Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.
Psalm 119:105

At least since late elementary age, I have been a reader of the Bible. I started with the basic stories in Sunday school class. I learned the basic passages that summarize the Christian faith in confirmation class. I read basic passages about Christian life in community during the encounter group age of the 1970's. I took my first serious course on the Bible as a college freshman in 1980.

I've also made many effective and not so effective attempts to read the Bible from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22. Regular scripture reading is not easy to sustain. There are the dry spells of the spiritual journey. There are the times when you're ready to give up as you move through parts of the Bible that seem foreign, confusing, and even tedious.

People ask me all the time for strategies on how to regain interest in reading God's Word in the midst of disinterest, dry spells, boredom, or frustration. Where to resume when we find ourselves discouraged and bogged down? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Go to the more interesting parables of Jesus. Try chapters 10-20 of Luke's Gospel. Parables do a masterful job of communicating the message of the kingdom of God through non-technical, non-religious, everyday, down-to-earth language.
    
2. Go to the staple books. Read the psalms in the Old Testament. Martin Luther called the psalms the "picture-book of the Bible." Read one Gospel. Mark's action-oriented telling is good for short attention spans. John's Gospel is good for prayerful reflection.
    
3. Pick a burning issue in your personal life or in current events. Then do a topical study on every passage in the Bible that speaks to the issue directly or indirectly. For example, church/state issues are always before us. Read every passage in the New Testament that mentions magistrates, government, military, authorities, etc. What does the whole New Testament say about the role of the state?
    
4. Read the Bible in a different translation or paraphrase. I have found authentic sustenance over the years with devotional reading using Clarence Jordan's Cotton Patch Version and Eugene Peterson's The Message.

Yes, we all get stuck in our daily Bible reading. Let us find ways to encourage one another to learn from the Word God's loving purpose for us and for all creation.

Blessed Lord, you speak to us through the Holy Scriptures. Grant that we may hear, read, respect, learn, and make them our own in such a way that the enduring benefit and comfort of the Word will help us grasp and hold the blessed hope of everlasting life, given us through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen
     (Lutheran Book of Worship, p. 47)

Contributed by Pastor Dan
Published Sunday October 2, 2005
Week 45 of Liturgical Year A