it's wrong. There are some serious problems with this way of thinking about how the Bible works. For one thing, following this model is boring. 'Really, how many times do I have to read the parable of the good Samaritan or David and Goliath or about Paul's Damascus road conversion? I know what it says! Give me the test on any of these. I'll pass it with flying colors! I really don't want to have to read them again.' Ever find yourself saying something like that? Ever find yourself bored with the Bible? Then there's the flip side. There are parts of this textbook that are way too hard. Does anyone here really understand Ezekiel or how the sacrifices described in Leviticus actually work - let alone what they mean? Sometimes reading these things feels like reading something in Chinese. There are parts of the Bible that you just have no clue. Why bother reading them? One more. And I think this is the saddest of the three. This model doesn't work. Studying the Bible this way is not all that helpful. What good is it if I know that Paul was defending his apostleship in 2 Corinthians or that the Moabites were to be excluded from the worship of Israel for ten generations? How does that actually help anyone live? We have real problems to deal with; real problems that we need help with. There's that demanding job with people who just like to give you a hard time, or that depressing sense of loneliness that seems to dog your steps or the confusion of trying to sort out how to live in this very twisted world. I really don't think knowing who was king after Josiah or understanding the theological structure of Romans is going to help anyone with these things. Isn't the Bible supposed to help? But this way of using it makes the Bible seem boring, beyond the ability of normal people to understand and not all that helpful in the real world.

Using the Bible according to the education model, studying it so you're ready for the big test, doesn't work. It fails - miserably. And so, it results in people who no longer crack open their Bible - why should they? - unless they are forced to by a pesky pastor or a guilty conscience. These may do something with their Bibles, but they don't really expect it to make a difference when it comes to real living. And all too often, the education model, if it produces anything, it produces people who are proud. After all, they have studied the textbook. They have put in the time and effort. And so, they really do know the information. They know the list of all the kings of Israel. They can rattle off the outline of Romans - in their sleep. They know that they will pass the final exam with ease, and they let you know that too. Their knowledge might be impressive, but their lives are not attractive. They do not draw people to Jesus. This model of using the Bible does not work. It does not produce piety. And that, after all, is what we're interested in.

So, back to our question. How is the Bible to be used to grow piety? Listen again to what Paul wrote to Timothy. 'But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.' Now, what's this about? Let me first tell you what it's not about. Paul is not reminding Timothy about the time when he was converted. He's not saying, 'Timothy, remember how your knowledge of the Bible resulted in your salvation?' And that's clear if you notice the tense of the verb. '... the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation...' Paul's not talking about what the Bible did in the past but what it does in the present. So, does this mean that Paul is now doubting Timothy's salvation? 'Timothy, you need to stick with the Bible so that you can be converted.' Is that what's going on? No. To understand what Paul is saying you need to have a clear understanding of that word, 'salvation'.

Most Christians think of salvation as a something that happened to them in the past. As a result, their sins have been forgiven and instead of ending up in hell they're on their way to heaven. They have been saved. But that is only a thin slice of what the Bible has to say about what Jesus has come to do. Consider what the angel told Joseph when Jesus was about to be born. 'You shall call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins.' He doesn't talk about the part of salvation that deals with hell or being forgiven. Rather, according to the angel, Jesus has come to rescue us from the sins themselves and the evil that they create.

Think about some sin of yours. The popular - and most significant - sins of our culture are lust and fear. Lust says, 'I demand this!' And it could be pointing to anything from a sense of security and an easy life to another chance to beat the video game. Fear says, 'I could never handle that.' And it could be pointing to pain, not having enough money or not being in control of one's life. Those are the popular sins of our culture, and what goes on in our culture affects us. So, think about some sin of yours. Do you know what is so bad about that sin? Here's one way of looking at it. The problem with sin is not that you've broken some divine rule, and now God is mad at you. Rather, your sin robs you of life. It denies you the opportunity to experience the satisfaction of real life in all its wonder and beauty and joy. How do you think Peter felt when it dawned on him that he had denied his Lord three times? What did David feel when Nathan said, 'You are the man!'? Instead of enjoying more of life, they tasted more of death. So, consider that sin of yours, consider how it leads you to experience more death instead of experiencing more life. Jesus came to save you from that. And He does that now. Not in the sweet by and by. He saves you now!

Back to Paul's comments. 'Timothy, you've seen evil people and how their lives go from bad to worse. And you've watched me, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness. You've seen how I have lived, really lived. If you would be like me, continue in the sacred writings. Continue in your Bible so that you would be more and more saved from your sins. Continue in your Bible so that you can rejoice in real life just as I have.' A pious person is someone who is being freed from his sins and from the death that they bring as he grows in the favor and knowledge of Jesus. A pious person is growing in his experience of life.

This is a far cry from the fruit of the education model and its test-taking. This is being freed from your sins. It's about having life and having it more abundantly. And at the heart of all of this is walking with Jesus more and more deeply so that you understand this place in which we all live and so that being here is something that you can do with joy. The Bible makes you wise for salvation.

Let's move on. How does this work? How does your Bible do this saving from sin? Now, we're ready for the famous part of our text. 'All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness...' We have two pairs of words here. The first pair, teaching and reproof, is about how you think. This isn't about pondering abstract theological concepts. Rather, it's about how your heart thinks about your life in this place. Imagine going to your doctor because you've been feeling these odd pains. Your doctor does what doctors do, blood tests, scans and whatever else. You return when he gets the results, and he gives you the news. You have a very serious disease. Very serious. This is going to dramatically change your life - and not for the better. What will you do next? How will you respond? That all depends on how you think. Is God your loving Father who is also the Sovereign over all things, the God who brings tremendous good out of terrible evil? If your heart thinks that way, you will respond by trusting your Father. Sure, you may feel a little nervous about your immediate future, but you will respond with the same words that Mary used when someone gave her some troubling news, news that dramatically changed her life. 'Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word.' You will trust your Father. If, on the other hand, your heart thinks that you are all alone, if it believes the lies of the lusts and fears of our culture, then you will panic. You might fall apart or you might be stoical, but either of these are just different kinds of panic. Whichever it might be, you will not do well.

Your Bible is useful, 'profitable', to teach your heart how to think. It goes through the mind but the target is always the heart. As the heart learns to think according to what is real, according to the truths of the Gospel, and not according to the lies of our world, you will act well. You will experience more of life.

Teaching the right way to think includes exposing the wrong way to think. Part of this process includes reproving the heart. Sometimes the Bible confronts your heart and points out its errors. It's not very pleasant, especially at times, but it is necessary. So, by instruction and reproof, the Bible is used to teach the heart to think about this world according to the truth. It makes you wise so that you can experience more of the salvation Jesus provides.

The other pair of words are about how to act. 'Training in righteousness' translates into: giving the needed guidance in what right living looks like. And this also has its companion, 'correction'. Our behavior needs to be corrected just as our thinking does. The first pair is about right thinking. The second pair is about right acting. The right acting flows from right thinking, and it should flow naturally, but we are so twisted up inside that we need help seeing how right thinking is supposed to show itself in our actions. But the Bible will take care of that.

So, do you see what's going on? Your Bible makes you wise to salvation. It frees you from the sins that try to destroy life. And it does this by teaching your heart how to understand God, yourself and this place, as well as how to act in light of all of that. If you would be free, if you would grow in piety, you need to use your Bible.

Well, what do we do now? Are we still stuck with some variation of the education model? Do we still need to cram for the exam by stuffing our heads full of Bible facts? No. Remember, you cannot change your heart. Cram all the Bible facts you want into that brain of yours, and you still will not be able to change your heart. Only the Spirit can change your heart. And let me tell you that the more I ponder that the more I am finding it so very freeing. So, first, relax. The pressure is off. It's the Spirit who has to do the hard work. Relax - and then enjoy your Bible. The goal is just to get to know it. So, read it on your own. Read as a family. Read it as a couple. Listen to it during worship. Relax and enjoy it. Pick a place that you would enjoy reading, and read that. Don't cram for any test. There isn't any test. Just read whatever you've chosen and then close the book, and move on to the next thing.

I know that I'm not fulfilling my expected role of the pesky pastor who is supposed to make you feel guilty so that you study the textbook. But I don't need to be like that. And that's because I know what's going to happen. As you simply read your Bible for the enjoyment of it, you're going to see more and more clearly that the Spirit really does use it to change your heart. You're going to be saved from your sins. You're going to experience more of life. Then, you'll find that you'll want to dig in a bit more. When that happens, go for it. But in the mean time, relax. Enjoy your Bible. Get to know it. And be amazed at what the Spirit does. Over time, you will see your own soul become more and more pious as you get to know Jesus and the freedom He brings.

From this morning's Bible reading

'Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.' Matthew 6:1

So, what's my motivation for doing things the right way? A reward?!? That doesn't sound very Reformed.

The Need to Strive

This blessing has fallen to me,
that I have kept your precepts. Psalm 119:56

The ability to obey is a blessing from God. This does not obviate the need to declare one's desire to obey, as the Psalmist does in other parts of this Psalm. But it gives a context. I obey because I am enabled to obey. But the ability does not come out of the blue. God blesses with obedience those who desire to obey and work at it.

A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain,
but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding. Proverbs 14:6

There are many who utter prayers for wisdom and yet receive nothing. And then they wonder what is wrong with God. And yet, prayer is worthless where there is not a matching attitude of the heart. The scoffer will not receive wisdom no matter how hard he tries, by prayer or by other means. A heart that scoffs is not the only impediment to receiving good gifts from God by prayer. We need to do more than say some prayers if we expect to be blessed by God.

Upon Reading 2 Corinthians 4

Why does God use letters - which are, in essence, only half of a conversation - as His revelation? Any modern American would have published a hefty manual with two parts.

Part A: There would be a list of all the different situations that we might face and a matching list of the possible ways that we might respond to each.

Part B: This would be a different list of all the doctrines that we are supposed to believe.

The first of these would be designed for the pragmatic among us, while the second would be for the intellectual. And those who really get it would be flipping back and forth comparing the two.

But God is wiser. My guess is that it isn't enough if the truth is simply transferred from one mind to another. It also needs to be seen. We see the Gospel at work in Paul's life. And we need to see it. It is made that much more real to us as we see him deal with a difficult church. We see the Gospel bear fruit in his life and that shows us, especially pastors like me, what we need to do. And thus, '...always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.' 2 Corinthians 4:10

Hating Life Here

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. John 12:24-26

What striking words for me to ponder. Here is the call to die, to hate my life in this world. And that hurts. But this is merely to follow Jesus who hated His life in this world and willingly went to the cross as a result. Should my life be easy? But what a promise attached to it. If I follow Jesus here I will be with Him there. Isn't that reward enough? But on top of that 'the Father will honor him'. Amazing!

God's Guidance

Exodus 18.13-27

I think that it is significant that this major reorganization of Israel, something that affects it profoundly, did not come as a result of a word from YHWH. Moses reorganized Israel because of a word from his father-in-law. I am going to assume that Moses considered its wisdom based on what he knew about God's Law at the time. But the point remains that Moses had some liberty to act in leading Israel that did not require some explicit command from God. I wonder how this affects things like the application of the Regulative Principle.

Fame

Matthew 26.13 'Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.' Here is a famous woman, known around the world and throughout the ages but whose name we do not have. This is a kind of fame that fits. What is the purpose of her fame? Not to point to herself but to point to Jesus. In contrast we have Judas who is also known around the world and throughout the ages - and we know his name. But his 'fame' is actually infamy because the point of his memorable act was all about himself.

Bible Reading Thoughts

One of my goals is to read lots of Scripture. When a thought pops up from something I've read, I write it down. Here's something from this morning's readings.

After reading Exodus 38:

Who were the ministering women of verse 8 and what did they do? Whose idea were they? Does this have anything to say about women and their roles in the Church today? Does this have anything to say about how much leeway we have when it comes to the worship of God? Isn't it interesting that this is thrown in here without any comment or explanation?