Are you profiting from the Word?

Well, this is my first post, but I hope to write more in the future when I get the free time. I've set a goal for myself this summer to read through the entire Old Testament and it puts me at about 13 chapters a day, 5 days a week. First, I'd like to encourage you to try to set a goal like this that might seem daunting but has great benefits at the same time. It's hard to really sit down and ponder each section because you have so much to read everyday, but it does give a great overall picture of what the themes are in a book, what message the author is trying to convey, what truths are repeated across different books, and so forth. I'm also reading along with the Old Testament a book by Mark Dever called The Message of the Old Testament. The book is a collection of sermons preached by Dever giving the same broad-brush stroke approach at reading the Old Testament. I highly recommend the book.

The real reason I felt led to write this article is that I'm also reading a book called "Profiting From the Word" by A.W. Pink. Pink asks the question: are you reading the Scriptures with the right mindset, for the right reasons, and are you truly getting out of it what is intended? (In other words, are you profiting from the word?)

I've only just started the book, but I have already learned a great lesson from the first chapter. The chapter is entitled "The Scripture and Sin" and talks about your relationship with sin and what the Word should be making you think and do about it. Are you reading the Scriptures in a way that attacks your sin?

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17, italics added.)

"the Holy Scriptures are given us not for intellectual gratification and carnal speculation, but to furnish unto "all good works," and that by teaching, reproving and correcting us" (Pink, 10.) Are you reading the Word to impress your parents or friends with your knowledge? To impress yourself with your own wisdom? To impress God with our observance of the law? Or, are you reading the Word to grow in godliness and out of gratification with what we were given?

Pink correctly makes the argument that we are only truly profiting from the word if it convicts us of our sin, makes us sorrowful of it, leads us to confession of it, invokes a deeper hatred of it, leads us to forsake it, fortifies us against it, and ultimately causes us to practice the opposite of it.

In reading the Old Testament I confess that at times I look at these characters and think "What are you doing you sinful Israel? Can't you see that God will bless you if you serve him? How can you forget how He saved you out of Egypt?" Pink's book has led me to see that thinking like this is hypocritical. We ought to relate to the people of Israel who turn from God and serve other gods. Are we not the same? Like the people of Israel who forgot God's hand in saving them from Egypt, if you're a Christian, you forget the amazing work God has done in your life when you sin. Or perhaps you don't forget, you just have such a small view of God that you say "God, you're not enough for me, I need more pleasure than you can offer." God did a miracle at your salvation, He made dead bones live, and yet you (and I) neglect Him and trample on the blood of Christ every time you yield to your lusts.

So my prayer is that we all would read God's Word with the specific intent of seeing sin for what it is and to be moved to see Christ for what He is. Christ took our sins upon himself so that we could put away these childish things and live in true freedom. If this fact isn't motivation enough, then nothing is.

Adam