Tuesday, December 6, 2016

13. Bible Study and Daily Direction

The passage in Nehemiah 8-9 is probably the closest we see in Scripture to our modern-day worship services on Sunday morning. It starts early in the morning and goes to about mid-day. The leaders read and explained the Scriptures. The people listened, understood and responded. If they didn’t understand, someone else was there who explained it to them. 
Neh. 8:6 even says that the people responded with saying “amen,” raising their hands and bowing their heads. Some wept; others rejoiced. They confessed their sins; they prayed. They brought casseroles.
Okay, maybe not casseroles, but they did eat and drink and shared their meals which is pretty close to a pot-luck meal (Neh. 8:12). Most of all, they studied the word of God and responded accordingly. 
Like the society was in Nehemiah’s day, our society has drifted far from God’s word and obeying the lessons clearly proclaimed in the Bible. If there is anything that is shown from the Bible and in our personal lives, it is that we do not grow in a straight upward line, but rather like waves of the sea or as a pendulum which swings back and forth. One of the best ways we can keep from swinging back and forth or from being as unstable as the shifting waves of the sea is by studying the Bible daily.
In Nehemiah’s day and even until relatively recently, people did not have the Bible to study in their own homes. Think about how many ways we can read, hear, study, memorize and meditate on God’s Word. Even within our own generation our options have grown: we can now have the Bible on our phones, listen to it over the internet, buy copies or even portions of it, with commentaries and devotionals (like this one). But there is only one thing that no app, no commentary, no amount of studying or reading can make us do: apply and obey what God’s Word says. 
Do something today. Find something in the Bible and purpose in your heart to do it.